• Preamble

  WHEREAS on the seventeenth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine, an explosion occurred in the Kaitangata coal-mine, whereby thirty-four miners lost their lives, and, by a public subscription throughout the colony and some of the adjacent colonies in Australia, a large fund was collected for the benefit of the widows and children of the miners who were so killed: And whereas but few of the said widows and children remain to receive relief from the said fund, and after providing for these a large surplus remains year by year in the hands of the Trustees of such fund, which is from time to time invested in various securities, there being a sum at present invested as aforesaid amounting to nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars entirely unavailable for any purposes of need which may arise: And whereas the Trustees of the said fund at the present time are—

  The Mayor of the City of Dunedin, ex officio;

  George Turnbull, of Dunedin, gentleman;

  James Taylor Mackerras, of Dunedin, merchant;

  John Bryce Thomson, of Dunedin, builder; and

  William Matthew Hodgkins, of Dunedin, solicitor;

  and the bankers of the Trustees are the Colonial Bank of New Zealand: And whereas it is expedient to render the aforesaid surplus of the fund, after providing for the present beneficiaries, available for the relief of wives and children of coal-miners who may be killed by mining accidents occurring in any part of the colony; and for such purpose to transfer such surplus into the Public Trust Office as a nucleus of a permanent Coal-mining Accident Fund:

  The reference to “nineteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars” was substituted, as from 10 July 1967, for a reference to “nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds” pursuant to section 7(1) of the Decimal Currency Act 1964 (1964 No 27).

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—