applying for a grant from the Development Fund, would be well advised to stipulate that the money allocated to them need not be at once expended. Endless waste was occasioned by compelling local authorities annually to expend the whole of their share of the whisky money' under the Technical Instruction Acts, without their having any settled policy or knowing precisely what to do with the money. The success of the Irish Department of Agriculture is largely attributable to the fact that it was not obliged to appropriate all the moneys entrusted to it until experience had shown how they might be utilised to the greatest advantage. The institute is primarily to serve as the headquarters for the itinerant staff in each county. Upon the Continent the Wanderlehrer has proved the most effective instrument for reaching and influencing adult farmers. In his evidence before Lord Reay's Committee, Mr. A. D. Hall mentioned how much more successful the French are than the English in 'getting at a small man and giving him information,' from having in each department two professors, whose principal duty it is to conduct experimental plots and advise the cultivator personally. The mere distribution of literature is of little value compared with personal visits. Every county in Ireland has its itinerant instructor in agriculture, and in 1910-11 776 lectures were delivered by them at 369 centres, at which 35,500 persons attended. They paid 13,531 visits to farms, an average of 368 visits for each instructor, and conducted upwards of 662 field experiments and 2124 demonstrations. Associated with the institute there ought to be a bureau where farmers might immediately obtain information with reference to whatever may concern their industry from a farming or a business point of view. A farm typical of the district should be attached to it to illustrate the most profitable methods of manuring local soils; the best varieties of farm and garden crops; the best methods of rearing and feeding live-stock, keeping poultry and bees; the most approved methods of pruning fruit trees; the remedies for common pests, and the diseases of farm crops; and, where practicable, the management of shelter belts and hedgerow timber. Within the limits of a single county, the soil, the geological formation, and the character of the husbandry vary so widely that in many cases it would be difficult for one institute to satisfy every need, and counties should combine to maintain an institute for the adjacent portions of their respective areas where the agricultural conditions are similar. Gloucestershire may be taken as an example of this. The fruit-growing district in the North might be served by an institute in Worcestershire for the corresponding district round Evesham; the Vale of the County might be joined to Somerset; the Forest of

Dean to Monmouthshire, while an institute near Cirencester would provide for the wants of the great oolite plateau of the Cotswolds together with a section of Wiltshire. The division of the country into twelve clearly defined areas with a joint provincial council for each area should enable local authorities to make adequate provision for the requirements of their respective districts, irrespective of accidental county boundaries. There remains the question of expense. On every ground it is desirable that this should be to some extent defrayed by the county to be benefited, and a grant from the Development Fund of 75 per cent. of the capital expenditure, and of from 50 to 75 per cent. of the cost of maintenance, seems sufficiently generous.

At the institute and other suitable centres winter schools should be regularly held. The courses now provided at universities and collegiate centres are too short, lasting as a rule from six to nine weeks only. The centres, moreover, are too few and too far apart. The instruction should be brought to the doors of the people. Even in winter it is not easy for a lad to be spared from work on the farm or in the garden for attendance at a distance, especially if his absence from home. involve the engagement of extra paid labour. The winter schools. in either Ireland, Denmark or Holland may be taken as models. How largely market-gardening in Holland has been developed owing to the excellence of the teaching given at the winter horticultural schools was shown in a recent Report of the Dutch Department of Agriculture. It is expedient that the pupils should have had some previous practical experience in agriculture, be not less than sixteen years old, and pass a simple. entrance examination. Since 1902 the growth of winter schools or classes in Ireland has been remarkable; in that year there were two with forty-four students; in 1910-11 there were seventyeight with 1339 students. The course includes instruction in soils, tillage, manures, seeds, grasses, the treatment of pastures, cropping, the management of live-stock, winter dairying, the valuation of manures and feeding-stuffs, simple farm accounts, mensuration, elementary chain surveying and elementary science. The classes are held from October to March for five hours on two or three days a week. They are only open to pupils above sixteen years of age who are actively engaged in farm work, and each candidate for admission must satisfy the Department that he has received general education to benefit by the instruction. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole future of the small-holding movement will be determined by the extent to which opportunities are provided for enabling a man to acquire the necessary knowledge and skill for the profitable cultivation of his land.

