(C.S.O. 2257/1883).
254
Registrar General to Colonial Secretary.
No. 83.
SIR,
See (2).
Enclosure
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFICE, Hongkong, 13th September, 1883.
With reference to Mr. Justice Russell's Report of the 18th July last, on Child Adoption and Domestic Service among Hongkong Chinese, (page 8), and to my letter, No. 73, of the 31st ultimo, (C.S.O. No. 2152) regarding the 14th young girls found in No. 233 Hollywood Road. I have the honour to enclose, for the consideration of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, a draft Ordi- nance conferring on the Registrar General the powers with which I think he should be invested in order to carry out effectually the scheme suggested by Mr. Russell.
ENCLOSURE 3.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
FREDERICK STEWART, Registrar General.
Report by the Attorney General.
The proposed measure provides that the Registrar General may summon before him any person whom he reasonably suspects of having in his custody any adopted daughter or female servant between the age of 6 and 16 with a view of disposing of her as a prostitute. There is no definition of what should constitute reasonable grounds of suspicion, and I think the provision confers too much arbitrary power to be exercised without the safeguard of publicity by the Registrar General.
The measure provides for the summoning of the kind of persons above mentioned and for calling upon them to give reasonable security against the pawning or selling of the child, but it does not say what shall be done with the person or the child if the security is not forthcoming, and indeed it is difficult to see what could be done in such
case.
Section 3 appears to give a very extraordinary power to the Registrar General to interfere with the domestic affairs of the Chinese population and a kind of power which could not possibly be efficiently exercised by a Government department especi- ally as nothing is provided touching what is to be done with a child who has been set free under the provisions of the section.
Section 4 is objectionable as giving the judges duties and powers which are in no proper sense of the word judicial.
EDWARD O'MALLEY.
May 18th, 1885.