§ MR. D. MACALEESE (Monaghan, N.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Clogher Valley Tramway Company employ a manager at a salary of £300 a year and a secretary at a salary of £250 a year for performing services of a very limited kind; whether the company, like other carrying companies, will publish quarterly or half-yearly returns of their traffic receipts and expenditure in the newspapers; whether the company still employ their men at raising ballast, for the purpose of selling same to the Great Northern Railway, instead of using them to keep their own line in a state of safety for the travelling public; and, will he recommend to the company a due limitation of salaries and a periodical publication of their accounts in the newspapers?
§ MR. HANBURYI am informed that the Clogher Valley Tramway Company employ a manager at a salary of £250 and a secretary at £225 a year. As to the reasonableness of these salaries in relation to the duties to be performed, I have no information on which to judge. The company are under no obligation to publish quarterly or half-yearly returns of their traffic receipts and expenditure in the newspapers, and there is nothing to be gained by doing so where the price of the shares depends not on the receipts but on the interest guaranteed. I understand that the men employed in raising ballast are not the company's permanent waymen, but men employed specially for the purpose.