§ MR. M'FADDENI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he has received a copy of a resolution passed at a meeting of the Magherafelt District Council regretting the loss which the proposed sale of the Derry Central Railway to the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway Company will entail on its shareholders, and urging the Treasury to refuse its sanction to the scheme for the distribution of the balance of the purchase money after payment of the amount due to the Treasury, unless 1333 provision is made for its equal distribution amongst all classes of shareholders; and whether, considering the feeling amongst the local representative bodies against the proposed division of the balance of the purchase money, and that the said resolution was not legally passed, the Treasury will withhold their consent to the proposed sale, and their support of the Bill to be introduced for the sanctioning of this sale, until a legally and properly constituted meeting of the shareholders is called to decide upon the distribution of the balance of the purchase money.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINYes, Sir. I received a copy of the resolution referred to in the question, but it is not for the Treasury to determine how the sum set apart for shareholders in the Derry Central Company is to be distributed among the different interests concerned. This is a question for the Committee to which the Bill must be referred.