§ MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the services of the flax expert have been withdrawn from the Co-operative Flax Society of Dromara, county Down, at three weeks' notice; whether he is aware that the expert was managing a scutching business, and was in charge of a mill and a seed business, and that his sudden removal will disorganise the whole arrangements, and cause much waste of money, the abandonment of the experiments already instituted, and the dissolution of the society; whether he can state on what ground the Department of Agriculture has decided without notice to discontinue the payment of part of the expert's salary; and whether, in view of the results of the decision, it will be reconsidered.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) On the 3rd instant the Department of Agriculture notified to the society in question 1078 that after the 31st instant they would not contribute to the salary of the flax expert who manages the society's scutch mill. The society has received financial assistance from the Department for the past five years, and ought, in the opinion of the Department, to be now self-supporting. It will not be necessary that this year's field experiments, which have been commenced at Dromara, should be abandoned as the result of the Department's decision, for if the society should not retain the expert the Department will undertake the supervision of the trials.