103231-1926-Supplementary-Draft-Bill--Post-Office — Page 22

223

LIABILITY FOR POSTAGE.

25. Clause 21 of the bill is an attempt to deal fully with the question of liability for payment of postage Sub-clause (1) is taken from Article 35 of the Stockholm Convention. In that sub-elanse postcards are not mentioned because they are included in the term letter, unless of course where, as in the regulations prescribing rates of postage, there is an indication that the term does not include post- cards.

26. Clause 22 is taken from section 19 of the Straits Ordinance. It gives the Postmaster General the right to withhold any postal packets from any person who has refusal or neglected to pay any postage or other, sum which he is legally bound to pay to the Post Office.

POSTAL PACKETS DELIVERED AT HOTELS, ETC.

A

27. Clause 25 of the bill provides that if postal packets are delivered at hotels or shipping offices, and are not claimed or forwarded, they shall be returned to the post office and treated as dead letters. postal packet posted in the Colony must be returned within two weeks, and a postal packet posted outside the Colony must be returned within two months. The Postmaster General has power to extend these periods. This provision is adapted from the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Act, 1908, section 23.

CRIMINAL OFFENCES.

28. In clauses 26 to 34 of the bili, both inclusive, an attempt has been made to classify, and improve the arrangement of, the various offences relating to the post office.

29. Clause 32 contains a list of prohibited articles. The prohibi- tion of coin and gold and silver bullion is taken from a regulation made by the Governor and gazetted on the 19th December, 1924. Sub-clause (1) (q) gives power to add to the list by regulation. Sub- clause (2) prohibits the posting of any article in any particular kind of postal packer if the sending of such article in such kind of postal packet is prohibited by regulation. Sub-section (5) provides a means of obtaining a judicial decision as to whether any particular thing is a prohibited article or not. Sub-clause (6) gives the Post- master General the right to refuse to receive, or to refuse to forward, anything which, by reason of its nature, contents or form, or for any other reasou, is not in accordance with any departmental rules made or adopted by him or any departmental practice followed in the post office. This clause enables a great many minute details to be omitted from the regulations. They appear more conveniently in the Postal Guide. It will be noticed that sub-clause (6) does not create any offence it merely gives the Postmaster General the right to refuse.

MISCELLANEOUS,

30. Clause 36 of the bill is an attempt to meet a difficulty of a class often experienced here. It frequently happens that evidence of offences cannot be completed without some piece of evidence which can only be obtained, if at all, with great expense and difficulty because of the great distances involved. Sections 8 and 9 of the Post Office Act, 1908, go a certain way in this direction, but clause 36 of the bill is wider, particularly in paragraph (3). The provisions of section 45 (3) of the Post Office Ordinance, 1900, are rather less wide than even the Post Office Act.

31. The penalties for offences against the Ordinance are collected in clause 38 of the bill.

(

16th March, 1925.

J. H. KEMP,

Attorney General.