This Act may be cited as the Education Reserves Amendment Act, 1910, and shall form part of and be read together with the Education Reserves Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

This Act shall commence on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and eleven.

On the commencement of this Act all School Commissioners under the principal Act shall cease to hold office, and the several bodies corporate constituted under section nineteen of that Act shall be abolished.

All reserves and endowments vested in any School Commissioners, and all reserves at any time hereafter made or set apart under any Act as endowments for primary or secondary education, shall be vested in the Crown in trust for the purposes for which they are reserved, and shall be administered and dealt with by the Land Board of the district in which they are situated, in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

The Land Board may grant leases and issue licenses under the Land Act, 1908, over the said reserves and endowments on the same terms and conditions in all respects as in the case of Crown lands, save that the term of any renewable lease granted under that Act, and of the successive renewals thereof, shall be thirty-three years instead of sixty-six years.

Any reserves or endowments may be leased under the provisions of the Public Bodies’ Leases Act, 1908 (if in the opinion of the Board it is desirable to do so), in the same manner as if the Board were a leasing authority under that Act.

On the expiry of any lease granted by any School Commissioners and existing at the commencement of this Act, the Land Board may grant the former lessee a new lease of the same land, or of any part thereof, under the provisions of the Public Bodies’ Leases Act, 1908, for a period not exceeding twenty-one years with a perpetual right of renewal for periods not exceeding twenty-one years, but the rent for the first term of such lease shall be fixed by valuation or arbitration in such manner as the Land Board determines.

The revenue derived from the reserves and endowments aforesaid situated within the boundaries of each provincial district shall (after deducting such sum for the administration of this Act as is prescribed) be paid by the Receiver of Land Revenue into the Public Account to the credit of a separate account for that district, and shall be paid over quarterly by the Minister of Finance as follows

Nothing in this section shall affect any land set apart as an endowment for any specified school or college.

All funds vested in any School Commissioners at the commencement of this Act, and all mortgages and other investments representing the same, are hereby vested in the Public Trustee, who shall hold and administer the same on the same trusts on which they were held and administered by the School Commissioners.

The revenues derived from any such fund or the investments thereof shall (after deducting such sum for the administration of that fund as is prescribed) from time to time be paid by the Public Trustee into the separate account for the appropriate district as mentioned in the last preceding section, and shall be dealt with by the Minister of Finance in pursuance of that section and in accordance with the trusts affecting the said revenues.

Save as mentioned in this section, all assets and liabilities of any School Commissioners shall become assets and liabilities of the Crown.

Where in the opinion of the Board it is necessary to survey, subdivide, classify, or otherwise deal with educational endowments preparatory to their being leased or disposed of by the Board, or to provide or improve road access thereto, including the erection of any bridge, the Board shall submit a scheme of the proposed works to the Minister of Lands, and when approved by him the Board shall have power to carry out such works.

The cost of such works shall be defrayed by the Board from advances to be made under the provisions of sections seventy-seven to eighty-three of the New Zealand State-guaranteed Advances Act, 1909, in the same manner as advances are made when opening up Crown lands for settlement.

The cost of all such works shall be apportioned amongst the lands benefited thereby, and duly repaid to the fund from which they may have been advanced out of the rents or other proceeds received by the Board from the lands benefited.

Nothing in this Act shall affect any lease or license granted by any School Commissioners and existing on the commencement of this Act, save that all references in any such lease or license to the School Commissioners shall be deemed to be references to the Land Board of the land district in which the land affected by the lease or license is situated; and all rents and other payments under any such lease or license shall be paid to the Receiver of Land Revenue of that land district.

All expenses of administration may be deducted from the revenues received by the Receiver of Land Revenue, and paid by him into the Public Account to the credit of the Lands and Survey vote:

Provided that the total amount of such deductions shall not exceed in any one year five per centum of the total amount of rent received by the Receiver on account of lands leased under the authority of this Act.

Such expenses may be deducted either daily, weekly, or quarterly as may be most convenient, and shall include all expenses incurred, whether in respect of the collection of rents, the inspection of land, or otherwise howsoever.

All references in any unrepealed Act to School Commissioners shall be deemed to be references to the Land Board.

The principal Act is hereby amended in the manner and to the extent indicated in the Schedule hereto.

The Trustees may, out of the rents and profits of any reserves and endowments vested in them by this or any Act, pay the whole or any part of the cost of surveying, constructing, or improving any road, bridge, ferry, or ford necessary in the opinion of the Trustees to the leasing or subdivision of any land now or hereafter vested in them, the construction or improvement of which has been approved by the Minister; and the Trustees are hereby empowered to pay or contract to pay such cost in any manner they think fit.