582256-1940-Defence-Regulations-1940 — Page 27

THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, JUNE 25. 1940.

any books, accounts or other documents relating to that trade or business, and for requiring any persons to furnish to such authority or person as may be specified in the order such estimates or returns as the competent authority may require;

(d) for any incidental and supplementary matters for which the competent authority thinks it expedient for the purposes of the order to provide, including, in particular, the entering and inspection of premises to which the order relates by persons authorized in that behalf by the competent authority, with a view to securing compliance with the order: and an order under this regulation may prohibit the doing of anything regulated by the order except under the authority of a licence granted by such authority or person as may be specified in the order, and may be made so as to apply either to undertakings generally or to any particular person or undertaking or class of persons or undertakings, and either to the whole or to any part of any undertakings, and so as to have effect either throughout this Colony or in any particular area therein.

(2) Where the right to make charges in connexion with the carrying on of any undertaking with respect to which an order may be made under this regulation is limited by law, any order so made in relation to that undertaking may authorize the undertakers to make in that connexion charges in excess of, or in addition to, those which they would other- wise be authorized to make.

(3) A competent authority, if it appears to that authority to be necessary so to do in the interests of public safety, defence or the efficient prosecution of the war, or for main- taining supplies and services essential to the life of the com- munity may, subject to any general or special instructions of the Governor, carry on the whole or any part of any existing undertaking, or authorize a person to carry on the whole or any part of the undertaking, in accordance with any instruc- tions of the competent authority; and while by virtue of this paragraph a competent authority or a person so authorized is carrying on the whole or any part of an undertaking—

(a) the said authority or person shall be deemed to be acting as the agent of the undertakers, except that the under- takers shall not have any right to control the carrying on of the undertaking or part of the undertaking; and

(b) the undertakers shall not be bound, or, as the case may be, shall not in respect of such matters as may be specified by order of the competent authority be bound, by any obligation or limitation imposed on them by or by virtue of any Ordinance or other instrument determining their functions.

(4) In this regulation-

(a) the expression "essential work" means work appear- ing to the competent authority to be essential for defence or the efficient prosecution of the war or to be essential to the life of the community; and

(b) the expression undertaking" means any public utility undertaking or any industrial or commercial enterprise, and the expression undertakers," in relation to any such enterprise, means the person by whom it is carried on;

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and any

reference in this regulation to articles shall be con- strued as including a reference to substances, vehicles, vessels or animals.

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