CO129-558-2 Coinage Offenses (No.2) Amendment Ordinance 1936 31-3-1936 - 27-11-1936 — Page 13

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2. By section 10 of Ordinance No. 7 of 1865 as amended by section 3 (2) (j) of Ordinance No. 20 of 1936, every person who has in his custody or possession three or more pieces of false or counterfeit coin resembling or apparently intended to resemble or pass for any current gold or silver coin, knowing the same to be false or counterfeit, and with intent to utter or put off the same or any of them is liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding three years.

3. By section 12 of Ordinance No. 7 of 1865, as amended by section 3 (2) (k) of Ordinance No. 20 of 1936, uttering false coin as or for current gold or silver coin with intent to defraud is punishable with imprisonment for any term not exceeding one year.

4. By section 14 of Ordinance No. 7 of 1865, as amended. by section 3 (2) (n) of Ordinance No. 20 of 1936, the uttering of

any false or counterfeit coin intended to resemble or pass for current copper coin, knowing the same to be false or counterfeit, as well as the possession with intent to utter of three or more of such coins, knowing the same to be false or counterfeit, is punishable with imprisonment for any term not exceeding one year.

5. The effect of this Bill will be to raise the penalty under sections 8, 12 and 14 of the principal Ordinance to the same maximum as that provided in section 10 thereof and to raise the penalty under section 9 from two years to four years.

6. Counterfeiters in the Colony seem to concentrate their energies on the production of spurious ten cent pieces.

7. The older issues of genuine ten cent pieces, as specified in the Third Schedule to the Hongkong (Coinage) Order, 1895, were silver coins. The new issue under Proclamation No. 4 of the 9th November, 1935, is of cupro-nickel.

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8. For the purposes of Ordinance No. 7 of 1865, amended by section 3 (2) (a) of Ordinance No. 20 of 1936, the older issues are classed as silver coin and the new issue is classed as copper coin, with the result that the penalty varies with the issue of ten cent pieces which is counterfeited.

9. The object of this Bill is to correct that anomaly and to render offenders against sections 8, 9, 12 and 14 of the principal Ordinance liable to heavier penalties. It is felt that such heavier penalties are necessary and it is hoped that they will serve as a deterrent.

September, 1936.

C. G. ALABASTER,

Attorney General.

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