Enclosure No. 1.
Extract from South China Morning Post of 17.7.29.
CHILD LABOUR IN HONGKONG.
MAGISTRATE EXPRESSES DESIRE TO HEAR EXPERT OPINION ON LOCAL CONDITIONS.
GIRL WHO WORKED ALL NIGHT.
The desire to hear expert evidence on the conditions of child labour in Hongkong and also the opinion of the Medical Officer of Health as to whether certain employment was injurious to the health of a young girl, was expressed by Mr. T. S. Whyte Smith at the Kowloon Magistracy yesterday afternoon, when Mr. H. R. Butters brought before his Worship for investigation a case under the Female Domestic Ordinance of 1923.
It was given in evidence that the complainant in the case, a girl of 16 according to Chinese reckoning, had been sent to work in a factory from 8.30 p.m. until 7 a.m. the following day for a period of over two months. A witness, called for the defence, later made the surprising disclosure that the defendant's own daughter had been subjected to similar treatment and worked during the same hours.
His Worship: When did she sleep?
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Mr. Butters Eitel's
Chinese
then produced and English
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Dictionary and drew his Worship's attention to the meaning given to mui tsai.
in-
ex-
His Worship would notice, con- tinued the prosecutor, that the Female Domestic Ordinance cluded a limited or qualified pression of what a mui tsai was.
Continuing, Mr. Butters said that there were no marks of ill-treat- ment on the girl and the prosecu- tion did not argue that the ill- treatment alleged amounted to gross cruelty but what they sub- mitted was that, by sending a girl to a factory to work for 101⁄2 hours, such treatment to a child was liable to injure her health.
The prosecution did not need to wait until the girl's health had been definitely injured before a charge was brought.
His Worship remarked that it seemed to him that the definition of a mui tsai in the Female Domestic Ordinance covered the
case.
Mr. Butters replied that he thought so but said that it was only a partial definition.
The defendant, described as a widow residing in Hunghom, was charged on two counts. She was al- Mr. Butters replied that she slept
Evidence Called. leged under Section 6 (1) of the during any intervals she had during Female Domestic Ordinance of the day.
Evidence was then called, the 1923 to have over-worked or ill- Continuing, Mr. Butters inform-head district watchman referring treated a mui tsai aged 16, or sub-ed his Worship that the girl was to the raid at 27 and 29 Portland jected her to punishment to which examined by Dr. Thomas, who Street in 1926. The document re- she (defendant) would not reason-
lating to the girl's sale was pro- duced. ably have subjected her own daugh- ter. The second charge, under sub- section 2 of the Section accused the defendant of having failed to provide the girl with sufficient food. and clothing of a reasonable kind.
Mr. Butters, of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, conducted the case for the prosecution, the defen- dant being unrepresented.
In answer to the charges the de- fendant said that she had bought the complainant as a daughter and not as a mui tsai. She had not ill- treated her or over-worked her, while she had given her sufficient food and clothes.
Crown's Case. Opening his case, Mr. Butters said that on July 4 the girl, Wong Tung-ho, alias Wong Ah-lin, went to the Hunghom Police Station and complained of bad treatment by her mistress, the defendant. The bad treatment complained of was that she had broken an earthenware vessel and had been beaten by her mistress. She also said that her mistress had denied her her meals from the previous day.
Inspector Stimson, who investi- gated the complaint, sent the parties to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, where the girl was interrogated. From what she told Mr. Butters it appeared that from the end of the first moon until the middle of the third moon she had been employed at the Sun Kar Ting Knitting Factory of Shamshuipo from 8.30 p.m. until 7 a.m.
She was supposed to be paid a wage of 35 cents a day, but never I received the money. The daughter of the defendant was always sent to the factory to collect the plainant's earnings. Besides work- ing at the factory the girl was re- quired to perform household work as well.
com-
1
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would say what effects such work 'would have on a girl of her age.
Law on Child Labour.
Mr. Butters then drew his Wor- ship's attention to the Industrial Employment of Children Ordinance of 1922. He pointed out that the girl's age, according to Chinese reckoning, was 16, or 14 according to English reckoning.
According to Section 2A of the Industrial Employment Ordinance a child was defined as a person under the age of fifteen, and under section 5 sub-section 1 the age of the child was left to the Magistrate to decide.
Turning to the Regulations, Mr. Butters said that No. 10 reads.- No child shall be employed in any undertaking between industrial
7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
¦
she
The girl herself then went into the witness box. She said that the defendant was her mistress. She became her mui-tsai when she was ten years of age. She was now 16. The complainant said that "started work at the factory at 8.30 p.m. She usually went to sleep sometime between 10 and 11 o'clock in the morning and got up again be- tween 4 and 5 o'clock in the after-
noon.
On one occasion she said that 'she overslept herself and did not get up until 8 p.m. Sometimes she got enough food, but on occasions the defendant would scold her and refuse to allow her to eat her meals.
Asked why she stopped work in the middle of the third moon, the girl said it was because night work at the factory had ceased.
Speaking of her complaint to the Police witness said that she was re- quired to do all the house work She broke an earthenware pot and was scolded by her mistress who hit her on the head with a dish. She was then refused food, supper that night and breakfast the next morn-
The prosecution was not taking action under that Ordinance but, said Mr. Butters, he wished
to draw his Worship's attention to it. Dealing with the question as to whether the girl was a mui tsai, Mr. Butters said that in August, 1926, the head district watchmen attached to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs raided Nos. 27 and 29 Portland Street, and as a resulting. a man was banished for trafficking in women and children. The banishee was the husband of the defendant in the present case. . When the house was raided certain documents were found and one of these purported to relate to the sale of the girl in question to the family of the defendant.
Definition of Mui Tsai. With reference to the definition of mui tsai, Mr. Butters said that he would invite his Worship's at- tention to Section 32 of the Inter- pretation Ordnance where it was laid down what interpretation should be put on Chinese words and terms.
There were occasions, continued the witness, when she was refused food by her mistress but recently she was seldom beaten.
Complained to Police. Witness said that the day she broke the pot she went to pick feathers at a factory, and later the defendant's daughter went to call her home. However, witness went to the Police Station and laid her complaint instead.
Cross-examining, the defendant said that she had repeatedly told the witness to take her meals but she had refused. Witness, how- ever, denied the defendant's state- I ment.
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