§ MR. LIDDELLsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, Whether there is any legal limit to the amount of indemnity which overseers are apparently empowered to allow to owners of house property for the risk and inconvenience incurred by them in undertaking, by agreement with their tenants, the payment of rates due in respect of such property; if so, what is such limit, and by what Statute or Statutes is such limit fixed?
§ MR. GOSCHEN, in reply, said, that the overseers were not entitled to allow any indemnity to owners, for the risk of undertaking the payment of rates. Where the owners were allowed a reduction in their assessments in consequence of such an undertaking, the arrangement was entered into by a connivance between the parties, but that arrangement was not legal. There was no legal indemnity in Parliamentary boroughs, but beyond the Parliamentary boroughs there is power given to the 410 overseers when the Small Tenements Act is adopted to indemnify them to the extent of 25 per cent of the liability imposed upon the landlords, and 25 per cent additional in cases where they compounded for empty houses.