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