Thus advised and kept in touch with public opinion, the Board of Agriculture is the most popular and effective Department in Dublin Castle. It gives us a foretaste of the new power that will be given to Irish administration by the Home Rule spirit. For it is just this central guidance that the other great new Irish developments chiefly lack. Take local government. There is not a County Council in Ireland which would not be stronger if it were directed--and sometimes, perhaps, even commanded--from the centre by a sympathetic national authority. There is not a Board in Ireland, whether it be the Congested Districts Board, or the Estates Commissioners, or the Land Commission, that would not be more wisely directed if there were some central arena in which the great principles of administration could be seriously and responsibly debated and settled. For, in spite of the popular notion that Irishmen are too talkative, there is really too little discussion in Ireland on practical affairs. The great unsolved political problem blocks the way. The block cannot be removed except by settlement. One of the strongest reasons for granting Home Rule is in order to free the mind of the nation for attention to the national housekeeping. OLD-AGE PENSIONS One of the most remarkable events of the last few years has been the unexpected side-share of Ireland in the great social legislation of Great Britain. Even the Irish members themselves have scarcely foreseen how immensely Ireland, being the poorest partner in the United Kingdom, would benefit by a policy "tender to the poor." The most conspicuous example of that effect has been Old-age Pensions. Old-age Pensions have fallen on Ireland as a shower of gold. Her share is already well over L2,000,000. The great new fact in Irish social welfare is that she now draws that great draught from the Imperial Exchequer. Travelling along the Atlantic coast last summer, I inquired in many local post-offices as to the amount of pensions given weekly in those little grey villages. I found that often the old-age pensioners would number between 100 and 200 in small villages of less than 2,000 people. The emigration of the youth has left a disproportionate number of the old, and it is not necessary to bring any railing accusation against the honesty of the Irish race in order to understand why it is that Old-age Pensions have done so much for Ireland. But the fact remains, and it carries with it a great and unexpected relief to the Irish ratepayer.[33] THE NEW UNIVERSITY ACT