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CARL T SMITH
community in Hong Kong on the long established Chinese custom of buying children as domestic servants. This attention led to concern, discussion, agitation, the formation of societies and finally in 1923 an Ordinance in the Hong Kong Legislature to abolish the system.
The case concerned a man who had met two girls aged ten and thirteen on a street in Wanchai. They had gone out to buy sweets and had become lost. The stranger took them on a tram to the Yaumati ferry. They crossed to Kowloon and then returned. He left them for a few minutes to buy something in Wing On Store on Connaught Road Central. The girls came to the notice of the police and the man was arrested when he returned to where he had left them.
Mr. Alabaster claimed the two women who owned the girls did not have lawful care of them because they were bought to serve, and they were sold as slaves and slavery has been abolished (in Britain and its colonies) and it is not lawful”.
On being examined by the Chief Justice one of the mistresses gave evidence that one of the girls had been sold by her elder brother as she had no parents. The Chief Justice asked, "Then as put by the learned Counsel for the defence, she is your slave?”
The witness replied, "I do not know what you mean by slave. Once the girl is sold to me she is my property. It is the custom among the Chinese to buy servants."
Mr. Alabaster thanked the Chief Justice that the answer to his question had made it so clear the girl was a slave.
His Lordship then asked Mr. Alabaster, "What is a slave?"
He replied, "I contend that a person who is bought by a master and may be sold by a master, who receives no wages, except clothes and food in exchange for work is a slave."
Mr. Alabaster admitted that sale of a child might be legal in China, but once it was brought to the Colony, it had the right to freedom.
The Chief Justice referred to the Proclamation of Captain Eliot to the Chinese of Hong Kong in 1841 that stated Britain would respect the religious rites, ceremonies and social customs of the Chinese. The Supreme Court usually took into account the question of Chinese custom. If the point in law raised by Mr. Alabaster were to be sustained by a Full Court it would have most serious consequences.
The question was not settled by the court but it provoked public