§ MR. W. J. CORBETasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he will cause to be prepared and laid upon the Table of the House, a Return showing the number of the Confiscated Estates of £5,000 acres and over now held in Ireland by proprietors whose ancestors obtained the same from the English Government in the form which appears on the Notice Paper?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW), in reply, said, there would be great difficulty, if not impossibility, in complying with the request for the Return indicated. In the first place, the Government had no 1929 power to trace the title down from the remote period to the present day in order to see whether the present owner was the descendant of the first grantees. He had himself had considerable experience in tracing titles in Ireland, and there was hardly an estate which had not been the subject of repeated purchase, so that the present possessor was not the descendant of the original grantee. Besides, nearly all these Crown grants had been printed 50 years ago, and were accessible to everyone under the direction of the then Record Commissioners.