This Act may be cited as the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1922, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Government Railways Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

The Schedule to the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1921–22, is hereby amended by repealing so much thereof as relates to engine-drivers, night foremen of cleaners, and firemen, and substituting the Schedule hereto.

This section shall be deemed to have come into operation on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.

This section shall be read subject to the provisions of the Public Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1921–22, in respect of any reductions in salaries or wages made under the said Act after the coming into operation of this section.

The Minister shall cause all members, probationers, and apprentices in the service of the Department on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, to be classified as on that date in accordance with the classification set forth in the several Schedules then in force relating to the classification of the Department, and shall fix the rate of pay (as reduced in accordance with the provisions of the Public Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1921–22) of each such member, probationer, and apprentice, and the date on which his first annual increment (if any) begins to be payable:

Provided that—

The power conferred on the Minister by section ten of the principal Act to fix scales of charges to be paid for persons or goods carried on a railway shall include, and be deemed at all times heretofore to have included, the power to fix such scales by reference to distance.

Where any scale is fixed by reference to distance as aforesaid, the distance between any two points shall, unless it is otherwise specially provided in any case in the notice fixing the scale, be deemed and taken to be the distance as shown on the departmental record when the section or sections of railway affected were first opened for traffic, notwithstanding that such distance may have been increased or reduced by subsequent alterations of the railway.

A certificate under the hand of the Minister specifying the distance between any two points on the railway, in accordance with the departmental record, shall be conclusive evidence of the fact.

Paragraph (a) of section seventy-eight of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting therefrom the words “by the contributors.”

Every person who makes or procures to be made any false statement in regard to any goods (whether in respect of their nature, quantity, weight, measurement, value, or otherwise howsoever) delivered upon a railway, in any consignment-note, waybill, or other document delivered in respect of such goods, is liable to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.

This section is in substitution for subsection one of section two of the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1910 (No. 2), and that subsection is hereby accordingly repealed.

Sections three and four of the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1919, subsection one of section three of the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1920, and section three of the Government Railways Amendment Act, 1921–22, are hereby repealed.