§ (1) Any person authorised in that behalf by the Postmaster-General shall have free access to the plant, land, and buildings of the company for the purpose of inspecting such plant, land, and buildings.
§ (2) From and after the appointed day any officer of and any other person authorised in that behalf by the company shall have free access to the plant, land, and buildings transferred to the Postmaster-General from the company for the purpose of inspecting such plant, land, and buildings, and to all books, accounts, and documents of the company in the possession of the Postmaster-General for the purpose of inspecting, copying, and making extracts from the same, and shall have all proper facilities for the purposes aforesaid.
§ (3) For the purpose of enabling the company to prepare and conduct its claim for purchase money under the provisions of 1520 the purchase agreements, and to enter into agreements with the Postmaster-General, and to discharge the liabilities of the company, and generally to carry on the business of the company, and to wind up its affairs and dissolve the company, the company may, after the appointed day, temporarily retain for their own use the services of such reasonable number of officers for such time and on such conditions as may be agreed between the Postmaster-General and the company, or may in case of difference be determined as in this Act provided; but the officers so temporarily retained shall be deemed nevertheless to have become officers of the Postmaster-General for the purposes of the provisions of this Act in relation to the company's officers.
§ (4) Any difference between the Postmaster-General and the company arising under the provisions of this section shall be determined by the Railway and Canal Commission, and all proceedings relating to any such difference shall be conducted by the Commission in manner prescribed by the Telegraph (Arbitration) Act, 1909.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI beg to move to leave out Sub-sections (1) and (2).
These Amendments on Clause 6 form part of an agreement which I made with the National Telephone Company. The company considered that it was not desirable in a Bill in any way to vary the agreement which had been entered into. They thought that this Clause did in some respects vary the agreement, and they asked for some modifications. Sub-sections (1) and (2) give reciprocal rights of inspection of plant. Those rights have now been obtained by means of undertakings given in writing by the two parties. It is therefore unnecessary to introduce a Clause into the Bill in regard to the matter. In respect of Sub-section (3) there was some disagreement as to the definition of "appointed day." The term appears only in this Sub-section. It is proposed to leave out the term and to insert a fixed date. The other Amendments to Sub-section (3) are of an ordinary drafting character. Sub-section (4) becomes unnecessary in view of the Amendments in the earlier Sub-sections.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Further Amendments made: In Subsection (3), leave out the words "appointed day," and insert instead thereof the words, "thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and eleven."
1521§ After the word "such" ["such reasonable number of officers"], insert the words "officers as they may select, to such."
§ Leave out the words "of officers" ["reasonable number of officers"].
§ Leave out the words "agreed between," and insert instead thereof the words "approved by."
§ Leave out the words "and the company, or may in case of difference be determined as in this Act provided."
§ Leave out the words "to have become officers of the Postmaster-General."
§ At the end of the Sub-section insert the words, "to have become officers of the Postmaster-General as from the said thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and eleven."
§ Leave out Sub-section (4).—[Mr. Herbert Samuel.]
§ Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.