30
repeat here their respective arguments, and to express our own views on this import- ant subject which so intimately concerns the Chinese. I would, therefore, crave the indulgence of this Honourable Council for so doing.
Since the Bill was read for the first time, meetings fave been held by various sections of the Chinese community to discuss it--by the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, by the Kaifong at the Tung Wah Hospital, by thirteen Chinese Commercial Unions, the Anti-mui-tsai Society, the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., and by the Chinese Labour Guilds. Views on the measure have also been enunciated in both the English and Chinese Press. As representatives of the Chinese Community, the Honourable Mr. Ng and I welcomed such views which have helped us to no small extent in arriving at our own conclusions. The views expressed have resolved themselves into two broad divisions--one in support of the Bill almost in its entirety with certain amend- ments designed to strengthen it; the other in opposition to it as it now stands, though recognising that the mui-tsai system has its evils.
Briefly the supporters of the Bill argue that :-
(1) The sale and purchase of human beings is a degrading and inhuman custom. It is tantamount to treating human beings as chattels and beasts, and it encourages kidnapping, licentiousness and other serious abuses.
(2) Mui-tsai are slaves, because they are deprived of their rights and liberty, are not paid for their labour, and can be re-sold at any time.
;
(3) There have been innumerable cases of ill-treatment and neglect of mui- tsai. There have also been some cases of employers seducing their muí-tsai, or selling them for immoral purposes. In all such cases it is very difficult for these girls, owing to their ignorance, to defy their employers.
(4) Child-drowning bears no relationship to the mui-tsai system inasmuch as in child drowning the victim is invariably one or two days old, while girls sold as mui-tsai have generally attained the age of five or six years, an age at which they can be useful to their purchasers.
(5) The argument that the abolition of the system would lead to the starvation of a large number of poor children can be met by the argument that when em- ployers lose the services of their mui-tsai they would have to employ paid servant-girls to take their place; and so the daughters of the poor, instead of being sold as chattels, would become paid servants.
(6) Mui-tsai keeping is not charity but, on the contrary, tends to encourage selfish and mercenary men to part with their children in order to enable them- selves to be more self-indulgent.
(7) To pass a law with the object of merely preventing cruelty would mean the preservation of the poison in the system by neglecting the source of the disease.
At
(8) Registration should not cause undue inconvenience and trouble. present, schools, companies, births and deaths, and medical practitioners have to be registered, and no inconvenience has been experienced by the parties con- cerned.
(9) The system was abolished by law in China towards the end of the Manchu regime, and again at the beginning of the Republic; and if such could be done in so vast a country as China, there is no reason why it should not be done in this small Colony.
(10) Even if there were some flaws in the draft Bill, the proper way would be to point them out in order to have them remedied, instead of asking that the whole Bill be withdrawn.
The arguments of the other side for the withdrawal of the Bill are, roughly, as follows:-
(1) Mui-tsai are not slaves, and have never been so regarded in China either by law or by custom. When a mui-tsai is married, she is allowed to look
upon the home of her former employer as her own home and is treated as a member of the family.
31
(2) The lot of the majority of the mui-tsai in Hong Kong is far better than that of the children of poor families in the interior of China, the former being much better fed and clothed. Their parents, if they so wish, are allowed to see them at regular intervals.
(3) Mui-tsai are not always sold; some poor people, having too many children and being unable to support them all, may present some to well-to-do families in order to enable them to be properly brought up and married off.
(4) It can truthfully be said that about ninety or even ninety-five per cent. of the mui-taai in Hong Kong are well treated. Those employers who overwork or otherwise ill-treat their mui-tsai would not be deterred by registration, and the only remedy would seem to be imprisonment without the option of a fine in case of gross cruelty. If there are cases of ill-treatment of mui-tsai there are also cases of ill-treatment of one's own children; a cruel hearted person in a rage loses the sense of discrimination. Ill-treatment of children is not the fault of a system, but of individuals. The illustration that to take measure merely for preventing cruelty to mui-tsai, without abolishing the system, resembles leaving the poison in the system, is not as convincing as the one that to get rid of a boil on the head one does not cut off the head.
(5) Before the Bill, with its present irksome conditions, becomes law, some people may send their mui-tsai to the interior to be sold, or given away, or kept with friends. With the already over-populated state of the country, the con- dition of the mui-tsai would become worse, as a direct outcome of the legislation. (6) If mui-tsai of or over the age of eighteen are suddenly released from con- trol, when control is more than ever desirable, they may misuse their freedom in all sorts of ways; and so to free them would in reality mean the removal of necessary and salutary control.
44
K
(7) The abolition of mui-tsai would not do away with kidnapping of children, but on the contrary, would increase the sale of girls to evil-disposed persons as daughters." These girls are brought up as daughters" without being re- quired to do domestic work; some with such tender care that their hands are not exposed to hard labour in order not to coarsen then! The object is obvious. (8) If the Bill is passed, the Government will be faced with the stupendous task of finding accommodation or employment for the large number of mui-tsai who may seek emancipation, or whose employers may voluntarily surrender them to the Government. If the Government does not take charge of all these girls, they must perforce make their employers continue to keep them. Thus, whatever may be the change in the name of the mui-tsai, they can have no change in their position, and it may further be said that they are kept in such a position with the approval or even the authority of the Government.
(9) To enforce the provisions of the Bill, particularly that part relating to inspection and registration, means the employment of a large army of inspectors and detectives for domiciliary visits, and for inspection work upon the arrival and departure of all the trains and steamers which bring in and take out thousands of people every day. This would be costly to the Government, and vexatious to the people.
These, Sir, are the views of those who ask for the withdrawal of the Bill. There is, besides, another section of the Chinese Community who, while advocating the ultimate abolition of the mui-tsai system, consider that the time is not yet, and in any case strongly deprecate registration. Now, I have given, to the best of my ability, the arguments put forward by the various parties, for and against the measure. The English Secretary of the Anti-mui-tsai Society has also sent me a letter giving a gist of the views of his Executive Committee on the Bill, which I have handed to the Honourable the learned Attorney-General for his consideration. I am,
however, asked to say here that what they recommend constitutes the irreducible minimum. In effect, they support the Bill, with certain proposed amendments which, they consider, should strengthen it. My Chinese colleague and I have also received from
4: