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clear that much delay could be caused by the necessity of investigating claims to vote by persons of these twelve classes, and it is also obvious that questions of some diffienlty might arise in connection with such claims. The jurors lists form part of a register of the electorate. The obvious course with regard to the remainder of the elector- ate is to provide for a second part of the register on which such persons may apply to be registered. This is the course which section 5 of this Ordinance adopts. The obligation will be on each qualified person to apply to have his name entered in the register. This part of the register will be closed to fresh applications for registration for fourteen clear days before any ballot, so as to allow some time for the investigation of all claims to registra- tion, but clectors should not wait for the near approach of an election before registering their names.
4. The cuumeration of persons exempt from jury service who are entitled to registration in the second part of the register is contained in the proposed new sub-clause (4) of s. 8 of the principal Ordinance which appears as part of section 2 of this Ordinance. The enumeration follows
that contained in s. 4 of the Jurors Ordinance, 1887, but a few changes have been made.
5. In the first place the second part of the register will be expressly restricted to male persous.
There is no doubt that this was the original intention, but it might just be possible to argue on the present wording of the Ordinances that women might be included.
6. The wording of the paragraph relating to barristers and solicitors has been slightly altered because it is not the custom for barristers to have clerks in this Colony.
7. The paragraph in the Jurors Ordinance, 1887, relat- ing to
chemists and druggists actually carrying on busi- ness as such" has been incorporated with the paragraph relating to doctors and dentists, and the form which the de-cription now takes is that of persons registered under the Pharmacy and Pois as Ordinance, 1916. The para- graph relating to doctors has been altered.
At present
it r ads “persous entitled to practise medicine and surgery under the Medical Registration Ordinance, 1884,” The intention seems to be to refer to persons registered as practitioners under that Ordinance but the wording of the paragraph might be taken to include persous practising medicine or singery according to purely Chinese methods because the right of such persons to practise and to recover fees is expressly saved by s. 3 of the Medical Registration Ordinance, 1884. Such persons will now be definitely excluded from 11e electorate, and this is done, partly in order to carry out what appears to be the present intention, and partly because claims to registration on this ground might give rise to some difficulty.
8. The paragraphs relating to elitors of newspapers and their staff has been altered so as to make it refer only to editors, sub-editors and reporters. The word "staff might include even an office messenger, and it is obvious that the exemption from jury service was intended to apply only to persons whose professional avocations are such as to make it difficult for them to serve on juries,
9. Masters of vernacular schools are not eligible for the electorate, unless of course they are on one of the jurors hists. A serious question arose at the last hallot as to what were vernacular schools, because there is no statutory definition of the term. There is a definition in the Grant Code, 1924, which reads as follows, "Vernacular school means a grant school in which the Chinese language is the principal medium of instruction ", but it will be noticed that this definition refers only to grant schools. The Education Department does in fact classify all schools into the two classes, ie., vernacular schools and schools which are not vernacular schools, but, as in the case of the Grant Code, this has no statutory authority. It would
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