§ SIR FREDERICK HEYGATEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Government intend to adopt the recommendation in the Report of the Committee on Irish Taxation (1865), to the effect that
The advances for Land Improvement, &c, should not be limited to the sum of £8,000 upon any one estate; that the repayment of Loans should be extended over a longer period than twenty-two years; and that it should not be compulsory, when a loan is granted for a Farm Building, upon the proprietor to provide a house at a cost of £200?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, in reply, said, the Government had adopted the first recommendation, that the advance should not be limited to the sum of £8,000, subject to the discretion of the Lords of the Treasury. As to the second, his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury had introduced a clause giving the Treasury power to extend the repayment of loans to periods of thirty-five years in cases where the benefit the proprietor obtained was less than the percentage now charged on loans for twenty-two years; and with reference to the last part of the question, the hon. Baronet was, no doubt, aware that under the new Act loans would be granted for the erection of farmhouses as well as farm buildings, the present condition being that the value of the farmhouse built in conjunction with farm buildings should be one-third the amount of the loan made for such buildings.