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being mere quidly and respectably conducted If legislation for the Emigration from these prohibited Port is necessary; the better course would probably be to allow in such case a sufficient precedent to enable Ship to proceed to some Port at which an Emigration Officer may be appointed without Certificate or written authority from any such Officer, and to require the Ship to put into Hong Kong or some other Port where there is an Emigration Officer for the purpose of being surveyed, do. It is understood that there would be little difficulty in getting the Ship to put in and the enactment in Clause 10 making the quantity of provision on Board a test of the duration of the Voyage complete with other circumstances, such as the place in which the Ship may be found, will afford a means of detecting and punishing Ships which fraudulently proceed on their Voyage without obtaining the requisite papers.
4 Raise a ...
5 Section 5 The Emigration Commissioners doubt whether the bond for securing compliance with the regulations can properly be taken from the Master of a Foreign Ship. It is understood that a similar bond taken from the Masters of Foreign Ships conveying Emigrants from this Colony has been held to be valid, and if so, there appears to be no reason why the bond should not be taken from the Masters of Foreign Ships conveying Emigrants from Hong Kong.
6 Section 7. This Section subjects to forfeiture Chinese Passenger Ships which proceed to Sea without emigration papers. A Court of law would probably hold this Section to apply to British Ships only, but to prevent doubt on the part of those who have to enforce the Act, it is suggested that it should be expressly confined to British Ships.
Clause 8. This enactment has already been observed upon before in ¶ 4. Supra. §. Section 10. This clause attaches the very severe penalty of forfeiture to a number of offences, some of which may be of a very trivial character. It is true that...