568732-1929-Supplementary-Draft-Bills---Companies-Amendment — Page 8

Ordinance

No. 5 of 1929.

1108

(4) If no claim be made for the compensa-

tion money at the place, and within the time, appointed, the officer appointed as aforesaid shall cause such money to be paid into the Treasury.

(5) The money thus paid into the Treasury or any part of it may, within a period of five years from the expiration of the time referred to in section (2), be claimed by the person entitled thereto and upon such claim being substantiated shall be paid to the person so entitled.

(6) At the expiration of the said period of five years the money or such part of it as remains unpaid shall be transferred to the general revenue of the Colony and shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the Unclaimed Balances Ordinance, 1929.

Objects and Reasons.

Section 16 of the Crown Lands Resumption Ordi- uance, 1900, Ordinance No. 10 of 1900, provides that compensation and costs awarded under the Ordinance "shall bear interest at the rate of eight per cent. per annum from the date of the resumption of the land until payment". It is reasonable that the former owner of land resumed under the Ordinance should receive interest during such period as he is kept out of his land and also It is, out of any compensation in respect of the land. however, not reasonable that this interest should run on indefinitely, and that the inaction, or intentional delay, of the person entitled to the compensation should oblige the Crown to go on paying interest indefinitely. Apparently the effect of the Ordinance is that the claimaut can make the interest run on indefinitely by simply not demanding this Ordinance is to fix a time payment. The object after which the interest will not run. It provides that when an award is made a Gazette notice shall specify a time within which the compensation is to be paid. If the claimant fails to apply for the money within that time, it will be paid into the Treasury and will cease to bear interest,

14th November, 1929.

J. H. KEMP,

Attorney General,