*MR. T. W.RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)said, he wished to call attention to the arrears of business in the Purchase Department of the Irish Land Commission, and the method adopted of disposing of business. The Chief Secretary for Ireland would, doubtless, admit that the question of the Land Commission was one of great importance, and he (Mr. T. W. Russell) could not possibly let slip this opportunity which had fallen to him of referring to it. He did not intend in any way to discuss the policy of land purchase itself. He desired for a few moments to call attention to the delay in the Court of the Laud Commission in carrying out the manifest intentions of Parliament. He wished to bring to the attention of the House two cases which had come under his own personal cognizance. As soon as he had placed his Notice on the Paper he had received a letter, dated from Ballinasloe, stating that the writer inherited in 1887, on the death of a relative, a small estate some 12 miles from that town. In 1888 he effected a sale of the whole property to the occupying tenant on easy terms, adding to the holding a large grazing farm. The sale was, in due course, approved by the Laud Commissioners. Now, after five years had come and gone, the purchase money had not been lodged. he was resident in the Province of Quebec, and was, at the present time, paying his second visit to this country for the purpose of winding-Tip his affairs, and he could see little prospect of an early release from his difficulties. This was an example of a state of things which existed in hundreds of cases. He did not blame the Land Purchase Acts, but the real difficulty lay in the red tape that bound the office and the officials of the Land Commission. The second case to which he referred was with reference to an agreement dated December 1, 1888, for the purchase of land on the estate of Sir William Verner, in County Tyrone. There were some 1,300 or 1,400 tenants on the estate, and though an agreement had been arrived at, the lauds had not yet been vested in the tenants. To his own knowledge, an enormous amount of 1792 friction and difficulty was taking place on this estate. The two instances he had quoted were sample cases. He would now call attention to the official Return obtained from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds (Mr. Jackson) when Chief Secretary, up to May, 1892. He would separate the figures under the Ashbourne Acts from the figures referring to the Act of 1891, because the delay he complained of had been entirely under the Ashbourne Acts, there not having as yet been time for much delay under the Act of 1891. The applications received up to December 31, 1891, were 25,869 in number, and £ 10,000,000 in amount. He found that up to the same date the amount issued to 18,263 applicants had been £7,466,619. There were then pending 7,606 applications for £2,533,381. The estates not inspected by the valuers were only eight in number, showing that the delay was not occasioned by inspection. The numbers not sanctioned were 2,445. The numbers sanctioned but not vested in the tenant purchasers were 6,356. The applications in respect of which the advances had not yet been issued were:—In 1886, 13; in 1887, 77; in 1888, 267; in 1889, 1,107; in 1890,1,593; and in 1891, 1,937, making a total of 4,994. Now, as only eight estates had not been inspected by the valuer, the House would see that the delay had occurred in the office of the Land Commission. He knew the answer that would be made. It would be said that the rules of the Court had not been observed by the vendors—that was to say, the landlords who were anxious to sell had not properly proved their title, and the Commission had not had time to examine into the titles. Well, if the Commission wanted further legal assistance to enable the titles to be looked into they could easily appoint one or two temporary examiners. There were plenty of lawyers doing nothing in Dublin—the Four Courts were full of them. As to landlords not being able to prove their titles, he thought it was perfectly reasonable to ask that a time should be fixed by the Land Commission by which the landlord must prove his title. The real cause for the delay in the proceedings of the Commission was, however, not to be found in the examination of title, but in the fact that the Laud Commissions had constituted themselves 1793 Judges. Everything had now to be done by counsel or solicitors. No doubt counsel and solicitors were very estimable men, but this work was never intended for them. Parliament had never meant that every vendor or purchaser should be mulcted in costs for motions at every stop in the progress of a transaction under the Act. In his opinion, the lawyers had got more out of these Land Acts than anyone else. Many of the matters which now came before the Commission in the form of motions could easily be dealt with by letters without the intervention of counsel and solicitors at all. As regarded the Act passed in 1891, the procedure was getting into the same rut as that under the Ashbourne Acts, only more so, because it was a, much more complicated Act to administer. Up to the 31st January, 1893, there had been 2,948 applications for loans under the Act of 1891 for an aggregate amount of £991,195. Of these, 1,257 applications for £482,082 had been provisionally sanctioned, whilst only 447 for £159,570 had been issued. His desire was not to embarrass the Government or to take up the time of the House, but to get au expression of opinion that the wheels of this institution must go round more quickly; that the intentions of Parliament must not be frustrated by red tape; and that the Commissioners must relinquish the dignity of Judges and go back into the position of heads of Departments.
