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Regulation, though
there was a division of opinion as to the substitute for it.

In 1903, the Minister of the Interior of France, the country where
these Acts originated, nominated an extra-Parliamentary Commission to
go thoroughly into these questions. This Commission held its numerous
sittings in 1905, and in the end by almost a two-thirds' majority
condemned the existing system of regulation in France, and furthermore
rejected the alternative proposal of notification with compulsory
treatment, by sixteen votes to one. In reporting on the Conferences
held in Brussels, the _Independence Belge_ said, in a leading article:
"Regulation is visibly decaying, and the fact is the more striking
because the country that instituted it (France) is at present the one
that meets it with the most ardent hostility."




CHAPTER 4.

MORE POWER DEMANDED AND OBTAINED.


In 1866 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell,
determined upon the repeal of Ordinance 12, 1857, in order to
inaugurate "a more vigorous policy of coercion," (says the
Commission's report): "The key note of the new regime was struck by
the Governor's first minute on the subject, dated 20th October, 1866,
in which he wrote he was 'anxious early to introduce to the Council an
amended Brothel Ordinance, conferring _necessarily_ almost despotic
powers on the Registrar General." ... Be it said to the honor of
Attorney General (now Sir Julian) Pauncefote, that in the face of this
he urges the most weighty objections to the policy of "subjecting
persons to fine and imprisonment without the safeguards which surround
the administration of justice in a public and open court." But these
objections were not allowed to prevail.

It appears that some hesit