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the master as against the slave. In Hong Kong the law recognises no rights of owner- ship whatsoever in favour of the employer as against the mui-tsai or as against her parents. The status of the mui-tsai is entirely a free status. If a mui-tsai wishes to leave her employer there is no legal obstacle to her doing so at any moment.
9. It may be freely admitted that, human nature being what it is, there are pos- sibilities of abuse in every system of employment in which the two parties to the relation are, by reason of the extreme youth or great poverty or ignorance of one of the parties, not on equal terms. Such a possibility does exist in the case of the mui-tsai; and because of this possibility, which in the vast majority of cases is, I believe, only a possibility and not an actual fact, the Government would like to see the mui-tsai system gradually con- verted into something less open to that possibility.
10. It has however, been found impracticable to proceed otherwise than very slowly. The reasons why more rapid progress is impossible are given above expressly or impliedly, but they are so important that it may be useful to recapitulate them shortly here. They are as follows:
(a) The custom is deep rooted in Chinese family and economic conditions.
(b) Hong Kong with its very large Chinese population cannot break away too
far or too fast from Chinese customs.
(c) The great majority of the Chinese live so close to starvation that the too numerous children must find work or die, and they cannot always find work in their own villages.
(d) The existing mui-tsai, whose numbers constantly fluctuate owing to the arrival of new families from China or the departure of Hong Kong fami- lies to China, are so numerous that it would be quite impossible to deal with them if they were taken away from their employers.
(e) To enforce drastic measures against the legal sense of the Chinese com- munity would be to invite obstruction in a matter in which obstruction would be peculiarly easy and from a class peculiarly skilled in obstruction
11. I have given instructions that all cases in which a mui-tsai is concerned and particularly any case of cruelty to a mui-tsai, shall be brought at once to the notice of the Colonial Secretary, in order that I may make personal inquiry into such cases. I shall explore further the proposal that there should be instituted in this Colony an organization similar to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in England and that in this connection female inspectors, appointed by the Hong Kong Government, might be em- ployed. For the rest and I am quite certain that it would be useless, and even detri- mental to the cause in view, to attempt to advance ahead of public opinion in China it- self, and I do not doubt that the spirit of reform, now widespread in China, will before very long address itself practically (and not merely on paper) to the modification of the mui-tsai, system. Its disappearance is not, however, to be expected until there is a con- siderable improvement in economic conditions in China and a less reckless procreation of children among the poorest classes of the Chinese people.
*Chinese characters for names in this despatch and its enclosures are given on a separate sheet.
*Not printed.
I have, etc.,
C. CLEMENTI.