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Trust Funds
137. Table XXIX sets out the Official Trustee's receipts and pay- ments for the year, and the assets and liabilities of the trusts administer- ed by him as at 31st March 1969. The total income of the trusts, being interest and dividends on investments, fixed deposits and bank accounts, amounted to $16,008. Payments to beneficiaries totalled $731, and the Official Trustee's commission amounted to $320. At the end of the year the total funds administered by the Official Trustee amounted to $227,274, of which $103,762 was held on income account.
138. The Trustee Ordinance was amended during the year. Included in the amendments was an enlargement of the scope of authorized trustee investments. This enabled the Official Trustee to take up during the year certain bonus issues of shares and to purchase further 'rights issue' shares without having to make formal application to the Supreme Court. The sum of $8,190 was spent in order to take advantage of such 'rights issues' on behalf of the various Belilios and Sir Ellis Kadoorie Trusts. Further investment in equities was considered justified in order to protect the value of the trust funds from erosion by inflation.
Belilios Stars
139. In 1884 Emanuel Raphael BELILIOS set up a trust fund with the object inter alia of rewarding acts of 'conspicuous valour, devotion or self-denial (whether a life or lives be thereby saved or not) done within the Colony of Hong Kong at a fire or in any quarrel, fight, breach of the peace or otherwise howsoever, or within the Hong Kong, Canton or Macau waters'. The trust deed provided for the award of Belilios Stars for such acts of bravery. These are of two kinds: the bronze eight-pointed Star awarded for bravery at sea, and the five- pointed silver Star for bravery on land. The Official Trustee now administers the trust and makes the awards after submission to the Governor for his approval. A monetary award may also be made either in conjunction with the award of a Star or where no Star is awarded.
140. The number of awards made since the war remained unchanged at seventeen, thirteen bronze and four silver.
Lunacy
141. The Registrar General is very seldom called upon to act in the capacity of Official Solicitor in Lunacy, and no new cases arose during the year under review.
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