8.
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Honourable Dr. S. W. Ts'o, 0.B.E., member of the Hong Kong
Legislative Council. He writes concerning the Canton
Regulations:-
"These regulations are but dead letters. They are
intended to serve as a blind or to show to other
countries that China is making a great progress in
modern civilization. As a matter of fact, the buying
and selling of girls is still going on in China."
Similarly the Secretary for Chinese Affairs reports:-
"I have asked a number of Chinese whether they have heard
of any attempt being made to enforce these regulations,
but the answer has always been no.
11
I think it is, therefore, safe to say that the regulations
published by the Chinese authorities on the 1st March, 1927,
have not as yet been carried into practice with respect to
mui-tsai and that the practice now in force is to all intents and purposes the same as that described in paragraph
2 of this despatch.
9.
There is another preliminary point which it
is well to dispose of. You say: "It is constantly alleged "that mui-tsai are a regular source of recruitment for "prostitution", and you ask whether any further safeguard against this can be introduced. It is very necessary to state emphatically that the mui-tsai system is not a regular source of recruitment for prostitution. The usual source of such recruitment is among poor families,which in times of distress will sell female children to traffickers from whom they pass into the hands of women who train the childrer with the object of their becoming prostitutes. Mui-tsai are by training not suited for use as prostitutes. The sale of a girl to be a mui-tsai has indeed the effect of protecting her from prostitution as her master and mistress
retain