§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if, to illustrate the effect of the Irish Land Bill, as amended, he will state the amount of principal, interest, and total payments, respectively, to be made under it in the full term of 68½ years by a tenant purchaser of a holding rented at £100 yearly purchasing at the average price of tenanted land in Ireland since 1903; and append, from the accounts of the Irish Land Commission, a list of all the closed tenant-purchase transactions under the Acts prior to that of 1903, in which the holdings are no longer liable to purchase annuities, showing in each case 1557W the yearly rent prior to the purchase, the number of years' purchase of rent, the price, the amount of interest paid on the advance, and the total payment in respect of the purchase, including guarantee deposit where paid and not refunded?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe reply given by my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury to a question asked by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh on the 22nd April last states that an advance of £100 would be repaid by half-yearly instalments of sinking fund at the rate of 10s. per annum, accumulating at 3 per cent. interest in 65½ years. The total payments which would be made during that period by a tenant purchaser paying an annuity of 3½ per cent., as contemplated by the Irish Land Bill on an advance of £100, would be £229 5s., of which £32 15s. would be for principal and the remainder for interest. The list asked for in the concluding portion of the question could not be prepared without imposing undue labour on the staff of the Land Commission and retarding their ordinary work.
§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary if he will say in how many of the 3,731 cases in which the Estates Commissioners refused advances under the Land Act of 1903 to the 31st March, 1909, on the ground of insufficient security, were the rents judicial; the percentage these cases are of the entire number of sales under that Act; the average number of years' purchase paid under that Act; the number of refusals on the same ground in cases of judicial tenants under all the previous Land Purchase Acts; the percentage these cases are of the entire number of sales under those Acts; and the average number of years' purchase paid under those Acts?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe statistics of the Estates Commissioners and the Land Commission do not give the information asked for respecting applications for advances under the Land Purchase Acts, 1885–1903, which have been refused. Information as to the number of years' purchase in cases where advances have been made under those Acts is given by counties and provinces in the Appendices to the Reports of the Land Commission and the Estates Commissioners.
§ Mr. O'SHEEasked the Chief Secretary whether, in the case of purchase agreements being entered into under the Land Act of 1903 and duly lodged with the other necessary documents with the Estates 1558W Commissioners before the passing of the present Land Bill into law, and in case the date of the passing of the Act should be substituted for 15th September as the date up to which pending purchase agreements may be lodged, the vendor will be entitled to a bonus under the graduated scale in the Bill if the same is passed unamended and the tenants will be liable to an annuity of only 3¼ per cent.?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe answer is in the affirmative. If the date of the passing of the Act were substituted for 15th September for the purpose indicated in the question, agreements lodged after 15th September and before the passing of the Act would be carried out on the basis of 3¼ per cent. annuities, and this alteration would not affect the bonus rate.