011
acres (in 1899, 4,627,545 acres; in 1900, on a system of classification
dividing arable land more accurately from pasture, there were only
3,100,397 acres arable, and in 1905 the figures were 2,999,082 acres)
(Official Returns). Population in 1841, 8,175,124; in 1851, 6,552,385;
in 1861, 5,798,976; in 1871, 5,412,377; in 1881, 5,174,836; in 1891,
4,704,750; in 1892, 4,633,808; in 1893, 4,607,462; in 1894, 4,589,260;
in 1895, 4,559,936 (in 1901, 4,458,775; in 1905, 4,391,543).--Census
Returns and _Thoms' Directory_.

[50] _Council of Agriculture_: 68 members elected by County Councils; 84
appointed by the Department from the various provinces. Total 102.

_Board of Agriculture_: 8 members elected by Council of Agriculture; 4
appointed by the Department. Total 12.

_Board of Technical Instruction_: 10 members appointed by County
Boroughs; 4 elected by Council of Agriculture; 6 appointed by the
various Government Departments; 1 by a joint Committee of Dublin
District Councils. Total 21.

[51] I am not forgetting Scotland. Her few local departments are
theoretically, but not practically, at the mercy of English votes and
influence. Scotch opinion, broadly speaking, governs Scotch affairs.
Precisely to the extent to which it does not so govern them, is a demand
for Home Rule likely to grow.

[52] Even the Recess Committee (and we cannot wonder) but dimly grasped
the constitutional position when they laid stress on the necessity for
an Agricultural Minister "directly responsible to Parliament."
Logically, they should have first recommended the establishment of an
Irish Parliament to which the Minister should be responsible. To make
him responsible to the House of Commons was absurd; and a Departmental
Committee of 1907 has, in fact, recommended that the Vice-President
should not have a seat in Parliament, but should remain in his proper
place, Ireland. Meanwhile, the original mistake has caused friction and
controversy. Soon after the Liberal Ministry took office in 1906, Sir
Horace Plunkett, the first Vice-President, as a Unionist, was replaced
by Mr. T.W. Russell, a Home Ruler. On the assumption that such an Office
was Parliamentary, its holder standing or falling with the British
Ministry of the day, the step was quite justifiable, and even necessary.
On the opposite assumption, confirmed by the Departmental Committee, the
step was unjustifiable, that is, on the theory of the Union. An Irish
Parliament alone shou