The payment made out of the Consolidated Fund during the year ended 31 March 1939 of the sum of 25,000 pounds for shares in the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company, Limited, is hereby validated and declared to have been lawfully made.

The payment made during the financial year ended 31 March 1939 out of the Internal Marketing Account of the sum of twenty-one hundredths of a penny a pound in respect of cheese that was manufactured from milk received during the year ended 31 July 1938 and was not exported is hereby validated and declared to have been lawfully made under section 12 of the Primary Products Marketing Amendment Act 1937.

Whereas the Southland Electric Power Board (hereinafter called the Board) entered into an agreement (hereinafter referred to as the agreement) with the Gore Borough Council (hereinafter called the Council) on 30 March 1927 to purchase the Council’s electric reticulation system and to supply electrical energy direct to the residents of the Borough of Gore upon the terms and conditions therein set out:

And whereas the agreement contained a provision that, in the event of the Board agreeing with any other consumer of electrical energy for the supply thereof at a lower price than that payable under the scale set forth in the agreement, the Board would reduce the charges in respect of electrical energy to the consumers within the borough using a similar quantity of energy for similar purposes under reasonably like circumstances to the same rate as was being charged by the Board to such other consumer:

And whereas the Board made deeds of agreement with the Mataura Borough Council, dated respectively 1 December 1932 and 27 April 1933, and it was contended that by reason of provisions in those deeds the Board was bound to reduce the prices for electrical energy used by consumers in the Borough of Gore:

And whereas the Board and the Council agreed on 19 September 1936 to refer to an arbitrator the determination of certain questions arising between them:

And whereas prior to the arbitration the Southland Electric Power District was abolished and the Board dissolved pursuant to the provisions of section 8 of the Southland Electric-power Supply Act 1936 and all the rights, liabilities, and engagements of the Board became the rights, liabilities, and engagements of the Crown:

And whereas the arbitrator in the matter of the arbitration between the Council and the Minister (as successor to the Board) held that the Minister was bound for a term of 15 years commencing on 1 December 1932 or during such shorter term as the provisions of the Mataura contract might remain in force, not to charge any consumer in the Borough of Gore for any quantity of electrical energy used in the borough more than prices specified in the Mataura contract:

And whereas there is still doubt as to the extent to which the Council is entitled to take advantage of the lower charges under the Mataura contract:

And whereas it has been mutually agreed between the Council and the Minister that the Minister shall refund to the Gore Borough consumers three-fourths of the amounts computed to be due under the award:

And whereas public notice was twice duly given in a newspaper circulating in the district to the Gore Borough consumers to make application for such refunds prior to 31 March 1939:

And whereas certain refunds have already been made, and it is desirable to validate those refunds and to authorise further refunds to be made:

And whereas consumers in the Borough of Gore have since 31 December 1937 been charged for electrical energy partly in accordance with the charges under the Mataura contract and partly in accordance with the Gore tariff, and it is desirable to preserve the rights of the present consumers:

Be it therefore enacted as follows:

Subject to the provisions of this section, the Minister shall, from moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of the Electric Supply Account, refund an amount to be determined as hereinafter mentioned to every person who during the period beginning on 1 December 1932 and ending on 31 December 1937 was a consumer of electrical energy in the Borough of Gore and who is entitled to a refund under the said award and the agreement. All refunds made under this section shall be deemed to be expenditure upon working expenses of the South Island schemes.

The refunds made under this section shall be deemed to be in full settlement of all the liabilities of the Minister (as successor to the Board) to make refunds under the award and the agreement.

No refund shall be made under this section unless an application therefor by the consumer or any other person entitled to claim the refund was received at the office of the Minister at Invercargill or at Gore on or before 31 March 1939:

Any refund under this section may be made to the consumer or to any other person entitled to claim the refund. The determination of the Minister as to the amount of any refund and as to the person to whom it is to be made shall be final and conclusive.

In arriving at the amount of the refund to be paid to or in respect of any consumer, the Minister shall take into account the difference between the amount actually paid by the consumer during the period referred to in subsection (1) for electrical energy and the amount that the consumer would have paid had he made the payments on the basis set out in the award; and the amount of the refund shall be three-fourths of that difference.

All payments made by the Minister before the passing of this Act and purporting to be refunds of moneys due under the award and the agreement shall be as valid and effectual as if they had been made pursuant to this section, and accordingly shall, where necessary, be deemed to have been so made.

Any consumer of electrical energy in the Borough of Gore other than a new consumer as hereinafter defined may continue until 1 December 1947 to use and pay for electrical energy at the prices being paid by him at the passing of this Act—that is to say, partly at the rates fixed by the Gore tariff as modified by the deeds between the Board and the Mataura Borough Council hereinbefore referred to, and partly at the rates fixed by the Southland tariff in force on 23 February 1939.

Any consumer of electrical energy in the Borough of Gore other than a new consumer may at any time after the passing of this Act elect to adopt in its entirety either the Southland tariff or the Gore tariff, and any consumer who elects to adopt the Gore tariff may subsequently elect to adopt the Southland tariff. If any such consumer does not elect to adopt the Gore tariff before 1 December 1947 he shall be deemed to have elected to adopt the Southland tariff.

Any new consumer may elect to adopt in its entirety either the Southland tariff or the Gore tariff, but it is hereby declared that no new consumer shall be entitled or be deemed to have at any time heretofore been entitled to select parts of the one tariff, and parts of the other tariff. Any new consumer who has elected or hereafter elects to adopt the Gore tariff may subsequently elect to adopt the Southland tariff.

When a consumer of electrical energy has elected or is deemed to have elected to adopt the Southland tariff under either of the last 2 preceding subsections he may not at any time thereafter change to the Gore tariff or, if he is not a new consumer, revert to the prices being paid by him at the passing of this Act.

In this section, unless the context otherwise requires,—

Any local authority or public body may from time to time contribute any sum or sums of money to the Red Cross Centennial Fund sponsored by the New Zealand Red Cross Society, Incorporated.

All contributions made to the said Fund before the passing of this Act that by virtue of this section would have been valid if this Act had been in force when they were made shall be deemed to have been validly and lawfully made.

For the purposes of this section the term local authority has the same meaning as in Part 14 of the Public Revenues Act 1926.

Any local authority may grant leave of absence to any of its employees for the purpose of serving in any of His Majesty’s Naval, Military, or Air Forces, whether within New Zealand or elsewhere, and may, during such leave of absence, pay to every such employee or to his order the whole or any part of the salary or wages of that employee, at the rate at which he was employed at the commencement of his leave of absence.

The provisions of the Electoral Act 1927, or any other Act, as to the disqualification of members of the General Assembly, shall not apply with respect to any payment that has been received by Joseph Hodgens, Esquire, out of public moneys in respect of his visit to Australia during 1939 for special work in connection with the employment of artisans.

Nothing in section 21 of the Electoral Act 1927 shall apply with respect to the appointment as a public servant of Clifford Lorrie Hunter, Esquire.

This section shall be deemed to have come into force on 6 March 1939.

The payments made during the financial year ending on 31 March 1940 by the trustees of the Dunedin Savings-bank of the following sums out of the profits of the bank are hereby validated and declared to have been lawfully made, namely:

The trustees of the New Plymouth Savings-bank may pay to Mr Moses Taylor Phillips out of the profits of the bank the sum of 313 pounds 3 shillings and 5 pence (being the amount of the profit made by the bank upon the realisation of certain property mortgaged to the bank by Mr Phillips), less the costs and expenses incurred and to be incurred by the trustees in connection with the payment and the obtaining of authority therefor.