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HUSBAND AND WIFE IN THE NAVY.
Mr. Harold Begbie has asked me to publish the follow-
ing letter, which he addressed to the Times about a fort- night ago, but which the editor was unable to avail hipiself of." I am very pleased to comply with the pequest, because the matter with which the letter deals is of great interest to the public and of special concern to officers in His Majesty's Service. I believe that the same fate befell a letter written to the Times on the same subject by an eminent dignitary of the Church. It is not for one editor to judge the way in which another exercises his discretion in a matter of this kind, but all recent readers of the Times will agree that, whatever the reason for the rejection of these letters may have been, it was not shortage of space.
8,-Behind the admirable action of Mr. Winston Churchill in making an end of child. slavery in Hong Kong is an incidentwerty of the public attention.
"The wife of Lieutenant-Commander H. L. Hazlewood became aware of this slavery, and its immoral consequences, in November, 1919. Her husband had just arrived in Hong Kong to take up the appointment of Superintendent in the Chart Department. Mrs. Haplewood's first endeavours lay in an appeal to British authority. Only when nothing came of those efforts did she appeal to British public opinion in Hong Kong by addressing a well-reasoned and temperately expressed letter to the local newspapers.
"For this action her husband was made to enffer. He was told by the Commander-in-Chief that he
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must either prevent his wife from writing letters to the press or resign his appointment. The young officer refused to interfere with his wife's liberty, and was driven to resign.
"He finds no fault with his superior officers, and remains a faithful believer in the discipline of the Royal Navy. But he feels it a hardship that he should be called upon to suffer, not in the intereste of the Royal Navy, but to satisfy the feelings of the Governor of Hong Kong, who, since that day, has issued a proclamation to the effect that inasmuch as slavery is not allowed in the British Empire, it must be understood that Mui Tsai are not the pro- perty of their employers."
"In a letter dated October 8, 1921, the British Admiralty made the following remarkable confer aion to Mr. Haslewood:-
As regards the interference with your wife's actions in Hong Kong, such action as was taken by the Naval Authorities to induce you to restrain your wife from inter- fering publicly in a controversial matter of the domestic politics of the colony was taken at the request of the Governor in order to avoid the necessity of the Governor taking direct steps in the matter.
"That Governor, who lifted no finger to abolish the scandal of child slavery under the British flag, remains in office, after having driven into private life a brilliant and devoted naval officer, whose chivalry to his wife has helped to rid us all of a shame no honest person could bear to think about.
With these facts before them, will not Parlia ment and the public agree that the British Govern- ment owes a public apology to Lieut.-Commander Haslewood! But for him and his wife, slavery of little children would still be tolerated under the British flag.
"This is a matter of high importance. As things now stand a local Governor has power to interfere with the moral liberty of a wife whose husband is serving the country in the executive Forces, and, apparently, a Governor who is forced to do by the Minister at home what he should have been the first to undertake on his own initiative, can remain in' office without a reprimand, while a humble indi- vidual who has brought reform to pass can be deprived of his pay and dismissed like a dishonest
servant.
"Not on these foundations did our forefathers build up the structure of the British Empire which we inherit and inhabit, sometimes thinking when we decorate the walls or change the hangings that we ourselves are the buildera.
"Believe me to be
Youre faithfully,
HAROLD BEOBLE."
In view of what has been said in TRUTH on previous occasions it is scarcely necessary to add that I quite agree with Mr. Begbie both about **Mai Tsai" and about the treatment of Lieut. Commander Haslewood. So will most people. Mr. Churchill rightly interpreted British feeling when he put a stop, regardless of the consequences, to the toleration by a British colonial goverment of practices utterly repugnant to British ideas not to say the common principles of humanity. After he has taken that course, it is monstrous that a servant of the Crown should be punished in any way simply because he refused to stop his wife from bringing the evil to light. Even had Mrs. Haslewood dous something which the Home Government disapproved of, the punishment of her husband for not stopping her would be a questionable step in these days. The doctrine that a wife when she comes into conflict with the law must be presumed to act under the coercion of her husband has lately engaged the attention of the law courts, and is now to be investigated under the directions of the Lord Chancellor. The power of a husband to control his wife's doings has degenerated inco a legal fiction, and ovèri‘that fiction is on the way to be dissipated. In this state of things it in
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