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LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
No. S. 167.-The following Bills were read a first time at a held on the 6th July, 1911 :-
Meeting of the Council
A BILL
Short title.
Amends Ondinanese No. 2 F 1807.
ENTITLED
An Ordinance to amend the Probates Ordinance,
1897.
BE it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Coumeil thercof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Probates Amendment Ordinance, 1911.
2. The Probates Ordinance, 1897, is hereby amended as follows:
(a.) In the definition of Estate in section 2 thereof by the addition after the words "of
such person
of the words
**
and includes
property passing on the death of such person”.
(b.) After the definition of “ Matters and causes testamentary in section 2 thereof by the
insertion of the following definition :
...Next
of kin includes persons entitled to any share in the estate of a deceased person.”
(c.) In section 14 (2) thereof by the insertion
of the words or any Japanese subject after the word America and by the insertion of the words "or Japan, as the ease may be," after the words the said United States ",
Objects and Reasons,
The amendments (a) and (b) together with an amendment which is being made by the Stamp Amend- ment Bill, 1911, in the Stamp (Amendment) Ordinance, 1909, are introduced to prevent doubts arising with regard to the Chinese law of inheritance, as it has been suggested, though not proved, in a recent case (Li Chok Hung e. Li Pui Choi) that the French principle of “le mort saisit le rif" is recognised as a portion of the law of China, and that consequently unless probate duty is collected, as estate duty is in England, since the Finance Act 1894, on property passing on death, it cannot be collected at all, because, it is contendeil, the decased leaves no estate.
The amendment (c) is an amendment consequential on the Convention between the United Kingdom and Japan signed and ratified at Tokio in 1900.
C. G. ALABASTER, Attorney General,