8
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No person may hereafter take a
min IT as into his employment, I no Aho mis-/541 be imported into the Colony
before that the 1923 Legislation did not in fact
create anything more than a nominal interference,
whereas the new measures have to such an extent
the prospect of effectively controlling Mui-tsai
and their employers, that the Chinese view them
with consternation and the Governor in consequence
has reached the view that they have little or no
chance of success.
In view of the feeling which has been
excited at home over this question and in view of publicity which has accompanied the
the new the/new measures, it seems to me unthinkable that
the new policy should be abandoned or substantially
modified in favour of any less thorough arrangement.
The essence of the Secretary of State's policy is
em Hong Kong olition
the abolition, of the Mui-tsai system with its
suspicion of a servile status.
The legal advice
X
given to the local Government seems to me, misleading
It is surely obvious that the Mui-tsai system, as
traditional in Chinese society and as criticised
in this country, will not survive in Hong Kong
under the present legislation of the Colony. The
individual girls who were in employment as Mui-tsai
at the time the measures came into operation
obviously require some protection in view of their
tender age and their complete dependence in
practice on those who purchase them during their
infancy. Accordingly the law places on the
employers the responsibility not only of treating
the girls humanely, as indeed the Chinese traditional
system requires them to do, but also of supplying
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to