§ MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that, on his own suggestion, followed by the request of the Estates Commissioners, a statement on behalf of twenty-nine occupants of holdings under £5 valuation on the Malone estate, twenty-one occupants of holdings larger but still uneconomic, and twenty men with no holdings, has been lodged with the Commissioners, praying them to verify by inspection these and other facts in the statement, and, in conformity with the Blake-Foster case, to refuse to sanction the sale unless the non-residential grass farms were sold for distribution; and if he will take steps to prevent the Act of 1903 being used to create a monopoly of land in the hands of two graziers to the detriment of these sixty poor families.
§ MR. GINNELLTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will ascertain why the Estates Commissioners propose to declare the congested portion of Colonel Malone's Baronstown property an estate, while excluding from it two grass farms which the grazier is not entitled to purchase under the Land Act of 1903, which are required for the relief of the congestion, and which would be surrendered for that purpose if the Commissioners refused to sanction the sale without them.
§ MR. GINNELLTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of 991 Ireland, having regard to the fact that Colonel Malone's Baronstown estate was inspected before the present instructions for inspectors were drawn up, that consequently the inspection and report were not such as those instructions require, and did not include congestion or the material for relief of it, though both exist on the estate, that the Commissioners have been obliged to modify their original proposals based upon that Report, and that all the tenants, except two graziers, desire a fresh inspection to be made with special regard to congestion and the relief of it, will he ask the Commissioners to accede to this request.
§ MR. GINNELLTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that all the grass farms on Colonel Malone's estate, which the tenants want distributed, are non-residential and wholly untilled; that the graziers have never used them otherwise than as grass farms, and hold several similar grass farms besides large residential farms, and would probably surrender the farms in question for distribution among their poor neighbours if asked by the Commissioners; and will the Commissioners communicate with them with that object.
§ (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have received, through the hon. Member, the statement referred to in the first Question, and have informed him in reply that, as regards the two holdings which are described in the Question as non-residential grass farms, one is excluded from the estate which is being sold, and an advance of £3,000 only is being sanctioned for the other holding, which is subject to a judicial tenancy. The Commissioners proceeded to say that they were of opinion that they should not refuse to declare the remaining holdings to be an estate because the excluded holdings are not surrendered for division, and they have no power to compel such surrender. I have fully dealt with the matters referred to in the three remaining Questions in my Answers to the numerous Questions on the subject which the hon. Member has already put. I have stated, on the Commissioners' authority, that the grass 992 farms on the estate do not consist of untenanted land. They are held on yearly tenancies or under lease, and the Commissioners hold that they have no power to compel such farms to be sold to them as untenanted land. The Commissioners have already had an inspection made of the estate, and do not consider any further inspection to be necessary. The declaration of particular lands as an estate is a matter solely for the judicial discretion of the Estates Commissioners, and it does not fall within the province of the Government to direct or advise the Commissioners as to the manner in which such judicial discretion is exercised.