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Bubact
From Jaily Ress
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL mored the first reading of a Bill entitled as Ordinance to asend the Public Health and Buildings Ordin- anee, No. 1 of 1903,
The COLONIAL SECRETARY Reconded, and the motion was agreed to.
The objects and reasons attached to the Bill are as follows:-The object of this amending Ordinance is to affret certain amendments in. the Principal Ordinance principally on the recommendation of the Sanitary Board. The practical working of the Ordinance has shown these amendments to be necessary. An amend. ment is also made in the arbitration clauses. by which power is conferred upon the arbitrators, provided for in the Ordinance, to. take into their consideration, in determining the amount of compensation which may be payable in any given oase, the fact that the rental of the premises is enhanced by reason of its being overcrowded; and by direction of the Secretary of State, amendments are made to various sections of the Principal Ordinance, by which a Sanitary Department is created, and the Principal Civil Medical Officer is constituted its administrative head. In! order to give effect to the Board's recommen- dation. a new definition of the expression "exter- ual air" is submitted to Council. The Board having reported that section 48 of the Principal Ordinance, as it stands, is unworkable, that section is ropealed by the Amending Ordinance and has been recast to accord with the Board's recommendation. The object is to expedite and facilitate legal action in case of overcrowding. A Tho present procedure is too cumbrous. similar course is taken with respect to sections 150 and 145 of the Principal Ordinauce; and on the recommendation of the Board sub-sections (3) and (4) of section 175 are transposed in the Amending Ordinance. The Amending Or- dinaace also deletes the last clause (the proviso) of section 46 of the Principal Ordinance, This has been done on the recommendation of the Sanitary Board because as the section stands it is found to provent any finality in determining the number of persons who inay inhabit a floor, as by altering the size of a cubicle a man may at present increase or decrease the number of persons allowed. The proviso was a coucession made at the time when it was believed that every third house would be taken down and lateral windows in cubicles thereby provided. The words "room" and "cubicle" heretofore having in many instances the same meaning will for the faturo have a distinct meaning, and be dealt with under separate sections of the Ordinance, and by the amendments made at the Board's suggestion, a "cubicle" (ie., a sub-division of a room) as soon as it has a window one-tenth of the floor area becomes a "room." The amendments therefore do not prevent "cubicles" in future houses, but only prevent the existence of windowless cubiclos except where such cubicles exist in rooms which are themselves sufficiently light.
MAGISTRATES ORDINANCE,
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL moved that the Council resolve itself into committee on the Bill entitled an Ordinance to further amend the Magistrates Ordinance, 1890.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the motion was agreed to.
The Bill baving been considered in committee, The Council resumed.
On the motion of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL, seconded by the COLONIAL SECRETARY, the Bill was read a third time and passed.
UNDESIRABLE PERSONS.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL moved that the Council resolve itself into committee on the Bill entitled an Ordinance to provide for the recovery of charges incurred by the Colony on account of certain undesirable persons introduced into tho Colony. He said-Since the Bill was last be- fore the Counoil it has been before the Standing Law Committee and by a majority the Committee have ugrond to TECOM - ! mend the Bill to the Council in the shape in which it is now in the hands of hon. members. The hon. member for the Chamber of Commerce (Mr. Pollock) was not present at the last meet- ing of the Law Committee, but it may be as sumed that he would have opposed the Bill, as he is opposed to the Bill principle. The amendments which have been effected, or rather that are suggested and recommended by the Standing Law Committee, go almost the whole way in meeting the objection raised by the hou, member?
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the 20th November 190.2 7th
HIS EXCELLENCY-What was it?
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL-The Bill is now limited to any pee on who is either lunatic, idiot o, or imbecile, or suffering from leprosy, and it is made less wide in its scope than originally intended. Also the Bill makes it quite clear that masters of ships bringing undesirable persons shall have power to detain them on board nuless the Principal Civil Medical Officer or the Medical Officer of Health gives permission to land them, and in caso any passenger is so detained no action shall lie against any person whatsoever. I do not know whether the house is prepared to go into it, but I move that the house go into committee.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded.
Hon. GERSHOM STEWART-Your Excellency, in the absence of the member for the Chamber of Commerce, might I ask your Excellency to postpone consideration of this Bill? It arrived in its present form only last night, and is practically to all intents and purposes a new Bill It is a matter which the committes of the Chamber of Commerce would like to talk over. It contains a clause that bears hardly upon the shipper. It makes him liable for an undesirable person who becomes within six months from the date of landing a charge upon the public or upon any public institution. It does not seem a question of urgency, and if your Excellency would grant that indulgence the unofficial members and the Chamber of Commerce would appreciate it very mach.
The ATT NEY-GENERAL---We do not want to press it.
The COLONIAL SECRETARY-There is no desire on the part of the Government to unduly press this Bill, but at the same time I would like to point out that the Bill is urgeat. It is only recently that the military authorities asked for the reception in the lunatic asylum of two European members of the garrison. That request had very reluctantly to be refus d because the lunatic asylum is already fuli. Amongst the number of the occupants are to be found several foreigners who have no connection whatever with this Colony, and have no claim whatever upon the ratepayers of this Colony for their maintenance. There is a great difficulty in getting rid of a foreigner who is brought here and is cast upon the Colony and is a lunatic. Ships are very unwilling to take away a lunatic, and the negotiations with a foreign government for the reception of such lunatics into their own countries are very difficult and protracted. Therefore, Sir, I think, in the interests of the Colony and in justice to the ratepayers of the Colony, the Government is called upon to take some measures to prevent the dumping of lunatics who have no connection with the Colony at all into our asylum, the effect of which is that our own people in this Colony are excluded from the lunatic asylum. The matter has become so urgent that the Principal Civil Medical Officer made an applica- tion the other day that we should build a new lunatic asylum at a cost of some $55,000, and the usual increase, I suppose, of doctors, nurses, wardmasters, ete. To a certain extent I think we ought to try and see whether we cannot keep those undesirable people from bing dumped among us. There is no objection to a reasonable postponement of the thing.
HIS EXCELLENCY-I will not have the opportunity Ister on of dealing with this Bill. but still I think it may bo well that I should give you my views as far as this question about the six months is concerned. We ought to go upon a principle that is fair to the shippers as well as to the owners; that is, there ought to be some reasonable probability that there will be some- thing to show the owners and the captain of a ship that the person was not all right when he was on board, and therefore my own opinion. is that six months is too long. The probability is that when the Bill is gone on with no doubt the Government will be prepared to meet the views of the shippers in shortening that period. If I were dealing with this Bill myself I should be prepared to most any objection on this six months' score in that way, so that there would be a reasonable probability that the person would have shown symptoms on board ship.
The Bill was postponed till next meeting of Council
BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY,
The ATTORNEY-GENEBAL moved the third reading of the Bill entitled an Ordinanca to de- fine the Boundaries of the City of Victoria..
N,