LOUGH CORRIB IMPROVEMENT COMPANY.
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RETURN to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons,
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"* dated 22 June 1848 ',—for, -V_
COPIES <{ of all Correspondence between the Solicitors of the English Share¬ holders of the Lough Corrib Improvement Company and the Board of Works in Ireland, and also between the said Solicitors and the Treasury, between the 1st day of January last and the present Time."
Whitehall, Treasury Chambers,!
25 July 1848.
J
CORRESPONDENCE WITH TOE BOARD OF WORKS IN IRELAND.
MEMORANDUM for the information of His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant and Sir C.
Wood, in Reply to Mr.
Rick's Letter to the former, and that of Messrs.
Hoddings, Townsend k Lee to the latter, enclosing Copy of their Letter of 17 January last to the Board of Works.
Enclose a copy of the Board's official reply to Messrs.
Hoddings, Townsend & Lee's communication, and in addition state, that both the letters above referred to are erroneous in some of their principal statements, and so calculated to mis-load as to require a distinct answer to each averment; which the Board accord¬ ingly furnish (on half margin) : copies of these letters annexed to this paper.
The only features in the present communication, and those upon which the writers seem chiefly to rely, are—
1st.
The finding of certain documents by Lord St.
Germans, received by him when Chief Secretary of Ireland, and most of which documents he received within the 12 months limited by the Act 5 & 6 Vict.
c.
105, s.
8.
2d.
The hardship and loss to which the English shareholders (who, whatever might be the character of the previous transactions, are assumed to have joined the Company with good faith) are made liable by the failure of the Lough Corrib Company to carry into effect the operations for which the Commission was issued, and from the Board of Works putting into operation the provisions of the General Drainage Acts.
With reference to the first, it will be found from Lord St.
Germans' (then Lord Eliot) answers of the 28th June and 9th August 1843, and other papers furnished by his Lordship to Sir William Somerville, that the Company "had not complied with the conditions prescribed by the Act" and section referred to, and that in consequence, his Lordship (who had himself shown, by the prepa-j ration and passing of that Act, the greatest interest m the undertaking, and used his best influence to afford, by the amendment of the original Act, a lair opportunity for the Company to right itself and proceed with the works) not only decided that they had not fulfilled the conditions of his amended Act, but as appears from the papers, was forced (from the investigation of the case, and the facts which transpired in relation to the Company) to the conclusion ex¬ pressed by him in his memoranda to Sir Robert Peel, m June 1844 ; namely, £S that the Irish Government would not be justified in facilitating the operations 590.
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