A.—2A.

10

six unofficial members. The appeal from the Woods and Forests Board to such Board of Appeal shall be declared to the Clerk of the Council within eight days of the award complained against, and it shall be sufficient for the Clerk of the Council to give three clear days' notice of the hearing to the Government and to the several claimants respectively. The same rules and. forms of proceedings in force before the Woods and Forests Board shall be used before such Board of Appeal. 12. From and after the date of the coming in force of this Ordinance, there shall be created a fund called the " Woods and Forests Fund," to be specially applied to the carrying into effect the provisions of this Ordinance, and more especially to meet the expenditure of purchasing the real property that the Governor in Executive Council shall deem it right and expedient to purchase. 13. To meet the expenditure of planting or replanting the Crown and reserve lands there shall be taken out of the general revenue of the colony a sum to be voted every year by the Council of Government, but the amount of which shall in no single year be under £1,000 or over £5,000 ; and to meet the expenditure of purchasing real property, or to provide for interest and sinking fund on account of money borrowed under this Ordinance for the special object aforesaid, there shall be charged, levied, and collected au export duty of Customs of one penny and a half for every hundred pounds net French weight of sugar, and the amount thus collected shall be paid by the Collector of Customs into the Colonial Treasury for account of the Woods and Forests Fund, and it shall not be lawful to apply the said tax to any other purpose than those contemplated in this Ordinance' Provided that this special tax shall not be subject to the surcharge of the Poor Law or to any other surcharge. 14. It shall be lawful for the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council of Government, in order to carry into effect the purposes contemplated by this Ordinance, to borrow money on the credit of the Woods and Forests Fund, and for the repayment of the said loan or loans to issue debentures pledged for such repayment, such debentures to bear interest at a rate not exceeding 6 per cent, per annum. 15. Such debentures shall be issued from time to time as to the Governor in Executive Council shall seem fit, and the aggregate amount of the same shall not exceed the amount of £150,000. 16. Each debenture shall be for a sum of not less than £100 and not more than £500, and shall be paid off at par at the expiration of such periods as the Governor shall deem expedient, provided that the term in no case shall be less than ten years or more than thirty years. To each debenture shall be attached coupons, for the payment of the half-yearly or quarterly interest, as the case may be, corresponding in number to the period for which such debenture shall have to run. 17. Each debenture, and all right to and in respect of the principal-money secured thereby, and each coupon and all right to the interest mentioned therein, shall be transferable by delivery, and shall be payable either at the office of Pier Majesty's Agent for Crown Colonies in London, or at the Treasury of the Island of Mauritius, as the lender shall elect at the time of allotment, or after giving six months' notice of his choice. 18. Each such debenture shall be signed by the Colonial Secretary and the Receiver-General in this colony, and if allotted to be paid in London shall further be signed by the aforesaid Agent for Crown Colonies. And each such debenture is hereby constituted and declared, with the interest thereon respectively, a debt due by the Government of Mauritius, and shall moreover be, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, secured by the said Woods and Forests Fund, and to be a debt preferable to any other debt incurred under the provisions of this Ordinance. 19. Each such debenture, when paid, either in London or this colony, shall be cancelled by the Receiver-General, and a note thereof, with the date of payment, recorded in the special register kept for that purpose. 20. The Governor shall every year appropriate out of the Woods and Forests Fund such sum as shall be equal to 2 per cent, of the principal sum borrowed in virtue of this Ordinance, and shall invest or cause to be invested the amount thus appropriated as a sinking fund towards the final extinction of the debt; and shall also, from time to time, invest or cause to be invested the interest, dividends, or produce arising from such investment, so that the same may accumulate by way of compound interest: Provided that, if the Woods and Forests' revenue be not sufficient to pay the interest on the debentures issued under this Ordinance and the amount to be as aforesaid appropriated as a sinking fund, the balance shall be paid out of the general revenue of the colony. 21. All sums paid to the account of the sinking fund shall be invested iu Imperial or Colonial Government or Municipal Corporation securities; such sums, if invested in England, shall be invested in the name of trustees to be chosen by one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and if invested in this colony, in the name of the Colonial Secretary, acting on behalf of the Woods and Forests Fund, but no securities shall be selected for such investment unless approved of by the Secretary of State. 22. Should it become advisable at any time before the period or periods fixed for the redemption of each such debenture to extinguish any such debenture by withdrawing them from the market by purchase, the Governor shall, by his authorized agent, be empowered to make use of the sinking fund for that purpose, provided that all debentures so purchased shall be cancelled as aforesaid. 23. Any suplus moneys arising out of any year's tax under this Ordinance, and which it shall not have been deemed expedient to spend, shall be either paid into the Colonial Treasury to the credit of the sinking fund, or as soon as practicable employed to extinguish by purchase debentures issued under this Ordinance : Provided that, if not employed within six months for the purchase of debentures, such surplus shall be paid into the Colonial Treasury to the credit of the sinking fund. But it shall be lawful for the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council of Government, if there be any surplus in any one year, to resolve that the said surplus shall be added to the following year's revenue, to be then dealt with otherwise than in this article prescribed: Provided that all revenue accruing from leases or sales of land or timber, or from other sources under tins Ordinance, shall be paid into the Colonial Treasury to the credit of tho sinking fund, unless the application of the same to gome definite purpose he already determined in this Ordinance,