§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Kerry, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the Town 394 Commissioners of Tralee have obtained the consent of the Local Government Board to borrow some £16,000 for the purpose of paying off their debt to the Board of Works incurred by drainage, waterworks, etc.; that the Board of Works refuse to accept the repayment of this £16,000 under Treasury regulations, except at a premium of 13 to 14 per cent.; and whether, in view of the circumstances that the Tralee Town Commissioners only received £100 sterling for every £100 of stock advanced by the Treasury to the Board of Works, the Treasury regulations will be relaxed in their favour, so as to enable them to repay no more than the sum of money they received?
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY, Preston)The facts are as stated in the Question, except that the amount of the loans outstanding is £13,451, not £16,000. One of the conditions on which they were advanced was that their repayment should be spread over a given number of years varying from 30 to 50, and neither of the contracting parties has any power or right to break this condition without the consent of the other. As I have frequently explained in answer to similar questions, so long as the market price of Local Loans Stock is considerably above par, as at present, the solvency of the Local Loans Fund might be seriously affected by premature repayments of local loans at par only, and it is therefore only just to the taxpayer, on whom the loss would otherwise ultimately fall, not to allow such premature repayment except on condition that it is made not at par but at the current market price of the stock.