§ MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a new Rule has been made by the Board of Public Works in Dublin to decline to grant loans under the Land Loans Services Act, 10 Vict. c. 32, to tenant farmers in respect of the portion of the proposed improvements on their holdings which can be executed by themselves and their families; whether he will state the date of this new Rule; and whether, seeing the hardship of the operation of this new Rule in the case of farmers possessed of small holdings in the West of Ireland, the Board of Works will be directed to revert to the course pursued in these cases under previous Governments?
SIR J. T. HIBBERTNo new Rule has been made, but in the last few years greater care has been taken in the preliminary inquiries into the character of works proposed to separate those that could fairly be expected to be done by the labour of the tenant or his family. It is clearly undesirable, in the interests of the tenants themselves, to encourage them to encumber their tenancies with rent-charges in respect of works on which no actual outlay is necessary; but care is taken to distinguish cases where the execution of works by a tenant or his family involves the loss by them of other remunerative employment.