§ Mr. DOOGAN (Tyrone, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can yet state what answer, if any, has been given by the Commissioners of Education to the memorial of their tenants on the Dungannon School Estate, praying for a sale of their holdings at a fair price; whether he is aware that numerous tenants on this estate, particularly in the parish of Clonoe, were in March last processed for rent which they have since paid, together with all costs incurred: and that these same tenants, or most of them, without notice or demand, have now again been processed for rent by order of the Commissioners; and whether the forces of the Crown will be placed at the disposal of this Government Board to make evictions of tenants whose inability to pay has arisen through no fault of their own?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThe Commissioners, I am informed, have not yet arrived at a final decision in the matter of the sale to the tenants of the estate 763 mentioned. Proceedings were taken against several of the tenants in March last, with the result that a considerable amount of rent, together with costs, was paid, and further proceedings since taken against a number of tenants, including some who had been processed in March, have led to a similar result. With regard to the last paragraph, it is a duty incumbent upon the Executive to afford protection in the execution of all writs or decrees of a competent court.
§ MR. DOOGANArising out of that answer, I would ask the right honourable Gentleman if he is aware that a large number of these tenants live on patches of reclaimed bog; that in good seasons they are very poor, and that in this bad season they are suffering very considerable privation; that, owing to the arrears of rent which have been kept hanging over their heads, they were debarred from the benefits of the Land Acts, and that the rents they are now being sued for are the arrears of unreduced rents which they are utterly unable to pay?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURIt may be as the honourable Gentleman says, but I have no information and have no control over the Commissioners.