§ MR. SHEEHANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that in the sale of a portion of the Templemary demesne, County Cork, by the owner, Mr. Fuge, the auction announcement contained a clause to the effect that when the ordinary sales of the holdings to the incoming tenants were completed agreements for purchase through the Land Commissioners shall be executed by the vendor and immediate possession handed over to the purchasers, and that, though the lands are subject to the normal rent of £25, the annuity payable by the purchaser to the Land Commission is £16 5s. 6d. per annum; whether he is aware that the statement contained hi this announcement of sale is directly contrary to the policy declared in the Report of the Estates Commissioners for the year ended 31st March, 1906, which stated that they had refused applications for purchase where the vendor had parcelled untenanted land in his occupation into holdings, put them up to auction to the highest bidder subject to an assumed rental, and then proposed to sell at once, under the Act of 1903, the holdings thus created to the auction purchasers; whether any such application was received in respect of the Templemary demesne; can he say how many similar applications were received since 1906 by the Commissioners; and, seeing that the auction purchasers 54 in these cases are invariably large farmers or graziers who already possess extensive farms, whilst small uneconomic holdings exist in the neighbourhood and the labourers and evicted tenants are unprovided for, will he state whether it is the intention of the Government to legislate against this evil in their Land Bill.
§ MR. BIRRELLAs regards the general question of the creation of tenancies by owners of demesnes and other untenanted lands I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his Question of 22nd October. The Estates Commissioners understand that the owner of the estate referred to in the Question intended to put up portion of his demesne lands for sale as stated. The auction did not, however, take place, and the Commissioners at his request are having a preliminary inspection made with a view to estimating the price they would advance if formal proceedings are instituted for the sale of the lands to them as untenanted. Estates in which purchase agreements were lodged since 1906 have not yet been reached for inspection, and the Commissioners are not, therefore, in a position to say in how many cases the agreements have been signed by auction purchasers.
§ MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN (Cork)Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out some hope that in the distribution of something like 1,000,000 acres of untenanted land in Ireland the claims of over 100,000 agricultural labourers who occupy the same position in the South of Ireland as the migratory labourers in the west will not be totally ignored?
§ MR. BIRRELLI quite feel the force of the observations of the hon. Member. The difficulty is that there is not enough land in Ireland to go round, and I do not like to make promises about untenanted land which has already in the minds of a great number of people in Ireland been appropriated to them. As regards the point raised that in various parts of Ireland labourers may be in the same position as similar cotters in the west, the Attorney-General tells me that they may be partly provided for in the consideration of the subject.