he poorest parts of the country. Mr. Arthur Balfour led the way
with two important measures. One of these was the construction of light
railways in the most backward tracts on the western seaboard. These
railways were constructed at the public expense, but worked by existing
railway companies, and linked up with existing railway systems. The
benefits conferred on those parts of the country through which they
passed have been great and lasting.

Mr. Balfour's second contribution to Irish rural development was the
creation of the Congested Districts Board in 1891. The "congested
districts" embraced the most poverty-stricken areas in the western
counties, and the business of the Board was to devise and apply, within
those districts, schemes for the amelioration of the social and economic
condition of the population comprised in them. For this purpose, the
Board was invested with very wide powers of a paternal character, and an
annual income of upwards of L40,000 was placed at their free disposal, a
sum which has been largely increased by subsequent Acts.

The experiment was an absolutely novel one, but no one who is able to
compare the improved condition of the congested districts to-day with
the state of things that prevailed twenty years ago can doubt that it
has been amply justified by results.

Every phase of the life of the Irish peasant along the whole of the
western seaboard has been made brighter and more hopeful by the
beneficent operations of the Board. Its activities have been manifold,
including the purchase and improvement of estates prior to re-sale to
the tenants; the re-arrangement and enlargement of holdings; the
improvement of stock; the provision of pure seeds and high-class
manures; practical demonstration of various kinds, all educational in
character; drainage; the construction of roads; improvement in the
sanitary conditions of the people's dwellings; assistance to provide
proper accommodation for the livestock of the farm, which too frequently
were housed with the people themselves; the development of sea
fisheries; the encouragement of many kinds of home industries for women
and girls; the quarrying of granite; the making of kelp; the promotion
of co-operative credit; and many other schemes which had practical
regard to the needs of the people, and have contributed in a variety of
ways to raise the standard of comfort of the inhabitants of these
impoverished areas.

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