576503-1938-Supplementary-Regulation-of-Persons-Amendment-Bill — Page 2

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allowed under the principal Ordinance enabled aliens to enter, do business in and leave the Colony without notifying the fact at all. For these reasons it is desirable to reduce the period within which notification shall be made.

2. Clause 2 of this Bill adds a definition of "Consular Officer' to section 2 of the principal Ordinance in order to remove doubts as to the precise meaning of this term.

3. Owing to the provisions of section 20 of the Magistrates Ordinance, 1932, a person who commits an offence under the principal Ordinance cannot be proceeded against after the expiry of six months from the date on which the offence was committed, unless information has been laid or complaint made before that time.

4. Cases have occurred in which aliens who have failed to report their intended departure from the Colony, in contra- vention of section 2 (2) of the Ordinance, have, on returning to the Colony after the six months' period, been immune from prosecution, the offence not having come to the notice of the authorities within the prescribed time.

5. Clause 3 of this Bill, by inserting a new section 7A in the principal Ordinance substituting a two years' for the six months' limitation, is intended to cure this defect.

6. Similar provisions are contained, e.g., in section 38 (5) of the Opium Ordinance, No. 7 of 1932, and in England in section 28 (3) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1925 (15 and 16 Geo. 5, c. 86).

J. A. FRASER,

Attorney General.

July, 1938.