But no Chief Secretary could possibly take under his wing yet another department with the entirely new and important functions now to be discharged.

What these functions were to be need not here be described, as the Department thus 'agitated' for has now been three years at work and will form the subject of the next two chapters.
On August 1st, 1896, less than a year from the issue of the invitation to the political leaders, the Report was forwarded to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland, with a covering letter, setting out the considerations upon which the Committee relied for the justification of its course of action.

Attention was drawn to the terms of the original proposal, its exceptional nature and essential informality, the political conditions which appeared to make it opportune, the spirit in which it was responded to by those who were invited to join, and the degree of public approval which had been accorded to our action.

We were able to claim for the Committee that it was thoroughly representative of those agricultural and industrial interests, North and South, with which the Report was concerned.
There were two special features in the brief history of this unique coming together of Irishmen which will strike any man familiar with the conditions of Irish public life.

The first was the way in which the business element, consisting of men already deeply engaged in their various callings--and, indeed, selected for that very reason--devoted time and labour to the service of their country.