§ CAPTAIN CRAIG (Down, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cases have been brought to the notice of the authorities of reinstated evicted tenants selling the farm or stock, for the purchase of which money was advanced them by the Estates Commissioners, in order to discharge civil debts incurred prior to reinstatement or other claims; and whether such tenants, reinstated at the public expense, are at liberty to dispose of their holding and stock, retain the proceeds, and move to another part of the country or go abroad.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe Estates Commissioners are not aware of any cases in which reinstated evicted tenants have, in order to discharge debts incurred prior to reinstatement, sold their farms or stock for the purchase of which the Commissioners made advances. The Commissioner shave no power to interfere with the sale by a tenant purchaser of his interest in the purchased holding, but it is the Commissioners' present practice to require a purchaser who obtains a grant to sign a bond charging the holding with the repayment of the grant if he should transfer the holding within five years without the Commissioners' consent.
§ MR. MOORE (Armagh, N.)How long has that practice been enforced?
§ MR. BIRRELLI will inquire. I know it is the present practice.