ENG-1958 — Page 239

LEGISLATION

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designed to ensure that a charitable body does not evade the restrictions on the holding or acquiring of land by manipulating the equities of redemption.

Registered Trustees Incorporation Ordinance, No. 24. During the last eighty years a large number of organizations having reli- gious or public charitable objects have been incorporated by private Bill. The object of this Ordinance, which has been adapted largely from the Charitable Trustees Incorporation Act, 1872, is to provide a simple and inexpensive method whereby the trustees of such organizations may become incorporated. This object is achieved by providing for their incorporation by the Governor and, whilst the onerous provisions of the Companies Ordinance (Chapter 32) will not apply to any organizations so incorporated, practical control will be maintained by the Governor by means of the certificate of incorporation which may be granted subject to such conditions and directions as may be specified.

Pearl Culture. The culture of pearls is a new industry in Hong Kong. To provide for the protection of this industry and for its orderly development, legislation was enacted in 1958 in the shape of the Pearl Culture (Control) Ordinance, No. 26. The Ordinance provides for the licensing of persons carrying on the business of cultivating pearl oysters or the culture of pearls and prohibits the cultivation of these oysters or the pearls which they contain except under a licence. Provisions have also been made enabling the Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to prescribe the areas within the waters of the Colony in which pearl oysters may be cultivated and, in order to ensure the conservation of the stocks of natural pearl oysters in these waters, prohibiting the collection or sale of immature oysters unless they have been cultivated under licence.

Immigration. The enactment of the Immigration (Control and Offences) Ordinance, No. 34, has brought up-to-date the Colony's legislation for the control of immigration. The Immigrants Control Ordinance (Chapter 243) and the Passport Ordinance (No. 13 of 1952), which duplicated certain penal provisions, have been consolidated in the new Ordinance. The principal new provisions of this Ordinance are as follows: first, a provision which makes it illegal for any person who has entered the Colony in contravention of the Ordinance to remain in the Colony except under and in