13.
لا
would be required of all mui-tsai, whenever entering the
Colony.
15.
I have so far dealt in this despatch with the
4th, 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th paragraphs of your tele gram,
which aim at elucidating facts and removing misconceptions.
I now turn to those paragraphs in your telegram, which aim
at devising some method of further reform.
16. I take first the proposal with respect to
registration. You will observe that the Chinese authorities
in the regulations made by them on the 1st March, 1927, required the registration of all mui-tsai existing at that time. These regulations, however, have remained a dead letter. The Hong Kong Government, on the other hand, while
enacting Part III of the Female Domestic Servants Ordinance,
No.1 of 1923, which provides for registration of mui-tsai,
determined to suspend the operation of that part of the Ordinance until circumstances permitted its actual enforce-
ment. This, it seems to me, was the more honest course; and I am entirely opposed to any schemes of legislative "eyewash The objections in practice to any system of registration of
mui-tsai are as follows:·
(a) The practical impossibility of proving that any particular girl is a mui-tsai, except in occasional cases where the facts are inadvertently admitted or came to light accidentally. The girl herself may be of little or no use as a witness for this purpose. The problem is to prove that a payment was made, perhaps years ago and perhaps in China Even then the defendant may set up the defence that the case was one of ad option. If no payment is proved, the defendant may allege that the girl is a daughter. Friends and neigh- bours will not came forward, even if they know. No critic of the Hong Kong Government has ever suggested a solution to
this problem.
(b)