§ SIR T. ESMONDEI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the Report of Major Marindin on the Tralee and Dingle Railway, in which the Board of Trade Inspector lays special stress upon the desirability of re-constructing portions of the Tralee and Dingle Railway line, and of adding to and improving its rolling stock, and suggests that, in the public interest, a grant in aid of these improvements should be made; if he is aware that the plans of this line were passed by the Irish Board of Works, and that the rolling stock and the permanent way of this line were passed by the Board of Trade; if he is aware that the cesspayers of the various guaranteeing baronies are so heavily taxed already in respect of this line that they are unable to bear any further burdens on account of it; if he is aware that those baronies are threatened with an enormous increase in their local taxation on account of a recent accident on this railway, which will probably bring one of them into 305 bankruptcy; and whether, under the circumstances, he will advise the Treasury to give effect to Major Marindin's recommendation?
MR. J. MORLEYMajor Marindin did not recommend that a grant in aid of the improvements indicated in his Report should be made; what he suggested was that it was difficult to see how the money necessary to make these improvements could be raised without some assistance; and, as I have already pointed out to the hon. Baronet, there are no funds at the disposal of Government of which to make any grant for the purpose.