5363-34
140
8
No.
Despatch from the Governor of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
SIR,
(Received 26th March, 1929.)
Government House, Hong Kong,
22nd February, 1929.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram dated the 17th January,* informing me that letters from Mr. J. H. Harris of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, published in the Manchester Guardian summarizing a report of meetings of the Anti-mui-tsai Society in Hong Kong, included allegations that the pledge given to Parliament on the 21st March, 1922, by the Secretary of State for the Colonies had never been carried out, that the system is in full operation and that the number of mui-tsai has increased. You asked me to telegraph my observations on the above charges, on the immediate reforms pressed for by the Anti-mui-tsai Society and on the question of bringing in force part III of the Female Domestic Servants Ordinance No. 1 of 1923.
* No.
2. I was unable to telegraph any observations, for I found that no representations whatever had in recent years been made to the Hong Kong Government by the Anti-mui-tsai Society. This Society had held its last annual meeting in Hong Kong on the 20th October, 1928, but did not hereafter address this Government or make any proposals for immediate reforms. In fact the whole agitation concerning mui-tsai had been quiescent for many years in face of serious local emergencies which arose owing to the political conditions in China.
3. On searching the official archives of the Colony since I assumed the Government in November, 1925, I find that on the 17th March, 1927, my eye was caught by a paragraph in the Wa Tsz Yat Po, one of the vernacular papers of Hong Kong, stating that, since regulations had been promulgated in Canton abolishing the mui-tsai, the number of persons selling children in Hong Kong had increased. I asked the Secretary for Chinese Affairs for a report on this statement and he replied on the 28th March, 1927, that he had on that day interviewed Mr. Yeung Shiuchuen, President of the Anti-mui-tsai Society in Hong Kong, and had ascertained from him that it was Mr. Yeung himself who had caused the paragraph in question to be inserted in Wa Tsz Yat Po. Mr. Yeung could not, however, supply any definite information on the subject and was not very helpful. [Moreover, it was quite clear that the Canton regulations were merely eyewash, mui-tsai being renamed * adopted daughters",-a method comparable to the renaming of opium as anti-opium medicine" Regarding the truth of the statement in the Wa Tsz Yat Po, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs reported that he had not ob- served any increase in the number of cases of traffic in children brought before his department. He added:-"I am inclined to regard the Canton regulations merely as propaganda. Brigandage and general distress in South China, which is also reflected in the notable increase in emigration, would be quite enough to account for the prevalence of the traffic."
4. The inquiry which I had initiated, appears to have galvanized the Anti-mui-tsai Society into fresh activity, for on the 9th April, 1927, this Society assembled at the Chinese Young Men's Christian Association Headquarters in Hong Kong in the first meeting it had held for several years.
I enclose an extract from the South China Morning Post of the 11th April, 1927, giving an account of the proceedings, which did not, however, result in representations of any kind being made to this Government by the Society. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs after further investigation reported to me on the 20th July, 1927, that no doubt the traffic in children still per- sisted, being the custom of the country which it would take a long
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