§ MR. O'SHEEI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to recent prosecutions in England indicating that foreign products, such as bacon, butter, and eggs, are sold as Irish products; whether the Department of Agriculture in Ireland has made any representations to the English Board of Agriculture as to the necessity for a more energetic and stringent enforcement of the law in this matter; and whether, if this cannot be otherwise secured, the Department of Agriculture in Ireland has power to devote a portion of its income to the payment of special inspectors for the detection of such frauds in the chief centres of population in England and Scotland; if so, whether it will consider the advisability of doing so.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The Department has been in correspondence with the English Board of Agriculture in regard to butter frauds. The Irish Department has recently increased its staff of transit inspectors, who are required to protect the interests of Irish produce both in transit and on sale, in Great Britain as well as in Ireland.