ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE.”
23 APR 2 1902.
Report on Ordinance No. 6 of 1902.
I have examined the accompanying Ordinance, entitled "An Ordinance to further amend The Bankruptcy Ordinance, 1891," and I am of opinion that the Ordinance is one which is not contrary to the Governor's Instructions.
The Bankruptcy Amendment Ordinance, 1901, (No. 2 of 1901) was sent by the Secretary of State for the consideration of the Board of Trade. It was returned with a copy of an opinion by Mr. Muir MACKENZIE, which dealt, not only with the Hongkong Ordinances, but with the wider question of the desirability of modifying the Bankruptcy law in England and the Colonies generally, so as to obviate the hardship to local creditors in such circumstances as those discussed by the House of Lords in the case of Cooke v. The C. A. VOGELER Co., Law Reports (1901) Appeal Cases p. 102.
The main object of the Bankruptcy Amendment Ordinance, 1901, was, however, to remedy another kind of hardship, which still more urgently required legislative action in Hongkong, viz., the case of firms carrying on business there, some of the partners being neither British Subjects nor domiciled in the Colony.
Referring, however, to the special Bankruptcy legislation of this Colony, Mr. MUIR MACKENZIE points out what he deems to be a singular defect in the Bankruptcy Amendment Ordinance, 1901, viz., that it does not deal with the case of a foreigner trading in his own name by an agent in the Colony. Cases of that kind occur seldom, if ever, among the Chinese in Hongkong, and the Ordinance in question was passed to meet the hardship disclosed by the local case of Re Kung Hing ex parte Ah Wee (July 9th, 1900). It was approved of both by the Chief Justice who tried the case in question and by the Chamber of Commerce.