|
|
If profits are more than the amount prescribed, rateable reduction to be made in the price of gas.
|
35. In England or Ireland the court of quarter sessions, and in Scotland the sheriff, may, on the petition of any two gas-rate payers within the limits of the special Act, nominate and appoint some accountant or other competent person, not being a proprietor of any gasworks, to examine and ascertain, at the expence of the undertakers, (the amount of such expence to be determined by the said court or sheriff,) the actual state and condition of the concerns of the undertakers, and to make report thereof to the said court at the then present or some following sessions, or to the sheriff; and the said court or sheriff may examine any witnesses upon oath touching the truth of the said accounts and the matters therein referred to; and if it thereupon appear to the said court or sheriff that the profits of the undertakers for the preceding year have exceeded the prescribed rate, the undertakers shall, in case the whole of the said reserved fund has been and then remains invested as aforesaid, and in case dividends to the amount herein-before limited have been paid, make such a rateable reduction in the rate for gas to be furnished by them as in the judgment of the said court or sheriff shall be proper, but so as such rates when reduced, shall ensure to the undertakers (regard being had to the amount of profit before received) a profit as near as may be to the prescribed rate.
|
