§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland how far the Irish Land Commissioners hold a firm of land agents, in entire control for the vendor of the negotiations for the sale of an estate, responsible for defective maps and representations subsequently resulting in the purchasing tenants being ordered to pay rents and attorn as tenants to a new landlord for lands in respect of which they are paying annuities as purchasers; whether he is aware that Messrs. Stewart and Son, acting in this capacity for Lord Longford, informed the Estates Commissioners that the tenants along the canal bank from Porterstown to the Downs Bog in Westmeath, had been obliged to take tenancies comprising the bank to the water's edge, and that they understood that they were purchasing those entire holdings and got no notice to the contrary, and no reduction of price, which would be a consequence of such a notice; and whether the Land Commission will now either maintain those purchasers in their 1142 entire holdings or reduce the annuities proportionately if the holdings are reduced?
§ Mr. BIRRELLAgents employed by owners who are selling estates under the Land Purchase Acts furnish to the Estates Commissioners such particulars as may be required. Portion of the estate referred to was intersected by the Royal Canal owned by the Midland Great Western Railway Company. Prior to the sale of his estate, Lord Longford allowed his tenants to use the canal banks, which he held as a yearly tenant from the company. The company have offered to make a letting of the banks to the tenant purchasers at the same rent in proportionate shares. Some of them have accepted the offer, while in the case of others who have refused the company have instituted legal proceedings and have obtained decrees for possession in each case. The holdings sold by Lord Long-ford under the Land Purchase Acts were the lands of which he was the owner in fee, and did not include any part of the canal banks. The estate maps lodged by the vendor did not purport to include the canal banks, and were prepared in accordance with the Commissioners' rules.