§ Mr. PATRICK O'BRIEN (for Mr. Thomas F. Smyth)asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has received 578 copies of resolutions passed at meetings of the ratepayers living in the guaranteeing area of the Cavan and Leitrim Light Railway Company, and held at Keshcarrigan, county Leitrim, last October, asking for an inquiry into the management of the railway company; and if this inquiry will be granted with a view to giving relief to ratepayers who are already heavily overtaxed?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI have received copies of the resolutions referred to, which were addressed to the Irish Government. The powers of the Board of Trade with regard to the management of this railway are limited to the ordering of an inquiry on the complaint of either of the county councils or of 20 ratepayers in any contributing barony, or of the county surveyors, that there has been default in the completion, working, or maintenance of the line and the matters of which complaint was made do not seem to come under any of these heads. Some, however, of these matters appear to be such as could be dealt with either by the auditor appointed by the local authorities under the provisions of the Order authorising the railway, or by the arbitrators appointed to certify the amounts due from the different contributing areas to make up the sum required for payment of the guaranteed dividends.