In conclusion, to reap the full advantage of the facilities for technical instruction which may be afforded, there must be some radical change in the business methods of the farmer. As Sir Horace Plunkett has observed: By whatever means this is to be attained, he must be taught to combine with his neighbours whenever and wherever some branch of the industry by which he lives can be more profitably conducted in combination than through isolated action.' Thanks to the activity of the Agricultural Organisation Society, co-operation in both the purchase of requirements and the sale of produce is now making good progress throughout England and Wales, and the grant of 50,000l. by the Development Commissioners for purposes of propaganda should stimulate the movement in every direction. Co-operation is the indispensable condition of success, and should be accompanied by the general establishment of credit banks on the Raiffeisen principle, and credit societies. Self-help is as essential as State-aid to the effective organisation of agriculture and agricultural education.

JOHN C. Medd.

THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK AS SEEN BY A BRITISH CANADIAN

THE writer of the following paragraphs is not under the illusion that they are apt to be of any great moment to the Empire of which he is a mere individual unit. He is, however, one of those (and their number is perhaps considerable) who, for love of the old land and of the land of their adoption, cannot altogether be silent in respect of some of the conditions and the issues that confront the British elector of to-day.

Arriving in London from Canada a few days after Mr. Borden and the members of the Canadian Cabinet, he was at least as eager as any of his fellow Canadian citizens to see and to hear (and to contribute if possible) anything and everything with any sort of bearing upon the common possession and the common cause the Empire.

In the August number of the National Review the editor speaks of the whole Canadian visit and episode as the 'bright spot' in the political and social horizon of the otherwise lagging and depressing late summer-season. Believing, as the writer does, that the social question (and one puts it first, both as a patriot and as an observer) in these islands is incapable of a permanent solution apart from the Empire question, he cannot but subscribe to the enthusiasm and the wisdom revealed in this description.

Many years ago, on revisiting this country from the United States, the writer used to feel most of the things that our American cousins still feel after a few days or weeks on our shores; beginning, shall we say, with the 'spell' of London and the personal and aesthetic charm of our English life, and ending with the well-known sad signs of the degeneration and the social distress that for ever mar the glories and the marvels of the England of to-day and yesterday. They make one unhappy, as it were, in London, in Oxford, in the country, in Liverpool and Glasgow, in the Highlands, and on the very seashore.

Now, after a decade of Canadian citizenship (punctuated by trips to Europe), he sees, even at the moment of landing, the same things that he used to see then, but with the fortitude of an Empire hope and an Empire reality. And one goes again to Westminster, into the Lobby and the great precincts, into the clubs, into Mayfair, to the East End, to Surrey and Essex and the country, to the universities, to the provinces, to Scotland, with the one eager feeling to see whether Britons here have any real idea of the magnitude of the problems with which they are dealing at the heart of the Empire.

There are still, to be sure, everywhere the same depressing social symptoms-the unemployment, the poverty, the idleness and the amateurishness of so many of the rich and of the educated, the widespread lack of energy and inventiveness that characterises our British people in comparison, for example, with Americans. And one And one never seems to get out of one's head the figures of the Booths and the Rowntrees about our cities-about the twelve millions' who, according to the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, are always on the verge of hunger and starvation. Then there is the widespread physical degeneration of so many of our people, both in town and country, on which both Englishmen and foreigners have commented for years. And there is the depleted country-side, and the general backward state of agriculture in England and in Scotland. And in face of it all the veritable babel of voices on the part of our reformers, the 'sixes and sevens' of our politicians, and the 'political anarchy' which is prophesied for the winter, the Radicalism that knows no bounds, and the unfortunate struggle that seems to have been set up between the have-nots' and the 'haves.' And there is the apparent alarm as to the very continuation of our national existence in view of the newer Powers of Europe. And, lastly, there is the Suffragist movement; surely one of the most convincing of all signs that behind the political question of the hour in this country there is the great social question, the question of what we are going to do with the displaced and the unemployed, with those who are apparently left behind in our modern social system.

Before attempting to indulge in any reflexions upon the issues between the New Liberalism and the New Unionism-for to this we desire to come-it may be well to clear the ground of a few considerations that must be presupposed by anyone who puts both the British social question and the Empire question above all mere party and all mere class politics.

One must deplore, to begin with, the still surviving disadvantages of our party and parliamentary systems in view of any