§ MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that recently the agent of the Earl of Shaftesbury offered to sell, under the Land Act, 1903, to a second-term judicial tenant, Mr. David L. Wilson, of North-East Division, Carrickfergus, county Antrim, an agricultural holding of four acres at twenty-seven and three-quarter years purchase, the tenant to pay in addition £45 in cash; and that, on the tenant refusing these terms and offering to buy within the zones on terms similar to those granted to the other Shaftesbury tenants in the same division, the holding was sold to a neighbouring landlord; and, in view of the fact that purchase agreements having been signed previously for all the other 25 lands in this division, has a precedent been formed to govern cases of this kind; is the bonus payable on estates under such circumstances where all the lands are not sold by the original vendors to the occupying tenants at the time the estates are under negotiation; and will he state what rules or regulations he will adopt to cover cases of this nature when such lands have come within the sphere of the Estates Commissioners.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) An originating application in respect of the sale of portion of the estate of the Earl of Shaftesbury has been lodged with the Estates Commissioners, who have agreed to declare portion of the lands comprised therein to be an "estate." The holding of Mr. David Wilson is not in the neighbourhood of the portion so declared. If application is made that the portion of the property in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. D. Wilson's holding be declared an "estate, "the Commissioners will consider the circumstances alleged in the Question.