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品出司公限有油漆製民國
Raincoats
Rolný from
at
6
up
Cat
The China Mail
- Ninety-Fourth Year of Publication
BA Wyndham Street, Hong Kong.
Telephone 20022 London Office:
they are in the case of the Dan- gerous Drugs Ordinance especial- ly where illicit apparatus is in question.
It is presumed that the powers are desired in connection with the operation of illegal transmit- ting apparatus, but in the terms of Section 31 (1) (a) they cover every provision of the Ordinance and every regulation made under it, and could be applied, given the authority of the PM.G., against an individual merely sus All communications intended for pected of operating a receiving
set without a licence.
Food and War
7, Garrick Street, London, W.C.2
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Hong Kong, Monday, June 5, 1939.
*
**
*
A great deal of organisation is going on behind the scenes in Great Britain of which the aver- ages citizen has no idea. When the Government recently an- nounced its plans for the control and distribution of food in time of war it was found that the scheme was complete in all its details, and ready for immediate application. It provided for State control on the largest possible scale, with machinery which is now ready.
A Ministry of Food would at once come into operation. It would be the sole importer of foodstuffs from abroad and the sole purchaser of home supplies; it would sell at prescribed prices to the wholesalers, who in their turn would sell to the retailers, making only a reasonable profit. rapidly. The latter would issue food t> ceasing to resemble anything the consumer under rationing: like his castle in Hong Kong.
ARBITRARY POWERS
A man's home is
hold application forms and 60,000,000 ration cards have. already been printed.
schemes and other regulations made by local food control com- Police powers have been enor-mittees. About 19,000,000 house- mously extended under various Emergency Regulations.
Now there comes a draft bill,
This is only one of many (published in the "Gazette" on examples which would show the Saturday amending the Telecom- preparations that are being made to switch over the life of the munication Ordinance, which British people, if necessary, from gives powers of arrest, search the laissez-faire of peace to the and seizure to public officers au-discipline of war. Much experi- thorised by the Postmaster- ence gained in the World War is.
being turned to account. General which are practically In wartime. there must be a unlimited. The powers include striking departure from anything. authority for the breaking down known to Great Britain in time
of peace. [of doors, the employment of force
The powers of the State will assume enormous pro-· against personal or material ob-portions. The whole economy of struction to any arrest, deten. the nation will rest in its con-- trolling hands. There will be: tion, search, inspection, seizure mass purchases of goods abroad or removal, and so on.
mass sales at home con~. Section 31 (5) makes it law-trolled selling even in the shops. and controlled purchasing. If ful for a magistrate to order the nation is to be fed under the. confiscation of any apparatus whether any person shall have been charged with, or con- victed of, an offence or not. Which could without straining at
work of society. Some of the the language be interpreted as measures that would be intro- having equal application if a duced are those which have al-- person has been charged and ready been applied in Germany found not guilty!
dire conditions which would arise in war, it must be regimented. It is idle to deny that in many spheres of life pure socialism. and totalitarianism would be quickly grafted onto the frame--
and Russia.
Two facts are worthy of notice.. The protective clause, Section First, in a modern war things |31 (3) says that any authority protest that could not be done in
get done swiftly and without.. given by the Postmaster-General peacetime without bitter con- may be general so as to embrace troversy and perhaps revolution...... · all the powers referred to, or infringements of liberty which Secondly, some of these may be limited so as to embrace only a rulers will seek to perpetuate, portion of those powers, for a while others may be highly bene- particular occasion,
ficial. The tendency after the World War was to sweep away Justification for authorising everything that savored of war- these arbitrary powers is urged time control. including the
as arising from the fact that it wartime methods of checking has been found by experience profiteering in food. The present that the swifter means of effect-preparations for a war that may fing searches, seizures and arrests never come can be studied as which the substituted provisions practical examples of what could will permit are ad necessary for and could not be satisfactorily the due enforcement of the done, for peace purposes, under - Telecommunication Ordinance as planning on the largest scale,