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HOUSE OF COMMONS
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Mr. Gillett.] formation, but people do not know that the information is there." That is one reason why I have been in different parts of the country attending meetings, in the hope that the work of the Depart ment might be more widely known. can only say that, if any hon. Members who have spokengo kindly of the Depart- ment can help in that direction, it will be a valuable contribution and their help will be fully appreciated by members of the Civil Service who, as members also of the Overseas Trade Department, give such excellent service to the cause of British industry.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
CLASS II.
COLONIAL OFFICE.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £100,180, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932, for the Salaries and Expenses of the De- partment of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies." [Note.-£49,000 has been voted on account.]
Sir JOHN SIMON: I am most grateful to my friends on these benches who have the opportunity of selecting the subjecte for Debate to-day for providing some time for the discussion of a matter of importance and of urgency which has several times been the subject of question and answer in the House, but which, I think, calls for more continuous treat- ment, and will give an opportunity to the Under-Secretary to make a statement. I am also very grateful to the Govern- ment for co-operating, as they have done, in enabling the Debate to take place. The matter to which I should like to call attention is the present condition of the problem which has been recognised for some time past to exist in connection with children in the British Colony of Hong Kong. I think they are called mui-tsa. I will not occupy time by dis- cussing whether technically they should be described by one term or another. The fact is that there are thousands of little girls at Hong Kong who are in homes other than their own, and who are ren- dering service there under arrangements which they themselves have had nothing to do with making, and under conditions
Colonial Office.
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which certainly have sometimes led to the most deplorable circumstances of cruelty. I know it has been contended in some quarters that this system of mui-tsai should not be regarded as in any way analogous to slavery, and indeed some six weeks ago I read a statement by the Colonial Secretary in which he described it I thought the description rather sur- prising as the Chinese system of the adoption of young girls. The first matter I would ask the Minister to consider is whether really that description is justi- fied, and in due course I will ask the Under-Secretary to deal with the point.
It is a system, undoubtedly, which has existed and does exist as an ancient and widespread Chinese custom, and everyone ought to recognise how very difficult it is for our Colonial authorities to get rid of it. Can it be fairly described as a system of adoption? I have made some inquiry and such study as I could, and I believe I am right when I say that those who have studied this subject with attention would be very surprised indeed at the description which Lord Passfield recently gave of it, as a Chinese system of adopt- ing young girls. In the first place, adop- tion and domestic servitude are not synonymous terms. In the second place, genuine adoption in the East is a very well-known institution, but it is nearly always the adoption of boys for the pur- pose of perpetuating a family. There is a Cantonese pocket dictionary written in English. The author of it is an English member of the Civil Service in Hong Kong, and, if that dictionary is consulted, you will find that it has for the definition of mui-tsai" equivalent to a girl domestic slave."
These mui-tsai, as I understand, are girls. They are not the subject of adoption. They are the object of pur- chase, and the excuse that these little girls are adopted daughters is sometimes put forward before a magistrate, but it is not an excuse which is accepted by anyone who knows the facts on the spot. I have been looking through cuttings from Hong Kong newspapers and I find that an English magistrate who had one of these cases before him, and to whom the excuse was offered that the girl was an adopted daughter said this is from the
"South China Morning Post " of 29th July of last year he always held that there was no such thing as adopted daughter, and, if he were asked
an
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to decide otherwise, he would have to know some reason why a girl had been adopted, and also that she had been treated as a daughter. No one who does what I have done, and reads the two prin- cipal Hong Kong newspapers which are printed in English, and which constantly contain references to mui-tsai, possibly be left in any doubt that the cases which have come to the courts are cases of little children who have been acquired, and treated, it may be, kindly, or it may be unkindly, but acquired as the cheapest of cheap labour. They are often little drudges, entirely at the mercy of those who have paid for them. I am not say- ing this from any powers of my own, but because I have been doing my best to master, and am in a position to repro- duce, the facts as they are reported in Hong Kong. I have quoted one Hong Kong paper, and I will quote another. Just at the very moment when Lord Pass- field was making his statement that this mui-tsai system is merely a Chinese system of adopting children, it happened that the "
Hong Kong Daily Press writing a leading article on the subject. I will read a passage:
Я.
}}
was
"It is a curious thing that some English
know people who
lot about Hong Kong should have sympathy with this form of slavery. There is no dis- guising the fact that a mui-tsai is a slave. She is transferred from her natural parents to another family on payment of money,
and becomes the property of her purchaser, sub- ject to the ordinary law of the land, and certain conventions about her marriage on reaching a certain age. Under British law the transaction is null and void. The girl so disposed of can return to her parents, and her parents can claim her any time they like. The purchaser acquires no rights whatever. That is the law, but law and social custom do not coincide. Many Chinese families have a mui-tsai, though at the present time it may often be declared that the girl in question is an adopted daughter.
The real as apart from the canting defence of the system is that you can get the services of a young girl (and absolute power over her person) at a dirt cheap rate. It is a good business proposition. We all know the argu- ments in favour of slavery and every civilised nation rejects them."
I have quoted from what, I believe, are the two principal Hong Kong newspapers printed in English, and, in both cases, from quite a recent issue. In fact, I think I can show the Committee that these little girls are frequently the sub- ject of a bill of sale, just as the negro
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Colonial Office.
slaves were subject to bills of sale in the 18th century in the West Indies and the Southern States of America. I have here both the original and the transla- tion of such a bill of sale. Here is the Chinese original, and I have done my best to make sure that it is properly translated. I do not suppose that there are many Members in this Committee who could check it, but there it is. I am going to read to the Committee the translation of this document, and we will see whether it is as an adopted daughter or not. I have every name here, and, of course, they are available to the Committee if it is desired. This is a deed of sale entered into at the end of the year 1929 by the parents of a little girl whose name is given, and they say that they are the
[4
joint makers of this deed for the sale of our daughter. Being in need of funds, I hare consulted with my wife to sell our young daughter .
the little girl's name is given—
aged 9, born on the 13th day of 12th
moon
11
which, I am told, according to our reckoning, is the 21st January, 1921. If there is any Member now sitting in this Committee who has in his own family a child of that age or a grandchild, he will know why some people condemn such an adoption as this. She is sold through the intermediary of an agent, whose
Tse-to is given-Ho Kwai woman, whose name is given, residing at a particular address in Hong Kong, and the document goes on:
name
2
"who agreed to have her, and subsequently paid him the purchase price of 110 dollars Hong Kong currency, including remunera- tion to the middleman."
was
Anybody who has ever studied the his- tory of slave trading transactions in the century before last knows very well the part that the middleman played. This transaction, it goes on to
say, mutually agreed to and completed in the presence of the three parties. I ask hon. Members to observe who are the three parties, the sellers of the child, the pur- chaser, and the middleman. But the little girl is not a party to the transaction at all; and it was not for the purpose of settling debts or any other account. The girl was handed over to the purchaser, and the deed goes on:
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