§ MR. JAMES O'KELLY (Roscommon, N.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is in accordance with the Land Act of 1903 for the Estates Commissioners, when dealing with an estate for which an application for an advance has been made, to accept purchase agreements and collect interest in lieu of rent from middlemen; and, if so, under what section of the Act.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The provision, under which an agreement for purchase by a middleman is received and interest in lieu of rent collected from him pending inquiry by the Estates Commissioners is Section 35 of he Land Act of 1896, with. which the Act of 1903 is construed as one. The Estates Commissioners inform me that if the middleman is a person having power under the Land Purchase Acts to sell to tenants, and if the Commissioners should come to the conclusion that the sub-tenants are of such a character as that they should be deemed. tenants, then the middleman's application for an advance for he purchase of the entire holding would be refused. If the middleman has not power to sell interest is similarly collected pending inquiry; and after the estate is inspected the Commissioners may, if they think fit, declare the sub-tenant to be a tenant and his parcel to be a holding. Until they do so the subtenant remains, tenant to the middleman and liable for rent.
§ Mr. JAMES O'KELLYTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that out of 172 purchase agreements lodged with the Estates Commissioners in re Mrs. Grace C. P. Mahon's estate, Strokestown, on the 25th April, 1906, upwards of eighty were from middlemen for holdings in the occupation of sub-tenants; that the Estates Commissioners have up to the present disregarded the subtenants and have collected interests from the middleman; whether the sub-tenants are entitled to any reduction from the middleman; and whether 93 the Government will remedy the grievance under which they are alleged to suffer.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that on the estate referred to there are eighty-three sub-tenancies, mostly town or village plots, of which thirty-four are stated to be held by yearly tenants and the remainder by weekly or monthly tenants. Until the estate has been inspected the Commissioners cannot decide whether all or any of these sub tenants will be declared to be tenants, or whether advances can or will be made to the middleman. Meanwhile the subtenants will not be prejudiced by the collection of interest in lieu of rent from the middleman.