CHAPTER VII.
THE NEW MOVEMENT: ITS FOUNDATION ON SELF-HELP.
The movement for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural and industrial life, to which I have already frequently referred, must now be described in practical operation.

Before I do this, however, there are two lines of criticism which the very mention of a new movement may suggest, and which I must anticipate.

Every year has its tale of new movements, launched by estimable persons whose philanthropic zeal is not balanced by the judgment required to discriminate between schemes which possess the elements of permanence, and those which depend upon the enthusiasm or financial support of their promoters, and are in their nature ephemeral.

There is, consequently, a widespread and well justified mistrust of novel schemes for the industrial regeneration of Ireland.

I confess to having had my ingenuity severely taxed on some occasions to find a sympathetic circumlocution wherewith to show cause for declining to join a new movement, my real reason being an inward conviction that nothing except resolutions would be moved.