My own experience has not only made me a firm believer in the principle of self-help, but I carry my belief to the extreme length of holding that the poorer a community is the more essential is it to throw it as much as possible on its own resources, in order to develop self-reliance.

I recognise, however, the undesirability of too sudden changes of system in these matters.

Meanwhile, I may add in this connection that the Wyndham Land Act enormously increases the importance of the Congested Districts Board in regard to its main function--that of dealing directly with congestion, by the purchase and resettlement of estates, the migration of families, and the enlargement of holdings.[46] I have now said enough about the aims and objects, the constitution and powers, and the relations with other Governmental institutions, of the new Department, to enable the reader to form a fairly accurate estimate of its general character, scope and purpose.

From what it is I shall pass in the next chapter to what it does, and there I must describe its everyday work in some detail.

But I wish I could also give the reader an adequate picture of the surge of activities raised by the first plunge of the Department into Irish life and thought.