§ MR. HAYI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Great Northern and City Railway Company have demolished, as a result of secret purchase by their contractors, dwelling-houses occupied by the poorer labouring classes in Poole Street, Wick-ham Street, and Wiltshire Row, Shore-ditch, and have thereby displaced about 250 persons of the working classes, whose work compels them to live in. the neigh- 807 bourhood, without providing or proposing to provide any accommodation for the persons thus unhoused: and whether he proposes to take steps to compel the Great Northern and City Railway Company to rehouse persons of the working class whose dwellings the company purchases for the purpose of creating a depôt of the company.
§ *MR. RITCHIEI am informed by the Great Northern and City Railway Company that the facts are not as suggested in the first part of the question, but that the lands referred to have been openly acquired by the contractors working for the company for purposes of offices, yards, and so forth in connection with their works. If so, as the lands have not been acquired by the company, I have no such power to compel the provision of rehousing accommodation, as I might have, by statute if the houses were being purchased by the company under their Acts.