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belong to, or to be connected with, or to be intended to be used for the purposes of, an unlawful.society, or which may appear to indicate the existence of an unlaw- ful society, and may arrest any person found on such place or escaping therefrom and may detain any such person until he can conveniently be brought before a magistrate.
(3.) The powers conferred by a warrant issued under sub-section (1) of this section may be exercised without warrant by any Justice of the Peace or by any public officer accompanied by a Justice of the Peace.
(4.) No person shall resist or obstruct any such search,
arrest or seizure.
(5.) It shall be lawful for a magistrate to forfeit any thing duly seized under any power conferred by or under this section.
7.-(1.) When any books, accounts, lists of members, Evidence. writings, banners, insignia, seals, or other things, what- soever, which may reasonably be suspected to belong to, or to be connected with, or to be intended to be used for the purposes of, an unlawful society, are found in the possession or under the control of any person, it shall, until the contrary is proved, be presumed that such person is a member of an unlawful society.
(2.) When it appears to a magistrate that there is reasonable cause to suspect that any place entered and searched under any power conferred by or under this Ordinance was immediately before or at the time of such entry being used by or for the purposes of an unlawful society, it shall, until the contrary is proved, be presumed that all persons found in such place at any time during such search, or found escaping therefrom immediately before or at the time of such entry, are members of an unlawful society.
(3.) In any prosecution under this Ordinance it shall not be necessary to prove the name of the unlawful society, or to prove that it has any name.
(4.) In any prosecution under this Ordinance it shall be no objection to the admissibility of expert evidence that the expert is not, or has not been, a member of any unlawful society.
(5.) In any prosecution under this Ordinance the magistrate may refer, for the purposes of evidence, to The Triad Society or Heaven and Earth Association" by William Stanton, and to any other published books or articles on the subject of unlawful societies in general, or of particular unlawful societies, which the magistrate may consider to be of authority on the subject to which they relate.
8. The Societies Ordinance, 1911, and the Societies Repeal of Amendment Ordinance, 1910, are repealed.
Ordinances Nos. 47 of 1911 and 1 of 1916.
Objects and Reasons.
1. The object of this bill is to repeal the Societies Ordinance, 1911, which has not proved satisfactory in practice, and to substitute a simpler system based on the Triad and Unlawful Societies Ordinance, 1887.
2. The Societies Ordinance, 1911, has failed to give the increased control expected, it has probably driven several undesirable societies underground, it has in some cases given a fictitious respectability to doubtful societies on the border line, it has supplied a technical defence to any action brought by an unregistered society, however desirable the society may be, and it has perforce cast the net too widely and has included a great many societies that require no governmental regu- lation whatever.