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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
The Bill has been carefully considered by the Hong Kong Incorporated Law Society and many of their suggestions, in particular those of Mr. Edgar Davidson, have been adopted.
It has also been approved by the Judges.
I regret that a small printer's error has remained undetected in the first line of paragraph 3 of the Objects and Reasons-Ordiiance for Ordinance, and the final page of the Table of Correspondence has been bound up with the rest of the Bill back to front.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the Bill was read a first time.
Objects and Reasons.
The "Objects and Reasons" for the Bill were stated as follows:-
1. The object of this Bill is to substitute for the Trustees Ordinance, 1901, an Ordinance framed on the lines of the Trustee Act, 1925 (15 Geo. 5, c. 19) and the Straits Settlements Ordinances No. 31 of 1926 and No. 14 of 1929, and to incorporate therein certain provisions of the Judicial Trustees Act, 1896.
2.
The principal amendments made by the Bill are as follows:—
(a) A trustee unless expressly prohibited by the instrument creating the trust, may invest in securities payable to bearer, which, if not so payable, would have been authorised invest- ments. But a trustee other than a trust corporation must deposit the securities for safe custody with a banker (s. 8).
(b) Trustees, when lending money, may contract that the money shall not be called in during any period not exceeding seven years. On a sale of land, they may contract that the payment of a part, not exceeding two-thirds, of the purchase money shall be secured by mortgage of the land sold. Where securities of a company are subject to a trust, the trustees may concur in any arrangement for the reconstruction of the company, for the sale of any of its property to another com- pany or for its amalgamation with another company, and, if any preferential right is offered to the trustees in respect of their holding, they may exercise or renounce or assign it (s. 11).
(c) Trustees are given power to deposit money at a bank and to
pay calls out of capital money (s. 12).
(d) A sole trustee, not being a trust corporation, will not be able to give a valid receipt for the proceeds of sale or other capital money arising under a disposition on trust for the
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