Six Copies which are required to be sent home under the Regulations.
Colonial Revenue
13 March
But More 113 of Mr. Davis sends, with this Despatch, two Ordinances on neither of which he comments, though both seem to me much to demand explanation.
No. 15 of 1844 Establishes a Supreme Court at Hong Kong. 1st The 8. Clause enacts that the Law of England shall be in full force there except where the same shall be inapplicable to local circumstances or not be suited to local circumstances. Proviso that in all matters Concerning the title to real Property The Law of England shall prevail. The general rule, though not very accurately expressed, may, Jurispages, pass without comment. But the Proviso is evidently wrong. If there be any subject on which the applicability of the Laws of England to local circumstances is questionable it is to real property.
The Writer of this Ordinance seems to have had in view making an Exception in favour of the Law of England as regards the successions to the Estates of deceased persons. His words embrace a mass of Rules, Forms and Principles, unknown even among English Lawyers except to those who practice as Conveyancers and known even then very imperfectly.
The 3 Clause has a Proviso against the Qual verification "of any Law derogating from the Sovereignty of the Queen of England". What the object of this Proviso can have been I cannot even conjecture. But to describe The Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as "Queen of England" in a formal legislative Act seems a solecism.
The same Clause authorizes the Court...