William Brady has a twelve-hour day in Dublin. He's out in the morning at 5:30 to deliver papers. He's at school until three. He runs errands for the sweet shop till seven. "You get too tired for school work. How does your teacher like that?" "Ash! She can't do anything." Intuitively he knows that he can protect himself behind the fortress of words in the school attendance act: "A person shall not be deemed to have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is proved that the employment by reason of being during the hours when school is not in session does not interfere with the efficient elementary instruction of the child."[20] Nine-year-old Patrick Gallagher may go to the Letterkenny Hiring Fair and sell his baby services to a farmer. Some one may say to Paddy: "Why aren't you at school?" "Surely, I live over two miles away from school." The law thinks two miles are too far for him to walk. So he may be hired to work instead. Reads the education act: "A person shall not be deemed to have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is proved to the satisfaction of the court that during the employment there is not within two miles ... from the residence of the child any ... school which the child can attend."[21] Incidentally England does not encourage Irish education. England does not provide enough money to erect the best schools nor to attract the best teachers. But England agreed to an Irish education grant.[22] She established a central board of education in Ireland, and promised that through this board she would pay two-thirds of the school building bill and teachers' salaries to any one who was zealous enough to erect a school. Does England come through with the funds? Not, says the vice-regal committee, unless she feels like it. In 1900 she agreed with Ireland that Ireland's teachers should be paid higher salaries, but stipulated that the increase in salaries would not mean an immediate increase in grants. New building grants were suspended altogether for a time. In 1902, an annual grant of £185,000 was diverted from Irish primary education and used for quite extraneous purposes. And when England does give money for Irish education, she pays no heed to the requirements stated by the Irish commissioners of education.[23] Instead she says: "This amount I happen to be giving to English education; I will grant a proportionate amount to Irish education." "If English primary education happens to require financial aid from the Treasury, Irish primary education is to get some and in proportion thereto," writes the committee. "If England happens not to require any, then, of course, neither does Ireland. A starving man is to be fed only if some one else is hungry.... It seems to us extraordinary that Irish primary education should be financed on lines that have little relation to the needs of the case."[24]