5363-51
(a) The practical impossibility of proving that any particular girl is a mui-tsai, except in occasional cases where the facts are inadvertently admitted or come to light accidently. The girl herself may be of little or no use as a witness for this purpose. The problem is to prove that a payment was made, perhaps years ago and perhaps in China. Even then the defendant may set up the defence that the case was one of adoption. payment is proved, the defendant may allege that the girl is a daughter. Friends and neighbours will not come forward, even if they know. No critic of the Hong Kong Government has ever suggested a solution to this problem.
If no
(b) There would be a great temptation to corruption if a systematic drive of the Colony for purposes of registration were attempted.
(c) Very drastic powers would be required, if registration were to be made effective, and such powers would be intensely unpopular.
(d) Registration would be very unsatisfactory, if persons not domiciled in the Colony were exempted, partly because domicile is often so difficult to determine, and partly because so many Chinese are not domiciled here.
(e) The daily ebb and flow of population across the frontiers of Hong Kong, both by land and water estimated at between five and six thousand each way, and the constant movement of the population within the Colony, both to and from the island and the mainland, present difficulties which can hardly be exaggerated. An army of inspectors with the widest power of entry and search would be required to enforce registration and heavy expenditure would be incurred to little or no purpose.
(f) The parents of a mui-tsai are usually satisfied with her situation, and the child herself is usually content with her position and quite prepared to co-operate in any deception necessary to avoid registration.
(g) It would be very difficult to secure persons qualified to make the necessary inquisition.
17. You enquire whether an addition should be made to Paragraph 4 of the Ordinance, providing that no mui-tsai may be brought into the Colony for services in that capacity. I fear that such a condition if made, would be completely ineffective. It would be quite im- possible to detect mui-tsai on arrival in the Colony except by accident; and after arrival in the Colony the inquisition necessary for detection of a newly arrived mui-tsai would be as difficult as in the case of those who had been resident here for years. Such a provision, if enacted, would almost certainly be a dead letter.
ceases.
18. You enquire also whether, if the importation of fresh mui-tsai cannot be prevented, it is to be understood that effective abolition of the system in Hong Kong must wait until that importation In the opinion of myself and my advisers, effective abolition seems impossible except by gradual education of the Chinese com- munity on this subject and by slow, but constant, pressure and by discouragement of the system in every possible way. The practice will probably never entirely disappear from this Colony unless and until China really gives it up. It colours all the Chinese population that flows into Hong Kong. It would be as hard to free Hong Kong from it as to keep a space clear of mud at the mouth of the Canton River.
19. Finally, you refer to a proclamation, advertising the rights of mui-tsai, issued in 1922, and enquire whether any similar pro- clamation has been issued subsequently, and you ask whether it would not be practicable to issue such proclamations regularly, or even to have notices permanently displayed bringing home to mui-tsai their rights of personal freedom. I find that no proclam- tion has been issued on this subject since the proclamation of 14th April, 1922, which was a translation in Chinese of the proclamation suggested in my predecessor's telegram of 28th March, 1922, but I have now issued another proclamation of which I enclose a copy and which I shall cause to be permanently displayed at police stations and, if possible, at steamer wharves and other public places.
157