ONE of the best things that the British Government ever
did
in Ireland was to establish the Congested Districts Board in 1891, at the instance of Mr. (now Lord) Balfour. The history of that Board, which is now merged in several Free State departments, has been methodically and discreetly written by Mr. Micks, who was its first secretary and afterwards an official member. His judicial comments on the extra-legal arbitrariness of Sir Antony (afterwards Lord) Macdonnell and the cheeseparing of the Treasury are inimitable ; those who remember Sir T. W. Russell's vendetta against Sir Horace Plunkett and the Irish co-operative movement will smile at the remark that "his individuality and his unrestrained mode of expressing his opinions occasionally led to differences that were happily most unusual at the Board." Mr. Micks, however, gives an excellent account of what the Board did, at very moderate cost, to transform the West of Ireland into a fairly prosperous country. Its main task was to buy up and redistribute estates of about 2,000,000 acres, so that every tenant should have an " economic " holding. But it also did much to encourage fishing and promote new industries. The late Mr. Phelan, the Board's industrial organizer from 1909 to 1920, did wonderful work in developing the lace trade ; during the War, when lace was not wanted,
he set the peasant girls to make fancy crochet buttons which, in the absence of pearl buttons, found a ready sale, and
brought comparative wealth to the workers. The mere fact that the savings bank deposits in the congested districts increased between 1881 and 1912 from £243,000 to £2,205,000 speaks for itself. The Free State Government has still much to do in the West, but the foundations are well and truly laid.
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