§ *THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,) Newcastle-upon-TyneI do not find any fault whatever with the hon. Member for calling the attention of the House to this subject, and I am glad that he has not attempted to widen the area of discussion by commenting upon the policy of purchases generally or the provisions of the Act of 1891, or attempting to show why that Act is not more largely and generally operative than it is at the present time. I am as strongly in favour as is the hon. Member of the rapid facilitation of purchase operations. As the House knows, the Land Commission is not a Department under the Irish Government, but a Department with a large—almost an entire—measure of independence; and although the Representative of the Irish Government in this House has to answer for it and to convey to the House informa- 1794 tion from the Commission, the Irish Government are not themselves responsible for anything done or not done by the Commission. They themselves very properly claim a large measure of independence, and I, for one, have no intention of interfering with it. At the same time, I feel that there is no harm, but good, in a Representative of the Irish Executive expressing any opinion he may have formed upon the success or failure which marks the operation of the Commission. Whether the two cases which have been brought forward by the hon. Member as sample eases are really samples I do not know. Of course, he will not expect me to be acquainted with the particulars of individual cases. I will, however, lay the facts he has mentioned before the Commission, and I daresay they will have some explanation to offer. As to the proposition laid down by the hon. Member—namely, that the proceedings of the Laud Commission have been characterised by the airs of a Judicial Court, I cannot, with all my respect for the Commissioners and all my appreciation of the energy with which they have discharged their duties, conceal the fact that I am entirely of the same mind as the hon. Member. I have some reason to believe that even within the Land Commission itself, a feeling has grown up latterly that the judicial character which has been attached to its proceedings has, on the whole, been carried, perhaps, rather too far; and I believe that the Commissioners are, at present, engaged in doing their best to discover methods which will make the Department that which, in my opinion, it was distinctly the intention of Parliament to make it—namely, mainly and largely an administrative body. At the same time we must allow that the Commissioners have considerable difficulties to encounter, and that no rough and ready and summary method of proceeding would be desirable if it led to the summary disposal of cases which ought not to be dismissed without a long and patient inquiry. We must take care that in urging on the Land Commissioners an acceleration of their rate of progress we do not hurry them into impatient and, it may be, random disposal of cases merely for the sake of avoiding the appearance of delay. The hon. Member has, I think, fairly enough described the reasons the Commissioners gave for the enormous interval of time 1795 which elapses before the making of an agreement and the filing of an application on the one hand and the ultimate allocation of the funds on the other. The Commissioners urge that the delay does not take place on inspection, and the hon. Member very candidly assents to that proposition. The explanation, according to the Commission, is that agreements are constantly brought before them which are badly, carelessly, and informally prepared. Such agreements have to be put into order, and that is a process which takes time. Then the Commissioners have to make necessary inquiries into evidence of title and to make requisitions as to title. These are processes which, as any Member of the House who has had anything to do with conveyances of property must be aware, are processes which take time, although the counsel and solicitors engaged may do their best to accelerate the operation. The Commissioners also have many disputes on agrarian questions and difficulties with regard to turbary. Another allegation is that the non-payment of interest is a frequent cause of delay. How far all this may be an adequate and satisfactory explanation I am not now called upon to decide; but I am bound to say, and I am glad to be able to say, that the Commissioners recognised that there has been a tardiness, although they contend that it has been inevitable, in carrying out these operations. They assure me that they are doing their very best, by resorting to quicker methods, to extend the administrative character of their proceedings as far as possible, and to diminish the Court formalities which the hon. Member has described. I confess, as the subject has been raised by the hon. Member, that I believe, when all this has been done, the Land Commission has work cast upon it which, as far as I am able to gather from not a very long experience of Irish government, it was not, originally meant by Parliament to do, and which I am sure must interfere to some extent with that which is, undoubtedly, the proper and peculiar work of the Commissioners. I am not going into details now, but I want to call attention to what I consider two interruptions of the work proper of the Land Commission. In the first place, an Agricultural Department has been constituted by the Commission. I should be the last, person in the world to say a word 1796 in disparagement of the excellent work which has been done by that Department. The survey which the very able officer who is at the head of that Department is continually making is one of the greatest value, and I believe the whole of the work done by the Department is extremely valuable; but I am a little doubtful whether the constitution of the Department was within the powers conferred by the Statute. I do not, wish, as I have said, to undervalue the work of the Department, but I believe the time will come when it will be found desirable to concentrate the work of the Land Commission, and I believe the tendency of things must be more and more to show that an Agricultural Department ought, to be constituted in