§ MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Bank of Ireland, which is the Government Bank in Ireland, accept from their customers cheques signed in Irish; whether the Postmaster-General honours, or is prepared to honour postal orders signed by the payee in Irish; whether the collectors of Inland Revenue in Ireland receive, or are prepared to receive, applications for gun and other licences written or signed in Irish; whether the Government have decided to regard Irish in the future as the commercial banking language of Ireland; and whether it is their intention to instruct the collectors of Customs and Inland Revenue, postmasters, and other Government officials in Ireland to issue notices to the public accordingly in Irish and English.
§ MR. BOLANDIs the right hon. Gentleman not aware that all sensible banks in this country are quite willing to accept customers who sign their cheques in Irish? If he wishes, I can give him specific information on this point.
§ MR. RUNCIMAN (for Mr. ASQUITH)The relations between the Bank of Ireland and its private customers are not under the control of the Government, and I have no information as to the practice of that Bank with regard to the signatures of its customers' cheques. As regards postal orders, I am informed by my right hon. friend that the Rule is: "If the payee's name be written in characters other than English, the order may be paid, provided that the signature is in similar characters, and appears to agree with the name of the payee as shown in the body of the order. If an order in which the payee's name appears in English characters be receipted by a signature written in another character which the paying officer cannot decipher, the order may be paid if the paying officer is satisfied of the identity of the payee and of the fact that the writing is his signature. The paying officer 1589 should add to his signature the words 'known as—' or 'identified as—', as the case may be." In the case of gun and other licences, where the English name and address of an applicant is known to the Inland Revenue officers, they would not refuse to issue a licence on the ground that the application is not made in English. Where however the English name and address is not known, the application must be signed in English before the licence can be issued. The question whether Irish is in the future to be "the commercial banking language" appears to me to be one to be decided by the commercial and banking community itself rather than by the Government. Up to the present it has not been found necessary to issue the notices referred to in the latter part of the Question in Irish as well as English.
§ MR. CLAUDE HAYDoes the hon. Gentleman propose to issue any instructions on the subject?
§ MR. RUNCIMANNo, sir, we do not propose to issue any instructions which are unnecessary.