§ MR. WATTI beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will, in order to cheapen and expedite litigation in Scotland, bring about the abolition of appeals from one 694 judge to another single judge, and particularly from sheriff-substitute to sheriff principal.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW, Hawick Burghs)By the Sheriff Courts Bill now before the House the Government propose considerably to raise the limit of actions in which the sheriff-substitute's judgment is final, and otherwise to simplify and cheapen procedure. No further steps are at present in contemplation. Crannagh Farm
§ MR. SHEEHAN (Cork County, Mid.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a labourer named Thomas Gaffney applied for a cottage and allotment of land in the Mountmellick rural district on a particular farm of land known as Crannagh; that the sites committee of the council subsequently altered Gaffney's representation and marked the site on a farm known as Clonian, far distant from his work, and took the representation of the labourer who had originally applied on the latter holding and changed it to the site which Gaffney had selected in the first instance; and will he inquire from the district council what is the explanation of this juggling with representations, and why Gaffney's cottage was not marked on the site selected by him.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.)The Local Government Board understand that the facts are as stated in the Question. The responsibility for selecting proper sites for labourers' cottages rests with the rural district councils. It is not the practice of the Local Government Board to interfere on behalf of individual applicants in such cases. The Board are not prepared to give any support to the view that the labourer himself should have the absolute selection of the site.