Ireland on the same lines as the Department which has been constituted in England. There is, however, a second interruption of the work proper of the Land Commission. I refer to the relations established by the Act of 1891 between the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board. As more than one hon. Gentleman in the House is aware, those relations are exceedingly close; and, whether we look at it from the point of view of the Land Commission or from that of the Congested Districts Board, I do not believe such relations can be regarded as perfectly satisfactory. The Land Commissioners, who hold their office by a judicial tenure, in the first place do the work of an Administrative Department indoors, and, in the second place, are told off to be an agency ancillary to an Administrative Department out-of-doors. I do not believe that that can possibly be a permanent arrangement; and I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Jackson), or the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour), who had so much to do with the making of that arrangement, which may be said to have been the best arrangement possible at, the time, will consent to its being regarded as permanent. I am not inclined to throw on the Congested Districts Board work that properly belongs to the Agricultural Department. It has a sphere of its own. It is too soon yet to appraise the operations of that Board, though it is not too soon to appraise the devotion and energy with which the gentlemen composing it give 1797 themselves to its work. I feel that to make a total change in the character of that Board, by taking it away from all relations with the Land Commission, and by turning it into a Castle Board under the Irish Government and the Treasury, the time is not ripe, even if events ultimately shape themselves in that direction as the most convenient method of doing that work—which I am inclined to believe will ultimately be found to be the case. It would be better, both for that Board and the Land Commission, that the relations between the two bodies should be less close and dependent than they are. In the reorganisation of Irish administration—which, whatever may happen to projects now before Parliament, cannot, I believe, be very long-delayed—it will be found expedient and even indispensable to relieve the Land Commission of its extraneous work, both of the Congested Districts Board and of the Agricultural Department within its own walls, and to constitute a General Agricultural Department; leaving the Land Commission free for its own special work, which must for a long time to come, under whatever system Ireland may be governed, be of supreme and paramount importance in the government of Ireland.
§ *MR. JACKSON (Leeds, N.)The reference which the right hon. Gentleman has made to the organisation of the Department under discussion renders it necessary that I should say one or two words. First, I would deal with the question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone, who has always taken a great interest in the progress of everything that tends to facilitate the progress of the Land Commission. The accurate and interesting Return he has referred to keeps hon. Members of the House conversant with the work from time to time. I anticipated that there would be a marked progress seen in the Returns. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary knows that there was up to a, certain time—and perhaps there has been even up to now—some delay, because the Commissioners dealing with land purchase were not interchangeable with those Commissioners dealing with land appeals. There was a certain date prescribed by the Act—I think it was June——
§ *MR. T. W. RUSSELLThere was no date. It was on the hearing of a certain number of appeals then pending.
§ MR. JACKSONThere was a date, because I remember a phrase used with reference to these cases. They were called "The Pre-Junian Appeals."
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLOh, yes!
§ *MR. JACKSONI anticipated that these cases would be about now completed. Therefore the Commissioners, who have hitherto been limited in dealing with these cases, will be to that extent liberated, and will be able to take their share in dealing with land purchase;, therefore we must expect that there will now he marked progress made. I am sure the Chief Secretary and the hon. Member for South Tyrone have accurately expressed the feeling of the House that the intention of Parliament is that the most rapid progress that can be made should be made with these cases, and land purchase facilitated as much as possible. The Chief Secretary has referred to the Agricultural Department of the Land Commission, and I think, without expressing any opinion on the point raised—namely, that whether the time has arrived for the separation of the Agricultural Department from the Land Commission proper, the Chief Secretary will himself probably agree that in beginning the work, as it were, of the Agricultural Department in Ireland, there were obvious advantages in utilising the services of the persons connected with the Land Commissioners and with their Department, because they possessed the information, they were in touch with all the agricultural details, and it certainly was not known to what extent the work undertaken by the Commission would be of advantage in Ireland. No-doubt one of the Land Commissioners has given great attention, and I must add has shown great devotion to the work connected not only with the Agricultural Department of his own Commission, but also with the Congested Districts Board, and no will grudge the due meed of praise that ought to be given to the Commissioner for the valuable service he has rendered in both those Departments. I had a feeling that the large amount of work he was taking in connection with the new Department might interfere with his more direct duty; but I have never heard that that has 1799 been the case. It was thought that at some date, more or loss distant, it might be desirable to set up au Agricultural Department in Ireland, such as exists for England. I would only point out that that is rather a question for the Chancellor of the Exchequer than the Chief Secretary.
