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At the head of the Registrar-General's Department in Rong Kong, we appoint an officer, as we believe of the highest characte One of the gentleinen so employed (I mention it to you becaus it was twice referred to in the public prints of Hong Kong, one before my arrival and once not long since), pats on a false beard ard moustache, be takes marked money in his waistcoat pocket, and proces to the back lanes of the Colony, knocks at various doors, and at laugh He addresses the woman who opens the gains admission to a house. door, and tells her he wants a Chinese girl. There is an argument as to He is shown up to ike the price, and he agrees to give four dollars.
What I am now bedroom with the girl, and he gives her the money.
He records how be flung ! telling you is the gentleman's own evidence. up the window and put out his head and whistled. The police whom he bad in attendance in the street, broke open the door and arrested & girl. She is brought up next day to be tried for the offence, but before whom? Before the Acting Registrar-General-before the Re gentleman who bad the beard and moustache the night before. He tries her himself, and on the books of the Registrar-General's office (I have turned to them and read his own evidence recorded in his own hand writing) thero is his own conviction of the girl of the offerce, and his sentence that she be fined 50 dollars, and some months this for this reason-that the officer imprisonment. I mention who did that was appointed because he was supposed to be a man of exceptionally high moral tone, and good eondret and demeanour. Bai what would be the effect on any man of having to administer such an Act? There is another ense mentioned, not in the papers laid before the Hous of Commons, but in those laid before my Legislative Council. h
case of one of the European Inspectors di that evidence there is a Brothels, and 1 was struck by this fact in his evidence. He says, "I took the marked money from the Registrar-General's office and followed a woman, and consorted with her, and gave her the money; and the moment I had done so, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the badge of office, and pointed to the Crown and arrested the woman." THE CROWN! Here is a poor Chinese woman and here is an officer of the Colony, and this is the degradation to which in a British Colony the Crown was exposed!
I am not sure I can tell worse things, for one scarcely knows what is worst; but this has happened:-An Inspector of Police has said he' "I saw people had reason to suspect a certain house of being a brothel. going in and out suspiciously. I according broke in and I have arrested this elderly woman, and this young woman, and I charge them wit He swears that he led being common prostitutes under the Act." reasonable cause to believe that they are Common Prostitutes. Well the Registrar-General condemns them to what the Chinese women deem to be a terrible thing, namely, to be at once examined by the Color Surgeon. They are taken to some place to be examined. Not for the first time there is a physical contest-these poor creatures struggle Two days afterwards the -they are overpowered and examined, case, which meantime was remanded, is brought forward again, sul
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the Inspector says that the Colonial Surgeon's cortificate is to this effect ---- "I examined these two wonton: the elder woman is evidently a married woman-she is not diseased. The young woman is a virgin and is not diseased,"
It is satisfactory to know that the present Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Earl of Kimberley, has not hesitated to stigmatize such things as “revolting abuses."
To a leading Chinese merchant of Canton, to whom I was talking about the progress of my Colony, I said, "Your people now are making a large fortune here. Why not send down your second son to enter into the house of a Chinese merchant, and learn the business there ? "* "I could not," "he said, for this reason-Hong Kong is a sink of iniquity." I replied, "this is a Christian Colony; we have been here now for 40 years, we are supposed to be doing the best we can to spread Civilization and Christianity." "I repeat" he said "it As Chinamen we think of is a sink of iniquity, in my mind. domestic purity and family life-we reverence such things---but how do I see the poor Chinese treated in this Colony and then he told me stories similar to the abuses I have alluded to.
I wrote a despatch in August, 1881, in which I told Lord Kimberley that "The Chinese girls who are registered by the Government for the use of Europeans and Americans detest the life they are compelled to lead." Let me explain what you may not be aware of: A Govern- ment license is issued in these odious words, Chinese women for the use of Europeans only." I went on to say in my despatch. "Theso Chinese women have a dread and abhorrence of foreigners, and especially of the foreign sailors and soldiers. Such Chinese girls are the real slaves in Hong Kong."
Now to that statement I adhere. I give it to you on the full authority of the Governor of the Colony. I have been five years looking at the operation of this law in Hong Kong, and that is the result to which I have arrived--that under the flag of England there is slavery there, but it is slavery created, and protected by these Ordinances.
I have also stated to Her Majesty's Government my opinion that a State supervision of vice in the sense in which it prevails in Hong Kong is likely to fail and to cause greater evils than those the Govern ment desire to mitigate. May I say one word upon an argument which, as the Governor of British China, has forced itself on my mind. The words of the merchant of Canton who called Hong Kong a sink of iniquity,"
"have a wide application, because the British Colony of Hong Kong is geographically a part of a great Empire, an Empire where you have missionaries of various churches. I have been asked to explain the curious and distressing fact that Christianity is declining in China. I think it is declining mainly on account of the treaties we have forced upon the Chinese; but I will frankly tell you it is declining also becausO they see these girls registered in such houses for Europeans" and made practically slaves under our flag. And it is not merely as it affects the Chinese mission, hat it has a political effect which the members of Parliament present will understand. That Colony was established to
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