The way was now open for the measure to which I had looked forward from
the first moment of my going to Ireland, and which was to constitute the
final abandonment of the old _laissez faire_ policy in connection with
Irish agriculture and industries. Great care and labour were devoted to
the framing of the new Bill, and I was in constant touch throughout with
members of the Recess Committee. It contained clauses dealing with urban
as well as rural industries, but these lie outside my present subject,
and I shall not refer to them further here. On the side of rural
development the Bill embodied a novel experiment in the art of
government--novel at all events in British or Irish experience, though
something like it had already been tried with conspicuous success in
various countries on the Continent. It was the continental example which
had inspired the Report of the Recess Committee, and it was the
recommendations of the Recess Committee which in their turn suggested
the main features of the Bill of 1899.
There was indeed one body in Ireland whose functions corresponded in
some degree with those of the Authority it was now proposed to set up.
This body was the Congested Districts Board; and it might be said with
some approximation to the truth that the object we had in view was to do
for the rest of Ireland, _mutatis mutandis_, what the Congested
Districts Board was intended to do for the poverty-stricken districts of
the West. But there was this very important difference. The operations
of the Congested Districts Board were carried out, and necessarily
carried out, on strictly "paternal" lines; the dominant note in the new
departure was to be the encouragement of self-help. This difference
carried with it an equally important difference in the constitution and
methods of the administering Authority.
Out of a total endowment of £166,000 a year, a sum of over £100,000 was
placed at the disposal of the Department to be applied to the "purposes
of agriculture and other rural industries." These "purposes" are defined
in the Act as including--
"the aiding, improving, and developing of agriculture,
horticulture, forestry, dairying, the breeding of horses, cattle,
and other live stock and poultry, home and cottage industries, the
preparation and cultivation of flax, inland fisheries, and any
industries immediately connected with and subservient to any of the
said matters, and any instruction relating thereto, and the
facilitating of the carriage and distribution of produce."
This part of the Endowment Fund was, in short, a grant to the Department
to be applied to what may be described as rural development in the
widest sense of the term. As to the methods, little or no restriction
was imposed upon the scope of its powers; and in the expenditure of the
money it was to be as free from Treasury control as the Congested
Districts Board itself.
On the other hand, the Congested Districts Board was not only free from
Treasury control, it was free from any control whatever. It was an
unpaid Board, and it could spend its money where it pleased and how it
pleased, and there was nobody to say it nay. True, its members were
appointed by Government, and the Chief Secretary was _ex-officio_ a
member of the Board; but he had no greater authority given to him than
any of his colleagues, and in case of any difference of opinion the
decision was that of the majority of the Board. No single member of the
Board could be held responsible for any of its acts; and accordingly,
although the vote for the Board came annually before Parliament, of real
Parliamentary responsibility there was none.
Such an arrangement was not without its disadvantages even as regards
the Congested Districts Board itself: its adoption in the case of the
Authority to be created under the Agriculture and Industries Bill would
have been open to yet greater objection.
A further point was this. The Congested Districts Board was an unpaid
body. An unpaid body consisting of busy men cannot be in perpetual
session. The Congested Districts Board, as a matter of fact, met only
once a month; and in the intervals of its meeting there was no one with
full authority to act on its behalf.
The problem, then, in connection with the expenditure of the Endowment
Fund was to provide for its administration by an efficient and
promptly-acting executive, responsible to Parliament on the one hand,
and on the other hand brought by the very nature of its administrative
machinery into the closest possible touch with the new local
Authorities, as well as with the voluntary organisations which were now
springing up all over the country.
In order to satisfy these requirements, the Bill provided that the
control of the Endowment Fund should be vested not in a Board attached
to the new Department, but in the Department itself; that is to say, in
a Minister appointed by the Government of the day. The Chief Secretary
was to be the titular head of the Department, but it was not intended
that he should intervene in its ordinary administrative business. The
real working head was to be the Vice-President, a new Minister with
direct responsibility to Parliament. So far as related to certain powers
and duties transferred from existing departments of the Irish
Government, and similar to the powers and duties of the English Board of
Agriculture, the new Minister was to have complete executive authority.
But as regards the administration of the Endowment Fund, a different
arrangement was proposed--an arrangement without precedent, so far as I
know, in any previous legislation in this country.
In order to bring the Department into close touch with local bodies, the
Bill attached to it a "Council of Agriculture" and an "Agricultural
Board." One-third of the members of each of these bodies were to be
nominated by the Department, and the intention was that in making these
nominations due regard should be had to the representation of voluntary
organisations. The remaining two-thirds were to be elected in the case
of the "Council of Agriculture" by the newly created County Councils, in
the case of the "Agricultural Board" by the "Council of Agriculture,"
divided for this purpose into four "Provincial Committees." In addition
to the functions of an electoral college thus entrusted to its four
provincial committees, the business of the "Council of Agriculture" as a
whole was to meet together, at least once a year, for the discussion of
questions of general interest in connection with the provisions of the
Act; but its powers were only advisory. The "Board," on the other hand,
was more than an advisory body; for it was given a veto on any
expenditure of money out of the Agricultural Endowment Fund. The
application of the Endowment Fund was thus made dependent on the
_concurrence_ of the "Agricultural Board" and of the minister in charge
of the Department--an entirely novel plan which, although it might
clearly result in a deadlock as regards any particular application of
money from the fund, has nevertheless, I believe, worked extremely well,
and answered the purpose for which it was devised of reconciling
ministerial and executive responsibility with a reasonable power of
control given to local bodies.
Finally, with a view to stimulating local effort and the spirit of
self-help, a provision was inserted in the Bill to which I attached the
greatest importance. Power was given to the Council of any county or of
any urban district, or to two or more public bodies jointly, to appoint
committees composed partly of members of the local bodies and partly of
co-opted persons, for the purpose of carrying out such of the
Department's schemes as were of local rather than of general interest.
But in such cases, it was laid down that
"the Department shall not, in the absence of any special
considerations, apply or approve of the application of money ... to
schemes in respect of which aid is not given out of money provided
by local authorities, or from other local sources."
To meet this requirement, the local authorities were given the power of
raising a limited rate for the purposes of the Act.
That the Act of 1899 has in the main answered the expectations formed of
it by those who were responsible for its introduction there can, I
think, be no doubt. The Act itself, as well as the methods of
administration adopted in carrying out its provisions, have been the
subject of a full inquiry by a Departmental Committee which reported in
1907. Their report must be regarded as on the whole eminently
favourable. In one point only has any important change been recommended.
The Committee suggest that the post of Vice-President of the Department
should not be held by a Minister with a seat in Parliament, nor yet by a
regular civil servant, but should be an office _sui generis_ tenable
for five years with power of reappointment. No effect has so far been
given to this proposal by legislation.