ENG-1952 — Page 151

VIII

LEGISLATION

During the year 1952, thirty-three Ordinances were enacted, and reference is made below to the more important of them.

Agricultural Products Marketing. Ordinance No. 11 places on a permanent footing a marketing scheme originally instituted under the Defence Regulations. The general purpose of that scheme was to afford material help to vegetable farmers, and to encourage the increased production of vegetables by ensuring that the price at which they were sold to the public was a fair one, and that the profits of middlemen were con- trolled. The scheme proved beneficial to both producers and the community, and the Ordinance is designed to provide, in more permanent form, legislation which may be extended to cover other agricultural products. An Advisory Board has been created, and wide powers of inspection and enforcement vested in the Director of Marketing. A considerable part of the scheme is effected by subsidiary legislation, under which wholesale vegetable markets are established in Kowloon and the New Territories, and restrictions placed on the sale and movement of produce outside the markets.

Criminal law. Ordinance No. 13 makes further and better provision touching offences in relation to passports. Ordinance No. 29 brings the law of the Colony into conformity with that of the United King- dom regarding the age under which a person cannot be sentenced to death. No person under the age of eighteen years at the time when the offence was com- mitted may now be sentenced to death; he may instead be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure.

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