HC Deb 25 February 1884 vol 284 cc1847-9
MR. SEXTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has caused inquiry to be made into the accuracy of the statements contained in a letter addressed to him, on the 29th ultimo, by the Very Rev. Henry Hewson, P.P. V.F. Belmullet, with regard to the operations of Mr. Tuke's Emigration Committee in the district of Belmullet; whether it is true, as affirmed by the Very Rev. gentleman, that the Tuke Committee, administering not only their own funds, but also the free grant of the money of the State, assigned to them by the Guardians of the Belmullet Union for the emigration of distressed persons, sent out of the country, from the Belmullet Union, 360 families out of a total of about 2,800, and that More than one-half of the number emigrated were comfortable, well able to live at home, and, if they chose to emigrate of their own accord, were well able to do so at their own expense; that the Tuke Committee "co-operated with dishonestly disposed persons" to enable them to evade, by free emigration, "the payment of just debts which they could easily have discharged," and thereby caused (a) the robbery of traders in Belmullet to the extent of some thousands of pounds, and (b) the mulcting of persons who had become sureties to the traders for the debts of the emigrants; that some of those sureties themselves were allowed to emigrate, free of charge; that evidence of the debts and of the solvency of emigrants was rejected by the Committee, and that Mr. Sydney Buxton, the principal member of the Committee, in refusing to receive such evidence, said "I cannot constitute myself in any way a collector of debts;" that a widower (named in the letter of Dean Hewson) who had been in the employment of one of Mr. Tuke's paid agents, who knew him to be a widower, was provided by the Committee, on the faith of an assurance by the agent in question, with free tickets for himself and his wife, and that he was thereby enabled to abduct from her parents, to take with him to America, and to seduce a young girl of seventeen, to whom he could not, by the rules of the Church to which they both belong, be married, as she is the cousin of himself and of his deceased wife; whether, if any of these statements are questioned, Dean Hewson will be afforded an opportunity of establishing their truth; and, what measures will be taken to provide against such proceedings hereafter?

MR. TREVELYAN

, in reply, said, that it was not the case that Mr. Tuke's Committee administered any sum assigned to them by the Guardians of the Belmullet Union. The Committee were requested to undertake the emigration on the ground that the Union was too poor to contribute, and the Committee's own funds were used to supplement the grant from the Local Government Board. Great care was taken in the selection of candidates, and there was strong reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement that any of the 330 or 340 families were able to live at home in comfort, or at their own expense to emigrate together, which was the object of the family emigration. A few figures would refute it. The valuation per head varied from 18s. 8d. to 4s. 4d., the average was less than 14s. The holdings were of the average valuation of £4, and out of a total of 2,700, only 153 were above £10. It was not the case that the Tuke Committee co-operated with dishonestly disposed persons to enable them to evade the payment of just debts. In only one instance did a trader make complaint. He brought a list of persons who, he said, were about to leave the country. He had no evidence that some of the families mentioned on that list the Committee had already refused, and in the remaining cases, after renewed inquiry, the charges were, in the opinion of the Committee, refuted. In a letter communicating the result of the inquiry, Mr. Buxton told the trader that he could not make himself a collector of debts. In regard to the case of one widow the Committee were deceived by the relieving officer, who was in collusion with a man that had relations with her daughter. Upon discovering this the Committee at once discontinued his employment. He saw no ground for instituting further inquiry into the allegation contained in the Question.