MR. POLLARD.URQUHARTsaid, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to the case of the Contractors for the supply of Forage to the Troops quartered in the counties of Dublin and Kildare. The case of these contractors was one of great hardship and severity. In the month of May, 1859, those contractors entered into an engagement to supply the horses of the troops with hay at £3 10s. per ton, which seemed at that time a fair price, the usual price of hay in Ireland averaging from £2 10s. per ton to £3 10s.; but in consequence of the unfavourable state of the weather during the summer of 1859 1115 the price of hay in Ireland rose to £5 or £6 per ton, and in November last it reached the extraordinary price of—7 10s. The contractors went on supplying the troops at a daily loss of—70, and they had actually lost lay the contract no less a sum than—9,000. He was fully aware of the danger which might result from not compelling persons to stand by their contracts, and if this were an ordinary case, he should not have asked the Government to do anything in the matter. He found that in the year 1846 the Government did compensate certain contractors for losses which they unavoidably sustained. The present case was one which could not be construed into a precedent. If the Government enforced the contract strictly, it would inevitably ruin these contractors. He trusted he had shown that the circumstances of this case were not of an ordinary nature. The contractors might have thrown up the contract, as the bonds were not actually signed, but they preferred executing it and trusting to the mercy of Her Majesty's Government to compensate them for the great loss which they would sustain, and they followed that course the more freely as they had been given to understand by the Commissary-General that their case would be taken into consideration.