§ CAPTAIN DONELAN (Cork, E.)On behalf of the hon. Member for West Waterford (Mr. J. J. SHEE), I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) who is responsible for the assigning of lay Assistant Commissioners to hear applications to fix fair rents under the Laud Law (Ireland) Acts; (2) by what rules such applications are assigned for hearing by the lay Assistant Commissioners; (3) whether, in respect of applications heard during the months of September, October, November, and December 1895, two lay Assistant Commissioners named Messrs. W. Walpole and C. R. Butler had assigned for hearing by them with a legal Assistant Commissioner a larger number of cases than any other two lay Assistant Commissioners, and whether the aggregate of the old rents dealt with by them was,£3,092 15s. 3d, and the reduction on same amounted to 19.49 per cent; (4) whether during the same period the aggregates of the old rents dealt with by the other sets of lay Assistant Commissioners were respectively,£2,037 3s. 1d., £1,913 7s., £1,571 12s. 7d., £7980s. f. d., and £599 14s. 7d., on which the reductions made were respectively 22.43 per cent., 22.79 per cent., 26.53 per cent., 22.93 per cent., and 31.1 per cent.; (5) is there any explanation of the difference between the percentage of reduction made by the several sets of lay Assistant Commissioners; and (6) whether the same state of facts applies to the months 1038 of January and February this year in respect of the cases heard during these months?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURAs to the first two paragraphs, the system followed is explained in the appendix to the Report of the Select Committee on Land Acts. The figures quoted in the third and fourth paragraphs appear to be taken from the Parliamentary Return of judicial rents fixed in the period mentioned, but the inference attempted to be drawn in the third paragraph is not correct, inasmuch as that Return merely contains particulars of cases in which the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners were notified to the Land Commission and does not show the number of cases actually referred to the Sub-Commissioners in the same period. As a matter of fact a larger number of cases were sent in this period to other Sub-Commissioners than to those named in the third paragraph. It is not the fact, as implied in the fourth paragraph, that the Assistant Commissioners named therein fixed the judicial rents in question at a higher aggregate amount than any other set of Assistant Commissioners employed during the same period. As to the last two paragraphs, the rents referred to were fixed by the Assistant Commissioners after having heard the evidence that was offered to them by the parties, and after inspecting the holdings. Their orders were made in a judicial capacity, and if the parties were dissatisfied an appeal lay to the Land Commission.