MOTION FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 8 June 1866)

§ GENERAL DUNNE

rose to call attention to the nonpayment of £5,000 granted for the building and repairing of fishery piers in Ireland, and the assistance of poor fishermen, under the Act of 59 Geo. III. c. 59, and said, that he could not agree with his hon. Friend (Mr. Blake) when he expressed the opinion that it was desirable to postpone Irish questions for the convenience of the Government. The interests of his country demanded his first attention. He submitted, then, that until the year 1819, very little notice had been 46 taken by Parliament of the Irish fisheries, and very little assistance had been afforded them either before or after the Union up to that period; but, in that year, public attention was directed to the subject, and it was considered that the construction of piers and harbours and the granting of means to fishermen for the purchase of tackle would enable the country eventually to derive large profits from their increased industry. Accordingly, the Act of Geo. III. was passed, and it was resolved to set apart £5,000 a year, Irish, or somewhat over £4,600, English, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of fishery piers in Ireland, and of affording assistance to poor fishermen in that country, while a sum of money, £2,000, was by the same Act granted for similar purposes to Scotland. That Act was only to remain in force for five years, but in four years from the time of its having been passed, another Act confirmed the annual grant, and ordered that it should be paid from year to year until the Act was repealed. An impression prevailed in some quarters that the grant had ceased in 1830, because the former Act had been repealed by lapse of time. This, however, was an erroneous impression, and an Irish Taxation Committee which sat last year, being continued from the former year, which considered the subject called the attention of the Government to the fact that payment of the grant had not been made, and requested that the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown should be obtained as to the truth of the assertion that the Act had been repealed by virtue of certain provisions in subsequent Acts. He contended that the Act of 59 Geo. III. was not abrogated by any subsequent Acts, and that the Board of Works had neglected their duty in this matter. They had succeeded to the functions of the old Fishery Board and should have demanded this grant. When application was made to that Board, the answer had invariably been that there were no funds applicable to the objects contemplated by the Act of Geo. III. It was very singular, however, that large sums of money had been granted to Scotland, while the allowance was refused to Ireland, although the former grant was found on the provisions of the very same Act as that which gave it to Ireland. There could be no doubt that the law under which the money was formerly granted to Ireland had not been repealed; the opinion of the most eminent counsel 47 had been taken on this point, and he would continue to hold this view of the case till the contrary was proved by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. Indeed, the Board of Works did not seem to be at all decided upon this question, and they had, however, taken very little trouble to inquire into the matter. It was exceedingly unfair that while the grant to Ireland had been discontinued, it was still made to Scotland, a richer country than Ireland. There could not possibly have been any circumstances to justify the course which had been pursued. He was convinced that it was chiefly owing to negligence in the Board of Works not demanding it that the grant had been discontinued. In former times, and at two periods, this money had fallen into arrears, and was not paid until gentlemen anxious for the welfare of the country had pressed for an inquiry into the subject. £444,000 were granted during the same period to the Scotch fisheries —and the provisions of the Scotch Act of Union had always been observed more faithfully than those of the Union with Ireland—and £1,500,000 had also, in the same period, been granted for the English fisheries. Whether the practice of granting such assistance to fisheries was advisable or not he would not stop to argue; but if the money was granted to Scotland or England, there was no reason why it should not be granted to Ireland. Opinions, he believed, had been obtained from the highest legal authorities in Ireland to the effect that the Acts said to have been repealed were not repealed at all, and that the money properly was still payable. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving for the case and opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown on the subject upon which he had requested explanations from the Government; and asked why (if they had not been) they were not now submitted to the legal advisers of the Government according to the recommendation of the Taxation Committee, as expressed in the Report written by Sir Stafford Northcote last year?

§ MR. CHILDERS

said, that before replying to the observations of the hon. and gallant Member for the Queen's County, he wished to say, in reply to the hon. Baronet the Member for Perthshire, that it was quite true the Report of the Committee or Commission of 1822 had not been carried out as regarded the office of Lord Lyon King-at-Arms in Scotland. For some time the office of Lord Lyon had been a sinecure, the duties being conducted by deputy. On the death of Lord Kinnoul, the subject had been brought by the Treasury under the notice of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and his right hon. Friend had it under consideration whether the office of Lord Lyon might not be made purely honorary, the fees to be given to those who discharged the duties, or whether the office might cease to be a sinecure, the Lyon King discharging some of the duties now performed by deputies and the latter reduced in number. In any case the salary would disappear from the Estimates, and the fees would be redistributed. With respect to the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Queen's County, and the observations of the hon. and learned Member, which were the ipsissima verba of his (General Dunne's) speech, he had to remark that two Acts were passed for a limited number of years, creating a charge on the Consolidated Fund to the extent of £5,000 a year. Those Acts were supposed by all the world, Irishmen included, to have come to an end thirty years ago, and until last year no one thought of making an application for the £5,000. More than that, the House, believing the Act to have expired, on two occasions passed Votes amounting to £30,000 or £40,000 for Irish piers, without the smallest intimation of a suspicion on the part of anyone that any Act existed charging the Consolidated Fund 49 with £5,000 a year. Last year, however, an ingenious gentleman—not his hon. and gallant Friend—imagined that by reason of a technicality in one of the Irish Acts, the charge of £5,000 was still in existence. He raised that question before the Committee of which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was Chairman, but that Committee, very prudently, arrived at no conclusion on the question. They contented themselves with suggesting that a legal opinion should be taken on the subject. In accordance with that recommendation, Her Majesty's Government took the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown—the English Attorney and Solicitor Generals—some months ago, and those learned Gentlemen gave a decided opinion that the charge did not exist. He had since brought in a Bill founded on that opinion. As a general rule, there was a well-founded objection to producing opinions of the Law Officers; but as in this case the opinion had been asked for by a Committee of the House, it was one given for the House rather than the Government, and as therefore the ordinary objection did not lie against producing it, the Government would consent to lay it on the table. This consent was not, however, to be taken as a precedent.