Kanance
16
the Legislative Council of Hongkong a Bill To Amend the Prepared Opium Ordinance 1891 by making it penal for any person to have on board any ship (and ship includes any steam or sailing vessel, junk, boat, sampan or any kind of craft used for conveyance of persons or goods by water or which may be so used) bound for Canton or Macao any quantity of prepared opium, however small which was not entered on the manifest of such ship, and empowering the master of such ship to seize any such opium, to detain it and deliver it to the police, whether protected by the Opium Farmer's certificate or not. Prepared Opium so found and seized was declared forfeited to the Crown and was not deliverable to the Opium Farmer unless he proved to the satisfaction of the Governor that the prepared opium in question was not protected by an opium certificate and that he the Opium Farmer, was not privy to its presence on board the ship in which it had been found.
10.
The said Bill was amended in Committee by limiting the operation of it to prepared opium exceeding 2 taels in weight and was passed into law on the 17th day of April last with a suspending clause staying the operation thereof until your approval thereof had been obtained and notified in the usual way.
Your Excellency's appeared by their Counsel at the bar of the Legislative Council and protested