Note.
Note.
-8-
subjects to bear a visa.
49
59
The regulations expressly exempt
"persons of Chinese race" from the operation of their provisions as also do the regulations which were substituted for them in 1932 (Government Notification No. 361 of 1932).
: (1)
This appear to be the first Hong Kong legislation which requires passports of persons entering Hong Kong.
| (2)
The exemption from the regulations appears to be the first exception made by the Hong Kong Ordinances in favour of Chinese. It should be noted that the exemption is granted by the regulations and not by the Ordinance and that the wording of the Ordinance is sufficiently wide to permit regulations to be made applicable to Chinese.
The reason for the exemption granted by the regulations may have been that, since very few Chinese in fact possessed passports, intercourse between the Colony and China would have been seriously interfered with if the regulations had been applied to Chinese (see para. 2 of the Objects and Reasons for the Immigration Control Bill, 1940, under (1) on 56064/48). There is certainly no evidence which I can find to show that the Chinese were entitled to this exemption (or to exemption from Part II of No. 8 of 1934 see (e) below) as of right, and that the exemption was an act of grace on the part of the Hong Kong Government appears to gain support from the fact that by way of reciprocity the Chinese exempted persons born or resident in Hong Kong from the necessity of obtaining a visa to visit Shanghai or Canton (see para. 6 of (1) on 56064/48 and Annex B thereto).
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(e) No. 8 of 1934, as amended by Nos. 23 of 1935 and 20 of 1940
(rep. No. 32 of 1940).
Part I. empowers an authorised police officer to refuse permission to land, or to prevent from landing, or to take into custody and return to his port of embarkation or the country of which he is a national, any person within certain specified categories (roughly persons who are diseased or socially or politically undesirable or likely to become a charge on the public).
Part II forbids the entry into the Colony of any person who does not possess a valid passport or other travel document; provides that the possession of a valid passport or travel document shall not imply any right in the holder thereof to land, or, if allowed to land, to stay in the Colony; and provides that, where an alien holder of a valid passport or travel document has not resided in the Colony for more than one month since his last arrival therein, the Inspector General of Police may prescribe a limited time during which such alien may stay in the Colony.
"Persons of Chinese race" are expressly exempted from this Part of the Ordinance.
As to the exemption of Chinese see note (2) on No. 35 of 1923 at (a) above.
(f) No. 32 of 1940.
This Ordinance, which is still in force, provides that
(i) the Immigration Officer may in his discretion refuse permission to land in the Colony or to remain in the Colony after landing or to enter or remain after entering to any person who is not in possession of a valid passport or other valid travel document, or a valid Entry Permit or Certificate of Residence or Frontier
/Pass...