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A.-Not on the disposal of these girls. What I meant by veto was a veto on the regulations which the Board of Directors make for the conduct of the work of the elective committee, the working Committee, and for similar resolutions of importance. The disposal of these girls should be left in the hands of the Committee.
Honourable F. H. MAY.-That constitutes the greater part of the work of the present Committee and the Registrar General. If you hand over the girls to the Pó Léung Kuk, I am sure that, if I were the Registrar General, I should be delighted.
A. I would trust the Chinese Committee to dispose of these girls and women properly according to Chinese notions.
Honourable F. H. MAY.-Practically to cut the Society adrift from all control. I mean it appears to me that is one of the very things that the Government aims at, to supervise the dealing with these girls, and see that they are properly looked after.
A.-These things according to European notions become very difficult to manage. The Chinese say "We cannot work; we have our own ways of dealing with women and girls, and you interfere with the unnecessarily complicated forms required by the European government, which hinder the whole business, so that no good is done."
The CHAIRMAN.—You think that a Committee of respectable Chinese gentlemen can be safely entrusted to do the best they can for the girls given into their care?
A. Yes, to men like the members of this Board of direction. And I do not see, after all, why the Registrar General should not have in this matter also his veto. He need not exercise it in every little detail, but he might reserve it for matters of principle.
Honourable Ho KAL.-Do you know the Chinese customs very well? Do you know whether a Chinese family--though they may be poor-would allow a son or a member of the family to take as his first wife a girl who had been a prostitute?
A.-Certainly not. It would damage the reputation of that respectable family, even if he took such a one as his second wife, recognising the children as his. I think we Europeans have far too little confidence in the conscience of the Chinese about such matters. Their conscience is not as delicate as ours is, but they have a conscience about these things.
Q.-Would it therefore be difficult to marry off the girls or dispose of them as such? A. Yes, of course, it is difficult.
Q.-Suppose that a man here were to marry one of these girls as his first wife--and it is a rule that they should do so--what would probably happen if she were taken home? A. At present I believe the Registrar General has the direction of the whole thing. Without any desire at all to reflect on the Registrar General, I do not believe that he always secures the effect that the woman is married as a first wife.
Q.-Only outwardly?
A.-He will be bamboozled about it. As regards little children there may be no difficulty about it, little ones that have not reached the age of maturity. But, as regards those who have seen much of an immoral life, there will be great difficulty in getting them married off as first wives. They are not fit to be.
The CHAIRMAN.-Do you know that before a man can marry, he has first to find security and enter into a bond, and in that bond it is distinctly stated that he takes the girl as his first wife?
A.-I was aware of that.
Q.-Well, would it be possible to ascertain whether these girls in some cases have been taken nominally as first wives and have afterwards become second wives?
upon
A.-The Registrar General is a European and he is dependent for his information his clerks and interpreters.
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