THE NEW BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 27, 6 July 1899, Page 10

THE NEW BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

The new Board of Agriculture for Ireland, which, it ia proposed to establish, seems to be looked upon as an effort of the Government to add another Board to the many already connected with Dublin Castle. The Bill, introduced by Mr. Gerald Balfour, has a threefold object. It concentrates in one department responsible to Parliament the functions now performed by the Government in regard to Irish agriculture through five or air departments. It provides funds and machinery for carrying out work similar to that done by the Congested Districts Boards. It also breaks fresh ground by providing funds for machinery for promoting technical education in the towns. An income of about £170,000 a year, obtained from Imperial resources and the Irish Church fund is to be placed at the disposal of the new department. Considerable exception has been taken to the financial proposals, which Mr. Dillon describes 'as shabby and unsatisfactory.' It is, however, a step in the r'ght direction. There has been a need for an institution which would provide technical instruction in agriculture, while extending some direct State help, through a responsible department, to the chief industry of the country. The new Board will be directly responsible to Parliament, as its heads are to be the Chief Secretary as president, and a vicepresident, who will also be a Minister. This second Parliamentary official will be the active and directing ohief of the new institution, and it is pretty obvious that Mr. Horace Plunkett, Member for South Dublin, is to have this lucrative post. The Board will take over the work now carried on by a number of petty officers ; not, of course, superseding theße offices, but amalgamating them into the proposed additional department of Dublin Castle. It was not clear from the Chief Secretary's brief speech, in introducing the measure, how far popular or elective elements will be represented in the Board of Agriculture. It is probable that the County and Urban Councils may be permitted to nominate certain members to seats on the new Board. Such a democratic feature of the institution would be welcome of course, as a necessary and reasonable one in a body which would have such direct and constant contact with all the existing local governing Councils. The extent of this representative element will more or less determine the character and worth of the measure from a popular point of view. The total endowment of the new Board, according to the Chief Secretary's figures, will consist of £166,000 an annual income, and £100.000 of a capital sum. This latter sum is to be found in the residue of the local taxation account of the Estate Duty Act of 1896 which was, of course, due to Ireland anyhow. The money to b« annually voted by Parliament (already to a large extent allocated in other ways) will comprise £78,000 out of the beer and spirit money ; £70,000 trom the Irish Church Surplus Fund ; £12,000, representing the savings effected by the abolition of a judgeship or two ; and £<JOOO, which will represent the present expenditure upon the Glasnevin Model Farm and the Munster Dairy School and Agricultural Institute, Cork. The £78,000 from the Bpirit licenses being already in use for educational purposes, will have to be replaoed by an equivalent Parliamentary grant, otherwise that amount would be taken away from the Estimates for the needs of Irish education each year. The new Board will work mainly in three directions— that is, there will be a department which will be concerned with agricultural interests, another that will look after technical instruction in Irish industries, and there will be the work at present carried on for the benefit of Irish fisheries by the body over which Sir Thomas Brady had control for a number of years of most useful service. The annual income of the Board is to be apportioned in fixed sums as follows, to these three purposes:— Agriculture, about £120,000 • technical education, £20,000; and the remainder (less expenses) to the promotion of Irish fisheries. The two last sums are miserably inadequate for the pressing needs of technical instruction in Ireland, and the decaying fortunes of a once flourishing fishing industry round her coasts. In these two branches of the work of the new Board there are enormous opportunities for improvement and progress, and it waa fully expected from the liberal provisions which were contained in Mr. Balfour's previous Bill (that of last year) that at least quadruple the sum now set apart for these two pressing interests would be provided.