DROIT
THE HONGKONG
Government Gazette.
lo. 22.
ublished by Authority.
VICTORIA, SATURDAY, 3RD JUNE, 1871.
VOL. XVII.
VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF HONGKONG.
No. 5 OF 1871.
WEDNESDAY, 3RD MAY, 1871.
PRESENT:
is Excellency Major-General WHITFEILD, Lieutenant-Governor.
he Honorable the Chief Justice (JOHN SMALE.)
he Honorable the Colonial Secretary (JOHN GARDINER AUSTIN.)
he Honorable the Attorney General (JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE.)
he Honorable the Acting Colonial Treasurer (CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH.)
he Honorable HENRY JOHN BALL.
he Honorable PHINEAS RYRIE.
he Honorable WILLIAM KESWICK.
he Honorable RICHARD ROWETT.
he Council meets this day at 2 P.M., by Special Summons,-no Meeting having taken place on the
12th of April, to which day the Council was adjourned.
he Minutes of the Council held on the 1st of April, are read and confirmed.
he Council then resolves itself into a Committee, and resumes the Discussion and Consideration of the Clauses of the Bill to make further Provision in relation to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, which was amended at the Meetings held on the 27th and 30th March last.
fter which, the Honorable HENRY JOHN BALL begs to submit to the consideration of the Council certain New Clauses which he had prepared, extending the Jurisdiction of the Court at Common Law up to $1,000, and granting to it a limited Jurisdiction in Equity; and which Clauses he had forwarded to the Honorable the Colonial Secretary, with a suggestion that a Special Committee of the Council be appointed to consider them.
The Honorable Member proceeds to explain the Clauses, and states that they are all adopted from corresponding Provisions contained in the Imperial Acts relating to the County Courts in England.
The Honorable the Attorney General states that nearly the whole of the Clauses now submitted by the Honorable HENRY JOHN BALL had formed part of the Bill which His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor originally intended to have proposed to the Council; but it had been determined by His Excellency, for reasons which it is unnecessary now to discuss, to abandon, for the present, the Provisions increasing the Common Law Jurisdiction of the Court to $1,000, and conferring upon it a limited Equity Jurisdiction. These Provisions, the Honorable the Attorney General adds, can easily be introduced later by a separate Ordinance. In the meanwhile, he urges that the consideration of the Bill, as it now stands, be proceeded. with.
lis Excellency concurs.
The Honorable the Colonial Secretary states that the clauses submitted by the Honorable HENRY JOHN BALL, as also the correspondence connected therewith, will be forwarded for the consi- deration of The Secretary of State when the Bill is passed.
Whereupon, The Honorable IIENRY JOHN BALL states that he would not press his suggestion in
reference to the Clauses submitted by him.