§ MR. D. SULLIVAN(for Mr. T. M. Healy) (Longford, N.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, as the Land Commission Courts require applicants to produce, at the hearing of their cases, certificates of the valuation of their holdings, to enable them to fix a fair rent, and, as the copies of the valuation lists furnished by the Commissioner of Valuation to clerks of unions do not show the value of land separate from 1642 buildings, it is the fact that the correct valuation of such buildings cannot be given in the certificates by clerks of unions; and, whether, therefore, as buildings, as a rule, are in Ireland erected by the tenants, arrangements can be made in the Valuation Office to show the valuation of buildings separately; and, if so, would the Land Commission object to alter their forms accordingly, as the valuation of buildings and of land are now lumped together therein?
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)(who replied) said: The Land Commissioners report that the practice which exists of requiring applicants to produce a certificate of valuation of their holding has been adopted for the very purpose of enabling the Court to ascertain how much of the gross Poor Law valuation is on the land and how much on the buildings. The Commissioners believe that the certificate of the Clerk of the Union is but a copy of the valuation furnished by the Valuation Office, Dubblin; and that the valuation books, as furnished to Clerks of Unions, do not distinguish the value of the land from that of the building. To alter the form of originating notice by specifying that the valuation should be that of the land alone would not be, in the opinion, of the Commissioners, an advantage; as in such cases, by reason of the trouble of getting the separate valuation in the first instance, the applicants would, in most instances, leave the originating notice incomplete. If the Valuation Office adopts the practice of supplying the information as to the separate valuation of land and buildings, in such case the Land Commissioners would be prepared to make an alteration in the form requiring each to be given, as the information would then be within the reach of applicants. The Commissioner of Valuation states, in another letter, that arrangements can be made at the Valuation Office to issue certificates to all applicants at a small fee, showing the area and valuation of land and the valuation of buildings separately.