WHEREAS by the Pacific Cable Acts, 1901 to 1924 (Imperial), which were consolidated with amendments by the Pacific Cable Act, 1927 (Imperial), the Pacific Cable Board was constituted for the construction and working of a transpacific cable undertaking (hereinafter referred to as the Pacific Cable undertaking or as the said undertaking): And whereas it was arranged that any sums required for the repayment of moneys borrowed under the said Acts and for the annual expenses of the Pacific Cable Board, so far as not covered by receipts, should be ultimately provided by the several Governments represented on the Board (hereinafter referred to as the partner Governments) in the proportions hereinafter mentioned, and that any profits of the Board should be divided between those Governments in the same proportions: And whereas the partner Governments and the proportions aforesaid are set out in the First Schedule to the Pacific Cable Act, 1927 (Imperial), as follows:—

And whereas a Conference of representatives of the partner Governments and of certain other Governments of His Majesty’s Dominions and colonies was appointed to examine the situation which had arisen as a result of the competition of the Beam Wireless with the Cable Services, to report thereon, and to make recommendations with a view to a common policy being adopted by the various Governments concerned: And whereas it was recommended by the said Conference that a company to be formed (called by the said Conference and hereinafter referred to as the Communications Company) should take over, as from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, the Pacific Cable undertaking and certain other specified undertakings: And whereas it was further recommended by the said Conference that the Communications Company should pay certain capital sums for the said undertakings, and should also assume responsibility for the payment of the annuities created to repay the Pacific Cable loan (being a loan raised by the Imperial Treasury from the National Debt Commissioners for the purpose of defraying the cost of construction of the Pacific Cable undertaking, and repayable by means of terminable annuities charged on and payable out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom): And whereas by the Imperial Telegraphs Act, 1929 (Imperial), it is provided that the Pacific Cable Board, with the consent of and on terms approved by all the partner Governments, may sell the Pacific Cable undertaking to the Communications Company as from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight: And whereas the authority of His Majesty’s Government in New Zealand to join with the other partner Governments in the Pacific Cable undertaking was originally conferred by the Pacific Cable Authorization Act, 1899, and is now contained in Part XII of and the Fourth Schedule to the Post and Telegraph Act, 1928: And whereas it is desirable that the New Zealand Government should be empowered to consent to the sale of the said undertaking as provided by the Imperial Telegraphs, Act, 1929 (Imperial):