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6.
The principal Ordinance refers in various places to
the "quarter".
In practice this must mean the period
between two consecutive meter readings as provided by
regulation 7 on page 309 of the Regulations of Hêng Kẹng.
It is obvious that the meters throughout the Colony cannot
possibly be read on the same day, and the regulation in
question provides that for the purpose of calculating the
quarterly consumption in any particular tenement the
differences between two consecutive readings of the meter
is to be taken. It also provides that the reading may be
taken on any day not more than ten days before or after the
calendar date of the commencement of the quarter.
Accordingly, the meter reader's quarter for any particular
tenement may not coincide with the calendar quarter, and it
may be longer or shorter than the calendar quarter, but a
longer quarter is always balanced later on by a shorter
quarter because the last reading of any one quarter must be
taken as the first reading of the succeeding quarter.
Section 3 of this Ordinance inserts in the principal Ordinance
a section which expressly recognises what may be called the
meter reader's quarter. This same point recurs in section
13 (2) of this Ordinance.
7.
Section 4 of this Ordinance amends section 5 of the
principal Ordinance so as to make the ordinary undertaking
to pay for water apply to all water supplied by meter
This amendment was necessary even apart from any question
of the temporary abolition of the "free allowance", because
even at present there are cases in which there is no "free
allowance".
8.
Section 5 of this Brdinance amends the regulation
making section of the principal Ordinance in two ways.
In the first place it abolishes the former maximum price