§ MR. JACKSONWe have not au Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer yet, and I am afraid if the hon. Gentleman wishes to postpone his case till that date he will hardly give an immediate advantage to agriculture in Ireland. Up to the present the arrangement has saved duplicating a great deal of the work. As to the Congested Districts Board, no doubt the work has been of a tentative character. We have been feeling our way to see whether it was possible, by the aid of experts that have been placed at the disposal of the Board, to see whether it would be possible to make some changes for the improvement of agriculture in Ireland. No doubt the Congested Districts Board has been doing valuable work in connection with the improvement of agriculture generally, and I hope that work may be carried on in its present form for some time to come in order that they may test whether it is practicable to carry on work by means of that Board or not. I should like to mention another subject here. I am afraid if I do not take this opportunity I shall lose the only chance I shall have for some time. I do not see the Postmaster General in his place—[The POSTMASTER GENERAL subsequently attended]—but I desire to bring forward a question which is of some importance. I do so for two reasons—firstly, because I have been pressed to do so; and, secondly, because I think there is considerable danger from the system at present in operation of postmasters or sub-postmasters in different parts of the country——
§ *SIR J. GOLDSMID (St. Pancras, S.)The right hon. Gentleman has a Notice on the Paper dealing with the subject upon which he is proceeding to speak. As a question of Order, can the right hon. Gentleman interrupt the present discussion?
§ *MR. SPEAKERIt is very inconvenient for the right hon. Gentleman 1800 to open a new subject, but he is perfectly within his right.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked whether it would shut out hon. Gentlemen who desired to speak later on this particular question?
§ *MR. SPEAKERCertainly not.
§ *MR. JACKSONThere prevails a system which allows our postmasters and sub-postmasters—especially the latter— in different parts of the country to act as agents for other societies and for other businesses besides the Post Office. I need hardly dwell on the question of the importance to the people of this country of encouraging, as far as possible, the habits of saving and thrift which have been so much encouraged and developed by the Post Office Savings Banks, and I think the House will agree that when it is shown that the agencies carried on by sub-postmasters tend in any way to conflict with what is their duty to the Post Office, or in any way to divert the moneys of the thrifty poor from safe and reliable securities to securities which are otherwise than safe and reliable, it is the duty of the House to express its opinion and to bring to au end a system which has already been fraught with very great injury to a very large number of poor people whose savings have been lost. And therefore the House ought to express its opinion that this system ought to be put an end to at the earliest possible date. I do not desire to occupy the time of the House more than a few minutes, and I should like at once to say that I am very much obliged to the Postmaster General for the prompt manner in which he dealt with the cases which I thought it my duty to bring before him, and for causing an exhaustive and searching inquiry to be made, and in going further and entering very largely into the question to ascertain the extent to which this practice prevails throughout the country. The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to grant me a Return, which I am sorry has not yet been circulated to hon. Members of the House, showing in detail all the cases in which sub-postmasters of post offices act as agents for Building Societies, Investment Societies, Banks, or other institutions that are more or less competitive with the Post Office Savings Bank. I do not think, so far as I am able to ascertain, there is very much difference, in principle, or, perhaps, any 1801 difference between the right hon. Gentleman and myself as regards the desirability of separating, as far as it is possible to separate, the business of the Post Office from the businesses which compete with it, or businesses which conflict with it, and the duty which postmasters owe to him as their employer. Therefore, I do not think it will be difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to concede that which I propose to ask him to concede. In the course of my observations I do not desire to attack individuals; it is a system which I propose to attack, but it is necessary for me for that purpose to illustrate the system by examples of the extent to which these agency businesses may be carried, and which, I think, tend to prove conclusively that men acting in the position of postmasters or sub-postmasters take, not, as in some eases, one agency, but in other cases as many as eight or ten agencies, some of them, unfortunately, not only of a very doubtful character, but disastrous to them who put their money in them. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman himself has taken a very active part in the very philanthropic work of endeavouring to raise money to try to meet the suffering and the distress of some of these societies, and I am sure he will agree that it would be a little inconsistent that, he should be at the same time collecting subscriptions to relieve the terrible distress caused to these victims, and that the postmasters throughout the country should be taking steps which may tend to multiply those victims. I do not propose to go into any details as regards those particular societies, but I say this— we have experience of postmasters acting for such societies as the Liberator and the House and Land Investment Company. The result of these has been that the savings of a number of poor people have been absolutely lost, and I think it is our duty as far as we can to prevent a repetition of that. The Postmaster General will agree that no postmaster should act as an agent