Annual report on Sarawak.

Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Sarawak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    128/230 (page 80)
    Legislation. While the pattern of legislation! in the Colony continued along the lines of reform and amendment characteristic of previous years, one feature of the year’s legislative programme was the number of amending Ordinances concerned with public security; and in fact a majority of the sixteen amending Ordinances enacted during the year were of this nature, affecting such subjects as registration of aliens, sedition and undesirable persons. At the three meetings of the Council Negri held during the year, thirty-two Ordinances were enacted, and of those dealing with original subjects the following are possibly the most important— The Education Ordinance, which repealed and replaced the previous Schools Ordinance. The power of controlling schools conferred by the latter Ordinance had been adequate in the conditio ms then existing, but circum¬ stances had now emphasised the need for a wider control of schools, such as that effected by the new Ordinance. The Excise Ordinance, which made provision- for the levying of excise duty on goods or liquors manufactured or distilled within the Colony; this Ordinance enables effective control to be exercised over distilleries, and will make it easier to prevent illicit distillation or manufacture of dutiable goods. With this Ordinance the long history of arrack farming in the Colony came to an end. The War Damage Ordinance, designed to provide machinery for the assessment of war damage claims and for the making of ex gratia payments in respect thereof. This Ordinance became necessary on His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom agreeing to assist ini the financing of a war compensation scheme ini the Colony. The Cattle (Control) Ordinance, designed to control the indiscriminate slaughter of cattle in the Colony, and made necessary by the existing shortage of fresh meat in the Colony, a factor encouraging the slaughter of draught animals.