§ Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he was aware that for many years the Wexford Rural District Council, and their predecessors, the guardians of the Wexford Union, made it a practice to enter into agreements with the parties interested as to the price to be paid for the lands proposed to be acquired compulsorily for the purposes of the Labourers Acts; that the Wexford Council entered into a number of agreements with the parties interested in the lands proposed to be acquired under the compulsory part of the Wexford Rural District Labourers (Unopposed) Order, 1908; that on this last occasion the Local Government Board refused to sanction a practice by which the council had in the past saved money and expedited the work of taking land for labourers' cottages, and, instead, actually forced an arbitrator on the council by sealed orders; whether, although the Court of Appeal had since held that a district council had a statutory right to enter into such agreements as the Wexford District Council had done on this and former occasions, the Local Government Board had claimed the cost of the arbitration in question by sealed order; and whether, as the council deemed the inquiry unnecessary, and as the decision of the Court of Appeal confirmed that opinion, he would request the Local Government Board to withdraw their claim in so far as it applied to the cost of the arbitration of the 8th of July last?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI am informed by the Local Government Board that more than half the plots included in the Wexford Rural District Labourers (Unopposed) Order, 1908, were authorised to be acquired compulsorily. In June last, while arbitration proceedings were pending in council and the persons interested had not council and the persons interested had not agreed, the King's Bench Division unanimously decided, in another case, that where an Order confirming a scheme provides for the taking of land compulsorily by way of absolute purchase, the amount of compensation must be determined by an arbitrator appointed by the Board. In accordance with this decision the arbitrator made his award on 20th July last in the cases to which the hon. Member refers, and the Board on 29th September last issued their certificate as to the amount of costs 1998 payable by the council in respect of the arbitration. Such certificate is final, under Statute, and the amount certified has now become a debt due from the local authority to the Crown. The matter was thus concluded months before the decision of the Court of Appeal, referred to in the question, was given, and that decision obviously can have no application to a past transaction.