Report
on an Ordinance intituled An Ordinance to amend
the Interpretation 'Ordinance, 1911.
415
This Ordinance was introduced in order to carry out in
part the instructions contained in the Secretary of State's despatch of the 26th October, 1916.
The rest of those in-
structions have been carried out by means of the Revenue Officers Powers of Arrest Ordinance, 1917, which was passed on the same day as this Ordinance,
The particular instructions given were that the defini- tion of revenue officer in the Interpretation Ordinance, 1911 should be amended. It was thought that those instructions would be best carried out by transferring the definition to the Revenue Officers Powers of Arrest Ordinance, and by casting it into an elastic form which could be made to em- brace revenue officers appointed under future Ordinances,
The definition of Exoise officer in the Interpretation Ordinance, 1911, has been repealed, the term having become obsolete now that the Opium farm has ceased to exist.
The opportunity was also taken to amend section 9 of the principal Ordinance so as to make it conform more closely to the corresponding section in the United Kingdom Interpre- tation Act, 1889, and to the form in which the section originally appeared in the Hongkong statute book.
Doubt a
had been expressed as to whether the shortened form of section as it appeared in the Interpretation Ordinance, 1911 might not be construed as applying only to Ordinances con- taining a suspending clause.
In my opinion this is an Ordinance to which His Excel- lenoy the Governor may properly assent in the name of His Majesty and on His behalf.
Attorney General, 19th March, 1917,
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