Extract from a letter received from Sir C.Clementi
addressed to Mr. Amery dated 23rd February 1929.
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167
May I invite your special attention to two
despatches, which I am sending home by even mail?
One concerns the mui tsai question, and the other the
opium questi on.
As regards mui tsai, please allow me to thank
you very sincerely for the stand which you made on
our behalf in the House of Commons, when questions and
supplementary questions were asked upon the subject. I
should hate you to think that either I or any of my
officers are prepared to countenance female slavery in
this Colony; but the mui tsai is not a female slave.
One might as well call Chinese wives, concubines and
daughters "slaves". It is the custom of the country
for wives and concubines to be acquired by purchase, so
much so that the polite phrase for a daughter is
"the thousand of gold", meaning that she is expected
to fetch a thousand pieces of gold on marriage.
phrase has become conventional to such an extent that
my Chinese friends, speaking to me in Cantonese, use
it when asking after my own daughters. No remedy for
the mui tsai system has yet been suggested, which is
not worse than the disease.
Thi s
Any drastic step taken
by