§ MR. MARUM (Kilkenny, N.)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works by introducing Bills for land improvement and arterial and river drainage; and, if so, when the same will be introduced; whether the charge of such legislation will be transferred from the Treasury to the Irish Department of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; whether in such legislation "statutory termors" will be included as owners of land in the formation of Conservancy or Drainage District Boards for the purposes of the Act, as assented to by the former Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and having regard to their altered tenures; whether his attention has been called to an extensive arterial and river drainage scheme in North Kilkenny District extending over 24 miles, and which would relieve a waterlogged valley of that area, and where the occupiers have had all the preliminary Survey maps, &c. executed by the County Surveyor at considerable expense more than four years ago, and approved by the Board of Works' Engineer, including the loan of £32,000 for the execution of these works; and that, owing to the defective character of the Drainage Acts, those works are in abeyance, and the labouring population as well as the occupiers interested are deprived of the benefit of the expenditure; and, whether the Government are prepared to carry out the recommendation of the Royal Commis- 564 sion by forming main conservancy districts, to use their own language—
This present year, without waiting for the legislation which would be required to bring their recommendations into effect?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)The Government, as the hon. Member is aware, have already taken action in the direction indicated by the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works with regard to arterial drainage—land improvement in the technical sense used in Ireland was not included in the Reference to that Commission—and they will press forward with energy in that course. Bills carrying out generally the recommendations of the Commission with regard to the Shannon, the Barrow and the Bann have been prepared, and will very shortly be introduced, and al the necessary Parliamentary notices inconnection with these Bills have beer given. Upon the reception given to these measures by the House will depend the action which the Government may take with regard to the introduction of a general Bill dealing with the subject of arterial drainage. Should the three Bills already mentioned meet with a favourable reception, the Government do not despair of introducing such a general Bill during the present year. With regard to the suggestion that, prior to the introduction of such a general Bill, the country should be mapped out into main conservancy districts, as suggested by the Royal Commission, I may say that we are anxious to do this; but that, for the present, the time of the chief hydraulic engineer ii fully occupied in connection with matters relating to the Shannon, the Barrow and the Bann.