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Objects and Reasons.
1. This Bill, dealing with cruelty to animals, as defined by Clause 2, is founded in the main upon the provisions of the Straits Settlement Ordinance No. 10 of 1930, and upon the by-laws made under that Ordinance on the 27th March, 1931.
2. In the interpretation Clause 2 the definition of Colonial Veterinary Surgeon is copied from section 2 (1) (f) of Ordin- ance No. 16 of 1935, the definition of Food Officer is adapted from section 2 of Ordinance No. 13 of 1935 and the definition of vessel is copied from the definition in section 2 (i) of Ordinance No. 2 of 1933.
3. Paragraph (1) (d) of Clause 3 has no counterpart in the Straits Settlements Ordinance, but is obviously needed in order to prevent cruelty in the loading or discharging of animals.
Paragraph (1) (g) of Clause 3 is copied (omitting the words "or other creatures') from the slightly amended version of Section 53 of Ordinance 1 of 1903, which appears in Section 72 of the recent Public Health (Sanitation) Ordinance, 1935, and seems appropriate for insertion in a cruelty to animals bill, like the present.
Subsection (4) of Clause 4 of this Bill supplements the Straits Settlements Ordinance by granting a power of search to the officers mentioned in subsection (1) of that clause.
For reasons of economy in administration the present Bill does not follow Straits Settlements legislation in regard to the Government providing infirmaries for animals (as is done by section 6 of the Straits Ordinance), nor is it thought necessary to provide (as is done in section 8 of the Straits Ordinance) for the recovery of the expenses of the burial and removal of animals destroyed.
Clauses 5, 6 and 7 of this Bill follow, mutatis mutandis, the provisions of sections 5, 7 and 9 of the Straits Settlements Ordinance.
Clause 8 (1) of this Bill re-enacts the substance of Section eleven of the Straits Settlements Ordinance, with the import- ant exception that it is not thought necessary to provide for the licensing of animal shops, because it is realised that the introduction of such a new provision in this Colony might inflict hardship upon the owners of bird-shops by compelling them to reconstruct their premises at considerable expense. It has, however, been found necessary to include in Part I of the Schedule to this Bill, regulations which are based to a great extent upon the conditions attached to the licences of animal and bird-shops in the Straits Settlements. This part of the Schedule lays down certain obviously humane conditions under which animals and birds ought to be kept and carried.
Clause 9 (1) of the Bill is based upon the provisions of section 4 of the Live Stock Import and Export Ordinance, 1903, which Ordinance, with the Regulations made there- under, is repealed by this Bill. Clause 9 (3) is copied from No. 11 of those regulations.
Clause 10 of this Bill repeals subsection (6) of Section 7 of the Summary Offences Ordinance, 1932, because the