CO129-545-7 Telegraphy and Telephony- amendments to legislation 1-11-1933 - 24-3-1934 — Page 60

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is being maintained, or used, or is in the possession of any person, and to search such place or ship, and to seize any apparatus which appears to him to have been established, or maintained or used, or to be in the possession of any person in contravention of any such regulation.

4. (1) Every person who contravenes any provision of Penalties. this Ordinance or any regulation made thereunder, and every person who fails to comply with any condition of any licence or permit issued or granted thereunder, shall be liable, upon summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding twelve months.

(2) It shall be lawful for a magistrate to order to be forfeited to the Crown any apparatus with respect to which any offence against this Ordinance has been committed, whether any person shall have been charged with, or shall have been convicted of, such offence or not.

Objects and Reasons.

1. The object of this Ordinance is to enable the Governor in Council to make regulations for licensing, permitting, regulating and controlling teleprinting, teletyping and telephotography in the Colony.

2. These are modern developments of telegraphy of which use is being made or contemplated by different organizations in the Colony and it seems desirable to place such user under proper control, to regulate competition in what is now an open field and to prevent induction or other interference with Government or other services.

3. The Hong Kong Telephone Company Ltd. has under the Telephone Ordinances, 1925 and 1930, the sole right, subject to those Ordinances, to operate public telephonic communication within the Colony, including trunk line telephonic communication therein for communicating with places outside the Colony, and although the three services mentioned are capable of being operated over telephone lines they are essentially telegraphic services which are equally capable of being operated over telegraph lines and possibly also by wireless.

4. The Ordinance is drafted generally on the lines of the Wireless Telegraphy Ordinance, No. 11 of 1926.

C. G. ALABASTER,

Attorney General.

March, 1933.

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