a large profit to the members of the societies we formed, it was suggested that a small part of this profit would give us all we required for our organising work.  So it will in time, but if instead of merely refusing financial assistance to our converts, we were, on the other hand, to demand it from them, we certainly should not lessen the difficulty of launching our movement among the farmers of Ireland.  Some of our critics denounced the expenditure of so much money for which, in their opinion, there was nothing to show, and said that the time had come to stop this ‘spoon-feeding.’  When those for whose exclusive benefit the costly work had been undertaken learned that all we had to offer was the cold advice that they should help themselves, they not infrequently raised a wholly different objection to our economic doctrine.  Spoonfeeding they might have tolerated, but there was nothing in the spoon!  The movement has survived all these criticisms.  The lack of moral and of financial support which retarded its progress in the early years, has been so far surmounted The movement may now, I think, appeal for further help as one that has justified its existence.  The opinion that it has done so is not held only by those who are engaged in promoting it, nor by Irish observers alone.  The efforts of the Irish farmers so to reorganise their industry that they may hopefully approach the solution of the problems of rural life are being watched by economists and administrators abroad.  Enquirers have come to Ireland during the last two years from Germany, France, Canada, the United States, India, South Africa, Cyprus and the West Indies, having been drawn here by the desire to understand the combination of economic and human reform.  It was not alone the economic advantages of the movement which interested them, but the way in which the organisation at the same time acted upon the character and awoke those forces of self-help and comradeship in which lies the surety of any enduring national prosperity.  A native governor from a famine district in the Madras Presidency, who, perhaps, better than any one realised the importance of these human factors, because the lethargy of his own people had forced it on his notice, said, when he was referred to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for information, “Oh, don’t speak to me about Government Departments.  They are the same all over the world.  I come here to learn what the Irish people are doing to help themselves and how you awaken the will and the initiative.”  I hope to show later that State assistance properly applied is not necessarily demoralising but very much the reverse.  It is consoling, too, to our national pride, long wounded by contemptuous references to our industrial incapacity as compared with our neighbours, to find that our latest efforts are regarded by them as worthy of imitation.  From the other side of the Channel no less than five County Councils have sent deputations of farmers to Ireland to study the progress of the movement, and already an English Organisation Society, expressly modelled upon its Irish namesake, has been established and is endeavouring to carry out the same work.