§ MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutentant of Ireland whether in cases of sales within the zones, under the Land Act of 1903, any record was kept prior to 1906, and is any record being kept now, of arrears of rent included in the purchase price; has the bonus been paid, or is it being paid, on the gross price including arrears; is there any authority in the Act, or analogy in any Act, for the State paying a bonus on the amount of a civil debt which has been recovered without cost; and seeing that tenants in debt are embarrasssed and, therefore, not free agents, will this peculiar method of obtaining public money through them be stopped.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. BRYCE,) Aberdeen, S.I am informed by the Land Commission that no such record has been, or is being, kept. Under Section 48, Sub-section (1), of the Act of 1903, the bonus or percentage is payable on the amount of the purchase money advanced under the Land Purchase Acts, subject to the proviso that the bonus is not to be paid in respect of any land re-sold to the vendor. When once the advances have been sanctioned and the purchase money 734 paid into court, the statute provides that where at the date of the agreement for purchase arrears of rent were due in respect of any holding on the estate, a sum equivalent in amount to those arrears, but not exceeding in any case one year's rent, shall be paid out of the purchase money to the person who would have been entitled to receive those arrears for his own use. The statute contains no provision excluding the portion of the purchase money so applied from the calculation of the bonus under Section 48, and it has been judicially decided that the bonus must be calculated and paid in accordance with the statute without deduction. The objection taken in the Question to the present practice is therefore really an objection to the terms of the statute.