MR. T. M. HEALYI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) is he aware that the Grand Jury of Clare passed a resolution at the Spring Assizes, 1896, requesting the Government to take into consideration the claim of the county to a participation in the grant proposed to be made for light railways in Ireland, and stating that they would advocate a railway connecting Lisdoonvarna with Ennistymon and a railway connecting Ennis with Scarriff; and (2) having regard to the fact that the Government offered a free grant of £62,500, being one-half the estimated cost of the latter line, on condition that the other half of the cost should be provided by the Grand Jury; and that the Grand Jury at the next Assizes rejected by a majority of 16 to 6 the offer 532 of the Government, although supported by the standing railway committee of the Grand Jury, by all the representative elected bodies in the district, by the Town Commissioners of Ennis, and all the traders of the district, who appeared and gave evidence in its favour, while not a single witness was produced against it, whether he can see his way to hold over the grant till another Grand Jury can be summoned to reconsider the matter, or he can take some steps to alter the Grand Jury system?
* MR. GERALD BALFOURThe fact is as stated in the first question, though I conceive that the Grand Jury in passing the resolution of 1896 had in view a free grant covering the entire cost of construction of the railway. Full warning was given before the meeting of the Grand Jury at the Spring Assizes of this year that the construction of the line from Ennis to Scarriff would not be recommended by the Irish Government to the Treasury, unless a resolution in favour of it were passed at those Assizes by a decisive majority. The grant cannot now be held over, as negotiations are in progress for otherwise disposing of the money.