§ * MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a report of a meeting of tenants on the Arnott Estate, county Cork, at which the Rev. T. Shinkwin, P.P., announced, on the authority of a Roman Catholic Bishop, that the Estates Commissioners had decided not to divide the estate of Sir John Arnott for purposes of sale under the Land Act, but to insist upon the estate being sold as a whole; whether he is aware that the tenants of about sixty holdings on this estate, all adjacent to one another and of a total area of 5,000 acres, have entered into purchase agreements, and that an application is pending to have this portion of the property declared a separate estate; and will he say whether the Estates Commissioners have already come to a decision in the matter.
§ MR. WALTER LONGNo proceedings for the sale of this estate have come before the Commissioners. They can give no decision in the matter until the facts are fully before them.
§ * MR. LONSDALEIs it competent for two Commissioners to give a decision in the absence of the third on matters of this kind.
§ MR. WALTER LONGreplied that he assumed that in ordinary cases the decision of the majority of the Commissioners, two out of three, would be operative, but he could not undertake to decide questions of law.