ABSTRACT
The bill, which received only minor amendments during its legislative progress, dealt with three matters. In the first place it empowered the Treasury, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and on the recommendation of an advisory committee, to advance money to any territory for the purpose of aiding and developing agriculture and industry ‘and thereby promoting commerce with or industry in the United Kingdom’. This could be done by capital grants or by defraying for a maximum of ten years in whole or in part the interest on any loans raised for these purposes. Such advances could be either grants or loans. The fund would be sustained by a maximum grant of £1 million per year. Repayments of advances went to the Exchequer, thus preventing the creation of a revolving fund. The second section of the bill amended the Colonial Stock Acts. The third allowed the interest on loans raised under the East Africa Loans Act of 1926 to be paid out of capital for a maximum of five years and lengthened the period for the repayment of the loans from forty to a maximum of sixty years.64
