WHEREAS by the Taieri Land Drainage Act, 1907, there was constituted a special drainage district called the Taieri Drainage District, with a Board called the Taieri Drainage Board, having power to do all such things as might in its opinion be necessary to cope with the drainage of the said district and the flooding of the Taieri Plain: And whereas under section four of the said Act the Boards therein mentioned and called the old Boards were dissolved on the twenty-sixth day of May, nineteen hundred and eight, being the date fixed in that behalf in terms of the said section: And whereas by the said Act it was provided that on the dissolution of the old Boards all their property should be vested in the Taieri Drainage Board, and all the liabilities and engagements of the old Boards should become liabilities and engagements of the Taieri Drainage Board; and also that the liabilities of the old Boards (whether for loans or otherwise) should remain the same charge upon the area of land comprised in the old Board districts as if the old Boards had not been dissolved, and that the Taieri Drainage Board should continue to levy the same special rates as security for loans and other special rates only within the area over which they were originally levied by the old Boards in order to liquidate all the liabilities of the old Boards: And whereas one of the old Boards so dissolved as aforesaid was the Henley River Board: And whereas, amongst the engagements and liabilities of the Henley River Board at the date of dissolution of that Board, there was a sum of money due and owing by it as and being the balance of a loan raised by it under the provisions of the Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough Rivers Act, 1868 (brought into operation within the then Province of Otago by an Ordinance of the Superintendent of that province shortly intituled the Management of Rivers Ordinance, 1870), and the provisions contained in the Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough Rivers Act 1868 Amendment Act, 1881, which loan with interest was secured by a deed of mortgage, dated the second day of June, eighteen hundred and eighty-two, and a deed of further charge, dated the fourth day of August, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, and made between the Board of Conservators of the Henley River District of the one part and the Colonial Investment and Agency Company of New Zealand (Limited) of the other part, by which deeds were granted and assigned to and charged in favour of the said company, its successors and assigns, for the purpose of securing the said loan and interest, all and singular the rates, tolls, rents, and profits and other moneys then present and future arising and accruing, or which might thereafter arise and accrue, to the said Board of Conservators or its successors under and by virtue of the last-mentioned Act and Ordinance or any other authority in that behalf, or which the said Board or its successors had or should have power or authority to levy, raise, or collect from the owners or occupiers of any portion or portions of all that parcel of land described in the Schedule hereto, being the Henley River District, whose Board, the Henley River Board, was one of the old Boards dissolved as above recited: And where as by the Taieri Land Drainage Act, 1910, the Taieri Land Drainage Act, 1907, was repealed, the Taieri Land Drainage District was abolished, the Taieri Land Drainage Board was dissolved, and a land drainage district called the Western Taieri Land Drainage District was constituted a land drainage district within the meaning of the Land Drainage Act, 1908: And whereas the Henley River District is within the Western Taieri Land Drainage District: And whereas, in pursuance of the provisions of section four of the Taieri Land Drainage Act, 1910, the assets and liabilities of the Taieri Land Drainage Board so dissolved as aforesaid were apportioned, and the liability of that Board under the said deeds of mortgage and further charge was apportioned to the Western Taieri Land Drainage Board and became the liability of that Board accordingly: And whereas part of the said loan—namely, the sum of one thousand five hundred and twenty pounds—still remains unpaid with interest thereon: And whereas doubts have arisen as to the power of the Western Taieri Land Drainage Board to make and levy within the area comprised in the said Henley River District rates for the purpose of paying the said loan and the interest thereof: