400
a
gave
lime
while at the same time it to the Public Works Department to make further progress with the main drainage works
of
the
City,
i.e. the
reconstruction, repairs, extension,
ventilation and disconnexion of
public sewers.
3. Early last year the Draft Bill having been referred by Mr March to the Sanitary Board for revision, this
body, after the study of the measure, returned it to the Executive Government recast in the form shown in the enclosure in Mr March's Despatch No.62 of the 28th February last.
4. The Sanitary Board were of opinion with regard to the technical details of the Bill which relate to the proposed sanitation of dwelling-houses, that it would be more practical to embody the whole of these in
a series
of bye-Laws to be framed under the Bill,
as this course would allow of additions or amendments from time to time without necessitating
the repeal of the Ordinance itself, and accordingly the Board recast the Bill in the form in which it was transmitted home by Mr March in his Despatch mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
5. But the Executive Council, not viewing the matter in the same light as the Sanitary Board, reversed the decision of the latter and transferred to and incorporated the bye-laws in the body of the Bill. This resolution was adopted on the ground that the matters dealt with were of too great importance to be relegated to mere byelaws, and some members were of opinion that the power to make byelaws in matters that might affect vested interests was too great a power to be vested in a body of the status of the Sanitary Board.