PY.
a Chinese girl who has been the victim in such a case may find herself without any legal protection as no legal
guardianship is provided.
{
The Ordinance extends the section and constitutes
the Registrar General the legal guardian of a girl in the
case contemplated and enables him to take such action to
secure her welfare as he thinks best.
The object of the second part of the section is to
enable the Registrar General when he is satisfied that a girl
has not been treated properly to remove her from the custody
of the person in whose charge she is unless he establishes.
that he is her legal guardian.
The measure which received the
Chinese members of Council is believed to be consonan with
the wishes of the Chinese community.
We
Enclosure
Hon. Colonial Secretary,
377 3*
5 SEP 10
The Registrar-General has for years
imagined himself to be legal guardian in cases under Section
32 of Ordinance 4 of 1897 and the Chinese have regarded him as
such and through the medium of the Po Leung Kuk Society helped
him to perform his duties as guardian. The Crown Solicitor
pointed out that apparently the Registrar-General had no legal
powers over these girls and the law has been amended so as to
enable him to exercise legally the powers of a guardian.
The second part of the section gives the
Registrar-General legal authority to do what he has been in the
habit of doing with the approval and concurrence of the Po
Leung Kuk Society for certainly the last twenty years - taking
on himself the guardianship of maid-servants who have run away
from their masters because of 111-treatment. It was pointed out
that should the maid-servant run away from the institution in
which the Registrar-General placed her he would have no power to
bring her back. The maid-servants whose cases are in contempla-
-tion are usually children of about ten years of age.
(34.) A. Y. Brewin,
Registrar-General,
Attorney General,
30th. July, 1910.