act from dividing more than £10 per cent. on their shares; when the profits amount to more, then the rates are to be forthwith reduced.
Another act was obtained in 1824, entitled, 'An Act for the more effectually improving the Navigation of the River Medway, from Maidstone to Halling in the county of Kent, and to alter and enlarge the Powers of an Act of the Forty-second of his late Majesty, for improving the Navigation of the said River.' Having recited the title of the former act, the present one goes onto state that the company have raised a capital stock of £16,000, and have expended the whole thereof, besides contracting sundry debts in the execution of the works directed by the said act, and that the company cannot, in consequence, effect that improvement of the navigation which is required by the interests of the parties concerned therein; they are therefore authorized by this act to borrow £12,000 on mortgage of the rates, and to make and maintain a cut or canal from Ozier Bed Reach to East MaIling, and another from Haystack Hole to Occupells; to remove Preston Shoal; to alter Aylesford Bridge, and to make a towing-path from Occupells to Lower Town Wharf in St. Faith's Street, Maidstone.
They are also empowered to cleanse, scour, deepen and improve the channel of the river from Maidstone to Halling, through the parishes of Maidstone, Boxley, Allington, Aylesford, Ditton, East Malling, Burham, Birling Snodland, Wouldham and Halling.
The shoals and obstructions in the river are to be removed so as to leave it 90 feet wide and 3 feet deep in the middle; then Aylesford Bridge is to be altered; afterwards the navigable cut from Ozier Bed Reach to Newhythe and the towing-path from Haystack-Hole to Maidstone are to be completed. All this is to be done within five years; and in case sufficient should remain, out of the sum of £12,000 and any interest thereon, it is to be employed in making the navigable cut from Haystack Hole to Occupells, within five years afterwards; if a sufficient sum does not remain, the residue is to accumulate for that purpose. In lieu of the former rates, which are repealed, the following are to be taken as tonnage rates.
