20. Messrs. Reid Sharman & 6.
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At a discussion with Sir Sidney Abrahams,
who has previously seen this case, and
Mr. decomamond of 29/3, Sir Sidney said that it seemed doubtful whether we could dispose of it before he left the country on a visit to West Africa about the end of April. Pe thought it best therefore that Mr.de Comammond should take over legal advice on the case from now on. I therefore send now to Mr.de Comarmond for legal comment before the papers go to Mr. Paskin (Mr. Sidebotham is away).
2. Subject to Legal Adviser's comments, I do not think there is very much in this petition.
3. Mr. Radford's minute above summarises the main points of the petition and the Governor's comments on it contained in (19). I have the following to add.
4. The petition, which is addressed to the Secretary of State, was lodged with the Governor after the 1st reading and before the 2nd and third readings of the Bill (paragraph 2 of the petition) and prays for "disallowance of the contemplated Ordinance" (paragraph 24), apparently without an exact understanding of the constitutional position. It can in fact, I think, be treated as though it now asks for disallowance of the Ordinance.
5. The contention, which is the main burden of paragraphs 5 to 10 inclusive of the petition, that some prejudice was suffered by the petitioners because the terms of reference of the Hotel Rates Advisory Committee did not include the question as to whether any control of hotels was necessary at all does not seem to carry much weight, because the terms of reference (paragraph 1 of Schedule "o". to the petition) are so framed as to leave it perfectly open to the Committee to recommend that there should be no control; in fact, for certain specified hotels, the Committee did make this very recommendation.
6. The only important respect in which the Ordinance differs from the recommendations of the Advisory Committee is that provisions for appeal are not as wide as the Committee recommended. Attorney General gives the reasons for this in paragraph 5 of enclosure 2 to (19). In fact the petition does not refer to this point at all.
The
7. The statement in the petition (first sentence of paragraph 23) that control will be imposed "at the discretion of" the quartering Authority might, if accurate, raise a serious objection to the Ordinance. But in fact all regulations made by the Quartering Authority must be approved by a Resolution of the Legislative Council before they
come