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[Dr. Shiels.]
HOUSE OF COMMONS
the colony are brought on every occasion when such cases
The are discovered. law is applied with absolute strictness, even though hard cases occur, as when a newcomer calling voluntarily reports to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs that he has brought & mui-tsai into the colony as a member of his household. The num- ber of prosecutions since the closing down of registration to 1st June, 1930, is 28, 13 of which were in connection with mui- tsai newly brought into the colony. The Governor assures us that apart from these cases there is no evidence of evasion of registration. The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be interested to know that we have just received word from the Governor on this subject tell- ing us that he has personally paid a number of surprise visits to houses, taken at random, where registered mui-tsai live, and found all conditions entirely satisfactory.
Now as regards accommodation for mui-tsai who leave their employment, no difficulty has been experienced hitherto in finding all that is necessary. Dur- ing the past 12 months the Salvation Army has opened a home for this purpose among others, and moreover the Govern- ment have contributed a large site on the outskirts of the city on which a new house will be erected by the Io Leung Kuk, a Chinese charitable society, which will be available for these mui-tsai. As regards the payment of wages to mui- tsai, special inquiries have recently been made on this point. and no case for prosecution has been disclosed. Investi- gations show that in nearly every case more than the minimum prescribed was paid.
The right hon. and learned Gentle- man pointed out that there has been some question about the status of mui- tsai, and I quite agree that some con- fusion has arisen in speaking of mui-tsai and adopted daughters. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was correct when he said that the status of the mui-tsai has no connection at all with that of an adopted daughter, which is quite dis- tinct. That distinction is quite appre- ciated in Hong Kong, and the two classes are dealt with by different laws. As the law stands to-day, the onus is placed on the adopter of showing that the girl is a foster-daughter and not a
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mui-tsai, while the powers of the Secre- tary for Chinese Affairs with regard to the guardianship of such girls are clearly set out in
different #
Ordinance altogether, called the Women and Girls Protection Ordinance. The Governor reports that so far there has been nothing to show that the fiction of adoption is being used to evade the obligations im- posed by the laws regarding mui-tsai, and that there would appear to be at the moment no necessity to take action on that particular ground.
With regard to the bills of sale, to which the right hon. and learned Gen- tleman referred, I would point out that under the Hong Kong Ordinance of 1923 it is illegal for anyone to take a mui-tsai into his employment or to transfer a mui-tsai to another employer, and any person in Hong Kong who had under such a bill of sale purchased or trans- ferred a mui-tsai in Hong Kong would be prosecuted and heavily punished on dis- covery. To make evasion still more diffi- cult, in 1929 the Offences Against the Person Ordinance was amended, to make it clear that even entering into such a contract or taking part in any such trans- action was in itself a criminal act. That further action covered a possible loop- hole, and now I think we can say that every loophole for possible evasion of the mui-teai regulations has been closed. Deeds of sale, of course, are still executed in China, and before 1929, before this part of the Ordinance was put into force, at the direction of my Noble Friend, it is true that children procured as a result of such transactions in China could be subsequently imported into Hong Kong. By prohibiting the importation of mui- tsai into Hong Kong by the amending Ordinance of 1921, this possibility of evasion has been stopped.
Persons cannot of course be prosecuted in Hong Kong for offences committed in China, but any attempt to bring into or claim in Hong Kong any rights over children by virtue of such bill of sale, will entail immediate prosecution. No doubt cases of cruelty to children occur in Hong Kong, as in this country, but they are the exception, and every effort is made to have offenders severely dealt with. The Hong Kong Secretary for Chinese affairs interviewed and spoke to 4,000 mui-tsai when they were brought. up for registration, and he observed that
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Supply: Committee- they were well nourished and contented. We apparently still require a prevention of cruelty to children society in this country, and the recent remarks of an official of that society on the buying and selling of children in this country should prevent our taking a too self- complacent and scathing an attitude to defects elsewhere. I have here a news- paper cutting taken from the * News Chronicle" the other day, which gives a report of a baby having been bought in Winchester for 2s. and then used for begging. I am satisfied that the Hong Kong Government have taken all reason- able steps to carry out the policy of His Majesty's Government in the matter of mui-tsai, and the Chinese community in Hong Kong have complied to a most satisfactory degree with the Government regulations on the subject. It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, that the late Governor of Hong Kong, at the time my Noble Friend gave his directions, did not approve of the in- structions which we gave on the matter, but surely we are not to be blamed for that, but rather to be commended for not accepting his advice. [Interruption.] I am pointing out that if the Governor was against these instructions—
Dr. SALTER: Recall him, get rid of him!
Dr. SHIELS: The new Governor, be- fore going out to take up these duties in Hong Kong, was specially seen by my Noble Friend and myself. We went very carefully into this matter with him and made it very clear what the inten- tion of His Majesty's Government was, and we impressed on him the importance of carrying out the regulations in all thoroughness. He has paid personal sur- prise visits to mui-tsai homes; he assures us that the regulations are working well, and I, for one, am prepared to believe him. Let us give the present Hong Kong Government encouragement and appre- ciation of their efforts instead of un- sympathetic criticism, Unwarranted attacks have been made On that and the home Government by various persons, who are not in a position to verify the truth of the in- formation which they derive from what are clearly unreliable sources. I suggest therefore that before any in- dividuals or societies accept the wide-
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spread assertions about slavery in Hong Kong at the present time, they should take steps to investigate the trustworthi- ness of their informants. The Labour Government is dead against slavery in all its forms. It has done in this matter of mui-tsai what other Governments failed to do. It has also taken a leading part in the drawing up at Geneva of the new Convention against Forced Labour, and has ratified that Convention for all territories under its control without tak- ing advantage of any modification or restriction whatever. It goes further in this matter than probably, the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to go in that it is against economic slavery, and it is significant that it is the poverty of the parents which is the basis of the mui-tsai system. Even if we cannot have the support of the right hon. Gentleman to deal with the fundamental causes of poverty and their unfortunate conse- quences we shall hope to have his en- couragement and his not unfriendly criti- cism in the difficulties which arise in the course of this task to which we have put our hand in Hong Kong.
Mr. AMERY: I think my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) has done well to bring this matter before the House of Commons. As long as this House is definitely responsible for certain parts of the British Empire it is only right that we should be satisfied that the Govern- ment which is carried out under its auspices should be a Government of which we can approve and should not contain any features which we should re- gard as repugnant to our notions of what any Government under the Union Jack should be. The right hon. Gentleman re- ferred to the fact that when I was Colo- nial Secretary it emerged, in the course of a trial at Sierra Leone, that a status of slavery whose existence was suspected by no one in this country, was suspected by no one in the Colonial Office, and, I think, was not suspected even in the Gov- ernment of Sierra Leone, did, in fact, still exist, and we had to take imme- diate action to put an end to that posi- tion. The situation in Hong Kong, as he very rightly pointed out, was the oppo- site of that. It is a situation in which no status of slavery has existed ever since Hong Kong has been British territory, as was reaffirmed beyond any possibility
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