§ MR. PATRICK ALOYSIUS M'HUGHI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that several public bodies in Ireland having 1042 loans from Her Majesty's Treasury are ready and anxious to pay back to the Treasury at par the amount of the principal of such loans now outstanding; and will he consider the advisability of so amending the provisions of the Local Loans Act of last year as to make that Act retrospective, and thereby enable public bodies in Ireland to pay off their liabilities to the Treasury and, by doing so, to effect a saving in their expenditure by borrowing money in the open market at a lower rate of interest than is charged by the Treasury?
§ MR. HANBURYApplications have been received from several local authorities in Ireland, as well as in Great Britain, for permission to pay of at par the outstanding balance of their loans. If such applications were granted it would be impossible not to extend the same facilities to all existing borrowers who might, with the security of local rates, be able to raise money on more favourable terms. Public loans resting on that security amount to over £24,000,000, and it is obvious that the premature return of anything approaching that amount, would not only greatly embarrass the Local Loans Fund, but endanger its solvency. The Act of last year provided that the rates of interest on public loans thereafter made might be reduced; but it did not deal with he question of repayment, and that being so I do not know how, by being made retrospective, it would effect the object aimed at in the second paragraph.