The recently issued report of the Development Commis- sioners referred
to their rejection of Mr. T. W. Russell's scheme of " non-controversial co-operation," and to their decision, subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions as to supervision, to grant £2,000 a year to the Irish Agricultural Organization Society—Sir Horace Plunkett's association. A curious sequel to this decision was revealed by the Freeman's Tournal of yesterday week. It appears that, as Mr. Russell declined to accede to the request of the Development Commissioners to nominate four members from the Council of Agriculture to assist in the management of this grant, the Commissioners have addressed a letter to twenty Nationalist gentlemen in different parts of Ireland inviting them to form a panel out of which the Commissioners propose to select eleven repre- sentatives to serve on the Committee of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society. As nineteen out of the twenty are members of Mr. Russell's Council, which has already con- dunned the application of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society for a grant, the Freeman's .Tournal not unnaturally counts on their rejection of the invitation. Why it was ever made at all remains for the moment a mystery.
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