come to stay. The
amount of the work which we were thus constrained to undertake was
somewhat embarrassing; but so general and so genuine was the desire to
make a start that we have done our best to keep pace with the local
demands for immediate action. The staff of the Department caught the
spirit in which the task had been set by the country, and showed a keen
anxiety to get to work; and I am glad to have an opportunity of
acknowledging that both the indoor and outdoor support it has received
leaves the Department without excuse if it has not already justified its
existence.

I shall deal as mercifully as I can with my readers in helping them
towards an understanding of what has been actually done in the three
years under review. I am aware that if I were to attempt a description
of all the schemes which the variety of local needs suggested, and in
the execution of which the assistance of the many-sided Department was
sought and obtained, I should lose the patient readers, who have not
already fainted by the way, in a jungle where they could not see the
wood for the trees. These things can be studied by those
interested,--and they I hope, in Ireland at any rate, are not few--in
the Annual Reports and other official publications of the Department.
For the general reader I must try to indicate in broad outline the
nature and scope of that side of the new movement which seeks to
supplement organised self-help and open the way for individual
enterprise by a well considered measure of State assistance. I shall be
more than satisfied if I succeed in giving him a clear insight into the
manner in which the delicate task of making State interference with the
business of the people not only harmless but beneficial has been set
about. It is obvious that the fulfilment of this object must depend upon
the soundness of the economic policy pursued, and upon the establishment
and maintenance of mutual confidence between the central authority and
the popular representative bodies through which the people utilise the
new facilities afforded by the State.

I think the best way of giving the information which is required for an
understanding of our somewhat complicated scheme for agricultural and
industrial development under democratic control is first to explain the
line of demarcation which we have drawn between the respective functions
of the Department and the people's committees throughout the country;
and then I must give a rapid