of an insolvent or gambling institution. My point is this. The Postmaster General cannot discriminate, and I do not think he ought to be called upon to discriminate, because it is not in his power to say beforehand which of these societies is solvent or which is insolvent; and, therefore, the only safe course for the Postmaster General to 1802 take is to lay down an absolute rule that his postmasters shall not take business which conflicts either with their duty to him or his servants, or conflicts with the interests of the Post Office Savings Banks which are committed to their charge. In one case that occurred at Thirsk a circular was issued by the postmaster, and I only mention this to illustrate the point which I wish to bring before the House, and it is this—It is easy to understand that the promoters of speculative and doubtful companies will very gladly seek out postmasters—knowing they must be valuable to them—in different parts of the country, in order to induce them to act as their agents. It is perfectly obvious that a postmaster, especially in a country district, who knows the transactions of the Post Office Savings Bank, is in a position, possibly better than any other man in the district, to know who are the people who are saving money, and, therefore, most likely to invest in these societies. We ought not to allow our postmasters to be used by these speculative promoters in any such way in order to divert the moneys of the thrifty poor people from a real and safe security into very doubtful ones on the plea that they are giving actually more interest and more safety. In this particular case the postmaster of Thirsk, in April, 1891, issued a circular from the, post office, stating—
The safest and best investments at the present day are the House and Land Investment Trust (Limited), London, and the Liberator Building Society, where either small or large investments can be made, and 5 or 6 per cent. eventually received on the sum half-yearly, Mr. Jaques, postmaster of Thirsk, can safely recommend the above societies to his friends fur investment, having been connected with them, both as shareholder and depositor, for 10 years. J. R. has no hesitation in saying that the House and Land Trust has been unrivalled both as regards its management and security and its permanent success, and J. R, therefore, recommends it to you as one of the most lucrative and safe investments of the present day.With our subsequent knowledge of the safety of the security offered by these two investments, of course we know there was a little exaggeration in this. But I have only mentioned it because I thought it due to the postmaster of Thirsk to say that, wrong as he was, in my opinion, in issuing such a circular at all in his capacity and in his position as postmaster, wrong as he was in inducing—as 1803 unquestionably he did induce—people who were saving and putting their money in the Post Office Savings Bank to put it into securities of that kind, I do not charge him for one moment with having done that with any knowledge of the facts; and the best proof of that is that the man himself was a large loser by these securities. Therefore it is I say I do not attack individuals, and that my desire and object is to attack the system. The people in the district of Thirsk, I believe, have lost £12,000 by these two societies alone; and there are in this country, according to the Return which the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to give me, I think, some 60 or 70 post offices where postmasters act as agents, and some of these act for a large number of these societies, and my object is to obtain from the Postmaster General a declaration of his opinion that these should be put a stop to, and to learn from him the steps he proposes to adopt to try and put a stop to these agencies. These agencies not only result in such transactions as I have described, but they also, I think, in some districts, and certainly in some post offices, seriously interfere with the business of the office. It is not unatural that the postmaster, having several agencies, possibly bringing him in a larger income than the Postmaster General gives him, does rather favour that kind of business, to the exclusion, or, any rate, to the delay of the business of the Post Office proper. I do not think it is difficult for the Postmaster General to deal with this question, and I venture to submit, in conclusion, that the Postmaster General ought to take steps at once to put a stop to those agencies in every case in which it can be done; that he ought to take steps to deal with the remaining cases. I would venture to submit that it is possible for him to do this. He should say that in each case of all further appointments the postmaster should not be allowed to take any agencies of that kind. He might, in the second place, forbid these agencies in the case of all existing postmasters who are not agents already, and in regard to the case of those who have already some existing agencies, the postmaster ought to take steps to terminate them at the earliest possible moment. I believe the Postmaster General is not unwilling to 1804 do that. I can quite understand that he desires to deal fairly and equitably with possible interests that have grown up. But the right hon. Gentleman will find, if he speaks out plainly on the subject, that his difficulties will disappear. He has many levers by which he can bring existing agencies to an end without delay. For instance, he is not bound to continue the post office in any particular house, or to continue any particular postmaster who does not give all his time to the service of the Post Office. But even if the right hon. Gentleman does find any difficulty in dealing with the matter, I think he should not allow even an expenditure of money to stand in his way, because I believe he will effect a great improvement in the Service, and will prevent a repetition of the terrible disasters which have occurred in these different districts through the failure of these financial societies, if he will lay down rules which will prevent postmasters and sub-postmasters from acting as agents for such societies.
§ THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,) Nottingham, E.I do not object at all to the tone of the right hon. Gentleman in bringing forward this matter. I think he has done very good service in calling the attention of the House to the incident which took place at Thirsk, which was the first case that brought the matter under public notice. But my attention had been called to the subject by previous cases, and I certainly was astonished, on investigating these cases, to find that these were governed by no definite rule on the subject. On the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman, a Return has been laid on the Table giving some details as to the postmasters who are acting as agents for these societies; but I have thought it necessary to call for further and more detailed information about the 60 or 70 towns mentioned in that Return. As regards the future policy of the Post Office in the matter, I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me in saying that there are difficulties in dealing with cases in which postmasters have been acting for years as agents for those societies, because there was no rule prohibiting them. I know of a case in which a postmaster, acting as agent for one of these societies, advertised the fact, and stated that the society gave a high rate of interest to 1805 Post Office Savings Bank depositors, thereby holding out an inducement to the people of his district to divert their savings from the Post Office Bank to the society for which he was agent. I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman now what decision may be arrived at; but, at any rate, that decision will clearly define the positions in this matter of new postmasters and of all postmasters who are not agents for these societies, and I shall be glad to consult with him as to the best way of testing the cases of Postmasters who have been acting as agents for these societies for years.
§ MR. DANE (Fermanagh, N.)said, he wished to say a few words on the subject brought forward by the hon. Member for South Tyrone with reference to the delay which had taken place in the office of the Land Purchase Commission in Dublin. If there was one matter which Irishmen of all classes and creeds were agreed upon, it was in reference to that scandalous delay. The hon. Member had cited eases which he had no doubt would be borne out when the facts came to be inquired into; but those cases were only typical of many thousands of others in Ireland where delay had taken place, to the great detriment of both parties concerned, the detriment of the landlords, and also the serious detriment of the tenants who were desirous, in many parts of the country, of settling down and enjoying themselves on the farms. The hon. Member for South Tyrone, as far as he could gather, stated that the delay was due, in some measure, to the Land Purchase Commissioners assuming judicial functions which the hon. Member said wore entirely out or keeping with the office they occupied: and, as far as he could judge, the hon. Members remarks received the approbation of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. As a member of the Irish Bar, who had practised in the Laud Parchase Department, he could say that the hon. Member had rather exaggerated his case, because he thought that any professional man who had practised in the Courts of either the late Mr. M'Carthy, whose loss they all deplored, or the present Mr. Commissioner Lynch, certainly could not ascribe to either of those gentlemen an assumption of judicial functions. But he quite endorsed every word the hon. Member had said as 1806 regarded the delay which had taken place in the Office. He did not know whether that delay was duo entirely to what the hon. Member called red tapeism; but he knew the opinion of solicitors and members of the Irish Bar who had practised in those Courts, and that opinion was that the delay was caused entirely by the stinginess of the English Treasury.
§ MR. J. MORLEYHear, hear!
§ MR. DANEsaid, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that those most interested in the carrying out of the work of the Land Purchase Department firmly believed that the cause of the delay was the under-manning of the Office. The right hon. Gentleman said it was a costly Department. He had no doubt it was, and he could only say that the opinion of many of those who were brought into contact with the Department was that it was by reason of the Examiners of title being entirely undermanned that these delays had arisen. He hoped the Chief Secretary would endeavour to ascertain what were the real causes of this outrageous delay, and that he would set himself to remedy it in conjunction with the Treasury. There was one other matter referred to by the Chief Secretary in which he heartily concurred, and that was with reference to what he said regarding a Minister of Agriculture for Ireland. That was a matter which had been engaging the attention of the Irish people a good deal of late, and he knew that in the North of Ireland not a few representative Boards had passed resolutions advocating the establishment in Ireland of an independent Agricultural Department. No Department was more wanted in Ireland, and no Department would do more good.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTIn accordance with the pledge I gave early in the evening, I beg leave now to move the Adjournment of this Debate.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."— (Sir W. Harcourt.)
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Debate further adjourned till To-morrow.