(
Enclosure 2.
со
- 117
292
RECO Rro 1 JAN 12
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS,
Hongkong 5th. December,
1911.
Report on Ordinance No..
53
of 191! .
I have examined the accompanying Ordinance, entitled
"An Ordinance to provide for the registration of Chinese -
Partnerships, and to enable partners therein to register
and thereby to limit their liability,"
(
and I am of opinion that the Ordinance is one which is not contrary to the Governor's
Instructions,
This Ordinance introduces a new system of partnership law, or ra-
ther a system which is new to English ideas, and is an attempt to solve
a question which has been continuously before the Government since the
frame of year 1874. Although the Chinese as a race are justly and for their commercial integrety, it has been found by experience in the courts of the Colony that partners in Chinese commercial firms avail themselves of every subterfuge which will assist them in concealing their identity and they give as their reason the fact that the unlimited liability imposed by British Law is so unjust according to their ideas that they are forced into a system of commercial dishonesty. This Ordinance which is more fully explained in the speeches which were made on its first and second readings and in the memorandum which was appended to the Ordinance when it was first published in the Gazette (copies of which are attached to this report) is in the nature of a bribe. It gives re-