§ MR. MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention had been directed to the circumstances attending the evictions carried out on the Tounaculty estate of the Education Commissioners near the Town of Donegal, on Thursday and Friday last, when the rent due amounted in all to about £80, to be collected from 17 or 18 tenants, scattered over about a thousand acres of poor land; whether to collect this sum a force of some 200 men has been employed, armed with ladders, ropes, grappling irons, shields, poles, and hooks, and a battering ram, all specially procured, for the purpose of effecting these evictions; is it a fact that a cordon of police and military was drawn round each house, within, which neither the representatives of the Press, nor the Very Reverend Hugh M'Fadden, P.P., nor his curate, the Reverend Edward 1011 Cassidy, were admitted; was any resistance offered to the Sheriff at any of the houses so visited; and what will be the cost to the county of this expedition and its appliances?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe Constabulary authorities report that the facts are substantially as stated in the first three paragraphs of the question, except that the force was present not to collect rent, but to maintain the law by protecting those who were bound to enforce it. No resistance was offered, and no cost to the county will be incurred. The arrangements of the authorities appear to have been excellent. Of the 17 tenants 13 avoided eviction at the last moment by paying all that was demanded, which they were well able to do, and one of the tenants who allowed himself to be evicted for a debt of £9 had £50 worth of stock on the premises. The Plan of Campaign was in force, but has now been broken down, and, so far as I am acquainted with the facts, no sympathy whatever need be felt for the tenants.
§ MR. MACNEILLThrough a misprint the question uses the word "county" instead of country. I want to know what the cost is to the country.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI cannot answer that question.