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and consider a fine, however heavy, totally inadequate for offenders, I agree with those who hold that the present Bill would not deter the small number of people, who are by nature cruel, from ill-treating their mui-tsai. For such people I advocate a long term of imprisonment with hard labour. I strongly deprecate, as do all my Honourable Unoffi- cial colleagues, the introduction of registration. Endless inconvenience and trouble would be caused to the people by requiring them to register their mui-tsai, to report any change of address, and wherever they leave the Colony with a mui-tsai, even temporarily. I do not agree with the supporters of the Bill that registration in this case would not cause un- due inconvenience, judging by the smooth working of the laws governing the registration of births, schools, companies, and medical practitioners. This is arguing on totally wrong premises. A little thought will convince any impartial person that it is one thing to have, for instance, a birth or a school registered, and quite another to have to report every in- tended removal of a mui-tsai from the Colony, even temporarily, and every change of address of the mui-tsai or of the employer. Further, according to the Bill, the employer, whatever his station in life, has to take out an identification ticket, as if (to use the words of a Chinese gentleman) he were a discharged convict who has periodically to report himself to the police. Moreover, registration in this case, if it is to be effective, would necessitate domiciliary visits, which would open a door to all sorts of abuses, such as bribery, thieves masquerading as detectives to gain admission into houses and interference with the privacy of the home; a thing repugnant to all free men. Registration of mui- tsai will not prevent their maltreatment any more than registration of shop-fokis will pre- vent thefts and embezzlements. Rather than have this registration law imposed on them, the employers of mui-tsai would sooner give them up at once, either to the Government or to such institutions as the Government would name. This would mean that the Govern- ment has to provide accommodation and find employment for the mui-tsai of whom there are about ten thousand in the Colony. As a correspondent to the Chinese General Cham- ber of Commerce has said, there are unfortunately very few foundling houses in Hong Kong or in China, and so the present homes of the mui-tsai constitute a sort of foundling houses for them, otherwise a large number of them would have been drowned by their parents or starved to death.
Hong Kong is so bound up with Canton, geographically and economically, that to stop the employment of mui-tsai after the Bill becomes law as prescribed by clause 4 would be impracticable unless China acts likewise. I am of the humble opinion that no real im- provement of any time-honoured social custom can be effected by sudden and violent change. The mui-tsai system has been in existence for thousands of years, having grown up under the economic condition of life. The wide publicity that has recently been given to the question should help materially to bring about the attainment of this object. The best method to this end would seem to be a gradual and careful education of public opinion.
The Anti-Muitsai Society and the "Protection' Society can assist in the carrying out of the present Bill by having all mui-tsai informed of their status as declared in clause 2, and of their right to report at once to the Government in case they are ill-treated; and also by advising employers to treat their mui-tsai well, otherwise they would be punished severely. It should be remembered, as analogous to this matter that the foot-binding practice which had been in existence in China for nearly two thousand years, and which was, as recently as twenty-five years ago, tenaciously clung to by the people, was event ually abolished, not by legal enactments but by gradual pressure of enlightened public opinion, until we see to-day middle-aged dames and young girls, instead of being carried on the backs of amahs, merrily tripping about in the streets in short skirts and high- heeled shoes, just like their Western sisters. What has happened to foot-binding should happen to the custom of keeping mui-tsai.
Let me now recapitulate the views of my Chinese colleague and myself, which, I think I can say, are also the views of my other Unofficial colleagues, namely, that to make illegal the engagement of mui-tsoi in Hong Kong at this juncture would be impracticable, that, as a preventive of ill-treatment of mui-tsai, persons guilty of gross cruelty should be sent to prison for a long term with hard labour. It has been a source of regret to me that, while the case for stopping the employment of mui-tsai has been so ably and widely presented, those who are in favour of retaining the system for the present, with certain radical improvements in their position, have, until only quite recently remained, almost inarticulate. I say this because I wish that both sides had had an equal chance of pre- senting their respective cases to the Secretary of State. Those in favour of the Bill have