§ Mr. D. CRILLY (Mayo, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he has, seen in the Irish daily papers of Friday last, the report of the meeting held in Belmullet on the previous day, under the Chairmanship of the Right Rev. Monsignor Hewson, V.F., P.P., when that right rev. gentleman speaking with the authority of his high position affirmed that distress bordering on famine existed in the Belmullet Union; if he had noted that amongst other assertions made on the occasion by Monsignor Hewson, the following are in record in the report of his speech: (1) That the distress now existing threatened to be the most serious 887 that the people had been in since 1860, and that it would probably not be exceeded by that of the winter of 1870, and the spring of 1880; (2) that the official sent down recently from the Local Government Board to inquire into the distress in the Belmullet Union never visited a single homestead or a single farm in the parish of Belmullet; (3) that from the end of November up to the present time the consumption of meal in the districts supplied by the traders of Belmullet had increased eighteen fold beyond the normal consumption in other years, proving as Monsignor Hewson held, that the potato crop had failed; (4) that the rates laben all round in the Belmullet Union amounted to nearly 10s. in the pound between poor rates and baroney cess; and whether in view of such assertions made by an ecclesiastic of Monsignor Hewson's position and authority, the Government will not now take immediate and exceptional measures to meet this distress in the Belmullet Union?
§ *MR. GERALD BALFOURThe hon. Member who puts this Question was good enough to hand in at the Irish Office today a private notice of it; but time, of course, has not admitted of my obtaining a detailed report. I may, however, say that I have before me official reports made from sources other than the Local Government Board, which confirm the reports already made by that Board. From these reports it appears that there is no reason to anticipate general distress of a nature requiring the exceptional expedient of relief works, and it is expected that any cases of distress which may arise can be dealt with under the Poor Law system.