In order to allow the Chinese authorities further time in which to trace and apprehend persons suspected of collaboration with the enemy during the late war, the Chinese Collaborators (Surrender) Ordinance, 1947, was enacted to continue provisions of a similar Ordinance which was passed in 1946 to provide procedure for the surrender of collaborators. This Ordinance provided for a further period of six months, terminating on 31st October, 1947, during which surrender of collaborators might be claimed by the Chinese authorities and the machinery of the Ordinance applied.
At the end of the year it became necessary to enact an Ordinance known as the Protected Places (Safety) Amendment Ordinance, 1947. The principal object of this Ordinance was to give power to the Governor to declare by order that certain places were protected places within the meaning of the Protected Places Ordinance, 1946, and that consequently, sentries and guards especially authorised might, subject to safeguards, use firearms in the course of their duty. This was made necessary because the Defence Regulation under which previously protected places had been declared, was due to expire on 31st December, 1947, and it was not considered that the situation had improved to such an extent that the protection to Government and Service stores afforded by the Ordinance against the activities of looters could be removed.
Before the enactment of Ordinance No. 17, the Vehicle and Road Traffic Ordinance, 1947, the law relating to the use of vehicles and the control of traffic was contained in the Vehicles. and Traffic Regulation Ordinance, 1912, which, in the main, merely provided powers for the making of regulations governing traffic. It did not contain modern provision of the nature afforded in the United Kingdom by the Road Traffic Acts of 1930 and 1934. The new Ordinance replaced the Vehicles and Traffic Regulation Ordinance, 1912, and in addition, introduced provisions to deal with the subject of reckless and dangerous driving and with the authority to endorse licences of persons who are found to have been intoxicated or under the influence of a drug while in charge of a vehicle.
In the period since the liberation of the Colony, considerable interest has been remarked in co-operative activities. No legis- lation to enable the formation of co-operatives in Hong Kong was on the Statute Book until the enactment of Ordinance No. 43 the Co-operative Societies Ordinance, 1947, which made provision for the registration and conduct of Co-operative societies. The Ordinance was not, however, brought into force upon enactment pending the appointment of a Registrar of Co-operative Societies and other staff essential to the operation of the Ordinance.
Ordinance No. 37, the Jury Amendment Ordinance, 1947, gave effect to a resolution passed by a public meeting attended by representatives of many sections of the women of the Colony,
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