§ MR. MURNAGHANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the agent of the Gresham Assurance Company at Carrickmore, county Tyrone, invited a number of the leading tenants on the estate to meet him for the purpose of fixing second judicial term leases and failed to keep his appointment, and that since then his agent has issued a large number of civil bills and ejectment processes against the tenants, inflicting on them thereby heavy law costs and expenses; whether he is aware that this agent has issued a process against a very poor tenant for £5 for raising a quantity of bogwood, by which means the man strove to pay his rent, the only resource he had to meet the agent's demands; that the tenants on this estate made application to purchase their holdings, 941 but received no reply to their request; and will he say if it would be the duty of the Land Commission to order a sale if appealed to in this matter?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURI am unable to say whether the agent invited the tenants of this state to confer with him as stated, but I understand that negotiations have taken place between the parties without result, apparently. A number of the tenants have been decreed, and the majority of them have since settled with the agent. The tenant mentioned in the second paragraph was proceeded against for cutting wood on a portion of bog not on his own holding; I have no information as to his circumstances. The tenants made application to purchase their holdings, but the property had then passed into the hands of the Assurance Company. I cannot say what would be the decision of the Land Commission in the event referred to in the last paragraph.