2
94
Schedule C
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being departed from or forgotten by a number of hotels.
40 The Order which, as stated, was made by the Competent Authority
under the Regulations of 1948, fixed rates for accommodation and
for services
charges which were resented by the hotel managements on the ground that
A
they were said to be unduly low.
Opposition to the rates so fixed was
accompanied by criticism of the employment of emergency legislation.
As a result of such protest and criticism a Hotel Rates Advisory
Committee was appointed by the Government. The Committee made
considerable enquiry and took substantial time before reporting. The
main feature of the Committee's report, which was accepted by Government,
proposed a scale of rates and reservation of accommodation which would
be applicable to hotel residents but so applicable only to a limited
number of hotels.
5. Consequent on this report the Bill of which a copy is annexed,
was prepared. It reproduced, with only one important exception, the
recommendations or suggestions of the Committee. The important exception
is that the Committee's report had recommended, a little vaguely, the
setting up of some form of appeal Board or Tribunal to deal with appeals
from the decisions of the Quartering Authority appointed for the purposes
of the Ordinance and Regulations and in general with the representations
of interests aggrieved as a result of the Committee's recommendations.
The Ordinance, as will be observed from regulation 8 of the Regulations
appearing in the Schedule, has provided for appeal only in regard to the
allocation of reserved accommodation. It was felt that to provide for
a wider range of appeals would probably result in making the legislation
was
unworkable. Furthermore, it/anticipated, guided by experience in the
operation of the Tenancy Tribunals set up under the Landlord and Tenant
Ordinance, 1947, that very considerable difficulty could be expected in
obtaining suitable personnel to man any such permanent appeal tribunal
and in providing the staff and accommodation necessary for its
activities.
6. The Ordinance under report received its First Reading as a
Bill on the 9th February. The Second and subsequent stages were taken
on the 23rd February. In the interval a petition was presented by the