§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDETo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will insert provisions in his coming Land Purchase Amendment Bill to enable labourers to purchase their holdings from the Irish District Councils.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The question of legislation to the effect suggested by the hon. Baronet was very fully considered by the Government when the Labourers Bill was being framed, and was delcided in the negative. The object of the Labourers Acts is to provide accommodation for persons working as 414 agricultural labourers, and it would be undesirable, in the interests of the farmers and agriculturists generally, that labourers should be assisted to become the owners of their cottages and holdings. If they were enabled to purchase, there would be nothing to prevent them from selling or letting the cottages and plots to persons for whom they could not have been provided under the Acts. At present the labourer pays but a small rent, and his cottage is kept in repair for him; under the arrangement suggested in the Question he would have to pay a much higher annual charge in the shape of an instalment of the loan for sixty-eight and a half years in return for which he would have the prospect of being possessed of a cottage which might possibly be in ruins by the end of that time.