HC Deb 05 May 1884 vol 287 cc1327-9
MR. SEXTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to certain resolutions adopted at a meeting held on the 29th ult. by the Wallace (Lisburn) Tenants' Defence Association, in which resolutions the Association offer to produce credible witnesses who will, on oath, prove all the facts put forward in the Question recently addressed to him in reference to the case of George M'Cord, tenant, Sir Richard Wallace, landlord, and declare that the judicial rent, where land is held under the Ulster custom, should be arrived at by ascertaining separately the commercial value of the holding, and the value of the tenant's improvements, and his occupation right, and deducting the latter from the former, and that reasons for the decisions should be embodied in the findings; and urge upon the Government the necessity of watching lest the Land Act of 1881 should be rendered inoperative through the action of the Land Commission; whether he will state the source of the information by reason of which he referred to the former question as inaccurate and misleading, and will specify the particulars to which his statement especially referred; and, whether the Government will consider the suggestion and appeal submitted to them, as above, in the third and fourth resolutions adopted by the Tenants' Association?

MR. TREVELYAN

These resolutions have been communicated to us; but the Government cannot interfere with the judicial decisions of the Land Commission in the course suggested by the hon. Member, nor can they take any legislative action. I did not intend to say, in answer to a former Question, that "the Question of the hon. Member was inaccurate and misleading." My recollection was that I had received information from another quarter protesting against it as "inaccurate and misleading;" and that this showed the inconvenience, and perhaps the injustice, which might result from hon. Members giving an ex parte view in a judicial matter in the shape of a Question.

MR. SEXTON

On a future occasion I shall use the facilities of the debate to endeavour to extract from the right hon. Gentleman the particulars which he declines to give.

MR. TREVELYAN

What particulars?

MR. SEXTON

The particulars which rendered my Question "inaccurate and misleading."

MR. TREVELYAN

I did not say it was inaccurate and misleading. I said the hon. Member gave a statement of a case which was the subject of a Civil Bill suit in a Question in the House of Commons. I said I had received a communication from another party complaining that this statement was inaccurate and misleading; and I argued from that that it was inconvenient to state the subject of Civil Bill suits in Questions in the House of Commons.

MR. SEXTON

Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say who was the other party?

MR. TREVELYAN

No, Sir. I am not in the least bound to say it.