When it became manifest that both the country and the Department were anxious to drive ahead, the first thing to do was to lay down a modus operandi which would assign to the local and central bodies their proper shares in the work and responsibilities and secure some degree of order and uniformity in administration.  This was quickly done, and the plan adopted works smoothly.  The Department gives the local committee general information as to the kind of purpose to which it can legally and properly apply the funds jointly contributed from the rates and the central exchequer.  The committee, after full consideration of the conditions, needs and industrial environment of the community for which it acts, selects certain definite projects which it considers most applicable to its district, allocates the amount required to each project, and sends the scheme to the Department for its approval.  When the scheme is formally approved, it becomes the official scheme in the locality for the current year; and the local committee has to carry it out.

Although harmony now usually exists between the local and central authorities to the advantage and comfort of both, a considerable amount of friction was inevitable until they got to understand each other.  The occasional over-riding of local desires by the ‘autocratic’ Department, which in the first rush of its work had to act in a somewhat peremptory fashion, was, no doubt, irritating.  Now, however, it is generally recognised that the central body, having not only the advice of its experts and access to information from similar Departments in other countries to guide it, but also being in a position to profit by the exchange of ideas which is constantly going on between it and all the local committees in Ireland, is in a position of special advantage for deciding as to the bearing of local schemes upon national interests, and sometimes even as to their soundness from a purely local point of view.

Passing now from the conditions under which the Department’s work is done, we come to review some typical portions of the work itself so far as it has proceeded.  This falls naturally, both as regards that which is done by the central authority for the country at large and that which is locally administered, into two divisions.  The first consists of direct aid to agriculture and other rural industries, and to sea and inland fisheries.  The second consists of indirect aid given to these objects, and also to town manufactures and commerce, through education—­a term which must be interpreted in its widest sense.  Needless to say, direct aids, being tangible and immediately beneficial, are the more popular:  a bull, a boat, or a hand-loom is more readily appreciated than a lecture, a leaflet, or an idea.  Yet in the Department we all realise—­and, what is more important, the people are coming to realise—­that by far the most important work we have to do is that which belongs to the sphere of education, especially education which has a distinctly practical aim.  To this branch of the subject I shall, therefore, first direct the reader’s attention.