§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether an association calling itself the "Irish Land Purchase and Settlement Company, Limited," and owning lands in County Galway, has recently sold a portion of its property to the tenants under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts; if so, whether he can state (a) the number of holdings sold; (b) the Poor Law valuation and the rental thereof; (c) the number of years' purchase paid by the tenants, and its relation to the rents previously paid by the tenants; and, whether this property was purchased chiefly by means of a Government loan; and, if so, can he state how the account stands, and who are the directors of the company?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe Land Commissioners state that the Irish Land Purchase and Settlement Company (Limited), which was incorporated on the 7th of February, 1884, and which purchased, through the Land Judges' Court in the year 1885, the Killclooney estate, in the County of Galway, has 1161 since sold portions of the lands so purchased to the tenants under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts, 1885–1887. (a) Twenty-two holdings have been purchased by the tenants under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts. (b) The total area sold was 404 acres, of which 249 acres were previously held by the tenants at rents amounting, in the aggregate, to £171. The additional 155 acres represent extra land added to the holdings of tenants purchasing, and in respect of which no rents were previously paid by them. Previous to the sale these 155 acres were let as a grazing farm to one tenant at a yearly rent of £200. The tenement valuation was not ascertained at the date of the sales. (c) The total amount of the advances in these cases was £5,583, the annuity in respect of which is £223 12s. 4d. It is not possible to compare this annuity with the previous rents paid by the purchasing tenants, on account of the additional land having been granted. There have been 23 further sales provisionally sanctioned; but the conveyances have not yet been prepared, or the money paid on these. In these cases also extra land will be added to the tenants' holdings upon purchasing. The price of the property purchased by the company was £43,300, of which sum the Irish Land Commission, with the assent of the Treasury, advanced the sum of £42,300. In the year 1887, the company being in arrear with their instalments, a receiver was appointed, at the suit of the Land Commission, by the Master of the Rolls. He is still in receipt of the rents of the unsold lauds. The arrear due at the date such proceedings were commenced has partly been paid out of the sums advanced by the Land Purchase Commissioners on the sale of the lands to the tenants, and partly out of the rents of the unsold lands by the receiver. The half-yearly instalments payable to the Land Commission on account of the advance of £42,300, are £974 5s. 6d., and there is now due on foot of same £1,915 12s. 4d.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLThe right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last part of the question.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI beg the hon. Member's pardon; I have the information, but omitted to give it. The original directors of the company, as appears from the Articles of Associa- 1162 tion, were:— Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, M.P., Mr. Ernest Hart, surgeon, Mr. William Henry O'Shea, M.P., the Bishop of Raphoe, Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, M P., Mr. Thomas Baldwin, and Mr. William J. Doherty, C.E.
§ MR. SEXTONI wish to ask the hon. Member for South Tyrone whether he has given any notice of his intention to ask this question to the hon. Member for Cork?
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLThe question has been on the Paper for some time.