I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This is a Bill to amend the Railways Act of 1933. That Act was designed to effect, amongst a number of other things, the reconstruction of the capital of the Great Southern Railways Company and to assist the reorganisation of the company's entire undertaking, in common with that of other railway companies, which was made possible under the Road Transport Act of the same year passed about the same time. It was realised that the period of reorganisation would involve for the company abnormal financial difficulties for which some special financial provision should be made.
It was accordingly provided by Section 4 of the Railways Act, 1933, that such of the company's capital stocks as were on 1st December, 1932, securities in which trustees were authorised by the Trustee Act of 1893 to invest trust moneys, or under which funds in any court might, under the Rules of the Court, be invested, should continue until the 31st December, 1935, to be so available for the investment of trust or court moneys or funds, whether the company did or did not pay on its ordinary stock a dividend at the rate of 3 per cent. per annum, or any dividend, as required by the Trustee Act and the Rules of Court respectively sub-section (2) of Section 4 provided that, for the purposes of the application, on or after the 1st day of January, 1936, of the provisions of the Trustee Act, 1893, or the Rules of Court, relating to securities in which trust or court funds might be invested, the company should be deemed to have paid a dividend at the rate of one per cent. per annum on its ordinary stock in respect of every financial year of the company which ended after the 30th day of November, 1932, and before the 1st day of January, 1936, and for which the company in fact paid no dividend on its ordinary stock or a dividend less than one per cent.
As Deputies will remember, certain administrative difficulties necessitating amending legislation dealing with road transport, operated to postpone the date for the coming into effective operation of the Road Transport Act, 1933, and these, together with other difficulties inseparable from the reorganisation, contributed to defer the realisation of the position originally contemplated, with the result that it becomes, in our opinion, necessary and desirable to extend by two years the period during which the trustee status of the company's capital stocks shall be maintained. It is not anticipated that it will be necessary to seek any further extension of this period; nor is the introduction of this Bill to be taken as any indication of our opinion as to whether or not it will be possible for the company to pay a dividend on its ordinary stock during that period. The Bill is being introduced as a safeguard in the event of its not being found possible.
The amendment we are proposing to effect is to substitute the date, 31st December, 1937, for the date, 31st December, 1935, and the date, 1st January, 1938, for the date, 1st January, 1936, where they occur in the relevant section of the Railways Act. The necessity for it is, in our opinion, entirely due to the fact that the reorganisation of the transport system, consequent on the passage of the Road Transport Act and the Railways Act of 1933, did not really become effective until this year because of the delay in bringing the Road Transport Act into operation.
