COPY
Colonies 6488/14.
sir,
Enclosure
3
RECE
25202
546
Reg 29 MAY 16
Colonial Secretary's Office,
Singapore, 14th Jamary, 1915.
In reply to your letter 1949/10 of the 14th De- cember last I am directed to state that the Public Servants Liabilities Ordinance was experimental. The Attorney General in introducing the Bill in 1888 described it as of a "peculiar and exceptional character". The experiment could not succeed without some measure of co-operation with the Government on the part of those in whose interest the Ordinance was passed. It seems doubtful whether Government ever secured that co-operation even to a small extent. The experience of Heads of Departments was that it was not long before the money-lenders discovered that many clerks when in temporary difficulties were only too willing, in exchange for a prompt loan, to make terme with them which would mullify the intention of the Ordinance. Whenever a good surety for the borrower could be found, the money-lender required it, and he charged an extra high rate of interest, to counterbalance any loss arising from his inability to sue the principal in case the matter came before the Court,
2.
There good security was not available, as was fre- quently the case, the Chetty protected himself against the Ordin- ance by arranging that the wife or some near relation of the borrower should act as surety. In these circumstances the clerks
The Honourable,
The Colonial Secretary,
HONGKONG.
when