§ MR. CAREW (Dublin College Green)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is 81 proposed to have any sittings of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation in Ireland, as was arranged last autumn; and will he state what steps have been taken to make public in Ireland the nature and objects of the inquiry, and whether any memorandum or statement has been issued showing the special heads on which evidence would be required irrespective of such local taxation; and whether, in view of the facts that since the establishment of the Commission a new system of local government has been established in Ireland and the incidence of local taxation has been changed, and that upon the Commission as at present constituted there is no member who resides in Ireland or with practical experience of Irish local affairs and administration, the Government will consider the advisability of either appointing a new body of Commissioners to sit in Ireland or of now adding to the existing Commission persons with practical and intimate knowledge of Irish legislation and Irish local government.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. G. W. BALFOUR,) Leeds, CentralI am informed that the Royal Commission on Local Taxation have felt themselves obliged by various circumstances to abandon their proposed meeting in Dublin. The Irish witnesses whom it was intended to hoar have been examined in London, and their evidence will shortly be published. The scope of the inquiry it set forth in the terms of reference and has been made known to the public through the medium of advertisements extensively published in the Irish press last year. No further steps have since been taken in the matter. With regard to the second paragraph, I think the time has hardly come for an exhaustive inquiry into the working of the new system of local taxation established in Ireland by the Local Government Act. I may remind the hon. Member that one of the members of the Commission is the hon. and learned Member for East Donegal.