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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
There are two great
The new section 21 is of more importance. difficulties dealing with this question of mui tsai. One is the difficulty of detection and the other is the difficulty of proof. I think those difficulties have not always been realised by critics of the Govern- ment. The difficulties of detection are enormous and I do not see how legislation can overcome them. The difficulty of proof is another matter, and I think we can meet that to some extent at least by legislation. We are endeavouring to do so in the new section 21.
That section throws on the accused a very unusual and apparently drastic onus. It provides that in any prosecution under the Ordinance it shall, until the contrary is proved, be presumed that the girl in question was a mui tsai at the time of the alleged offence, and it will be for the accused to prove if he can that the girl was not a mui tsai. That is not so alarming as it looks. All prosecutions, as I have said, require the consent of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and he obviously would not give his consent to any prosecution unless there were good grounds. Having commenced a pro- secution it is obvious that the difficulties of the Crown of proving that any particular girl is a mui tsai are enormous. It might involve proof of a payment made for her perhaps years before, perhaps in the interior of China and perhaps in the absence of the girl herself an impossible onus. The employer, on the other hand, ought to find it comparatively easy to prove what the girl, who after all is a member of his own household, with his own consent, really is and how she came under his control. So that though the onus may seem heavy, I think it is not, in the circumstances, unreasonable.
The new section 22 gives the magistrate power to find the age of the girl in question, though no actual evidence of age may be given. The new section 23 is intended as one of the steps to clear up incon- sistencies between the principal Ordinance and the Protection of Women and Girls' Ordinance, to which I referred in introducing the previous Bill. It is carefully provided that any rights of guardian- ship possessed by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs must be subject to the provisions of section 10 of the Ordinance which I read out a little while ago. The new section 24, is another section intended to facilitate proof of offences. It is a provision for linking up the various parts of the register to be kept under the Ordinance. It pro- vides, for example that if you have the same serial number in the descriptive part of the register and on the photograph found on a particular girl-evidently her photograph-then you can link up the two together and the photograph is deemed to be the photograph of the girl described in these entries under the same serial number. It also enables the register or extracts from it to be produced in evidence without further proof.
There are two remarks which I should like to make before I conclude. One is that the dicta of a certain former Chief Justice of this Colony have been quoted frequently on this subject. I should like to say I think it is my duty to say with all respect that I
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