THE
SLAVE
MARKET
VOL. 1. No. 40.
JANUARY, 1934.
QUARTERLY.
NEWS
PRICE TWOPENCE.
Post Free.
Registered
as a Newspaper.
THE COLONIAL OFFICE AND HONG KONG SLAVERY.
We publish below copies of letter sent by Lt.-Com. Haslewood, RN. (Ret.) to the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, and reply received. We must leave it to our readers to form their own opinions.-EDITOR, Slave Market News.
5, SYDNEY Buildings,
BATH.
The Under Secretary of State,
The Colonial Office.
SIR,
August 1st, 1933.
I beg to draw your attention to the attached cutting from the South China Morning Post" of June 22nd, 1933. You will observe that the Police Inspector is reported to have said that some 300 to 400 Mui Tsai cannot be traced. I may say that I have received also a private letter from Hong Kong (which I have not yet made public) confirming this information.
I should be glad to know therefore :-
(1) What special and immediate steps have been taken by the Hong Kong Government to trace the whereabouts of these Mui Tsai ?
(2) Whether the fact has been reported already to the Colonial Office by the Hong Kong Government or whether the matter has not been considered of sufficient importance to do 80.
(3) If the matter has been reported to the Colonial Office, have any special steps been taken by the Colonial Office?
(4) If not, will the Colonial Office be willing to order instant investigation into the fate of these children?
(5) If I may be informed of the actual number of registered mui tsai whose present whereabouts are unknown?
I shall be grateful for an early reply, so that I may know what action to take myself, as I feel this is a matter which requires some immediate attention.
(6) Whether the Colonial Office consider that a fine of 20 dollars (equivalent to about 253. to 278 ) is an adequate fine for the offence of failing to pay the Mui Tsai for over three years, and whether such a fine is likely to induce other owners to pay regular wages?
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) H. R. HASLEWOOD,
Downing STREET.
17th August, 1933.
SIR,
I am directed by Secretary Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister to refer to your letter of the 1st August, with which was enclosed a newspaper cutting from the "South China Morning Post" of the 22nd June, 1933, and in reply to inform you that at the end of June, 1932, the Hong Kong Government had ascertained by means of constant visits of the Mui Tsai Inspectors that 770 of the former Mui Tsai who had been registered were not to be found at their registered addresses. Two hundred and ninety-nine could not be traced by the Inspectors at the addresses given at the time of their original registration. No information could be obtained from neighbours about 169 of these, while 130 were stated by neighbours either to have married or to have returned with their employers to China. In the remaining 471 cases the girls and their employers had removed to unknown addresses after they had been visited by the Inspectors at the addresses originally registered.
Exhaustive enquiries have been made regarding the girls who were not found at their registered addresses. As the result of these enquiries, 129 girls out of the 299 who were not found at the original registered addresses have been traced in the Colony. Of the remaining 471, the Governor reported in January last that 122 had then been traced.
Every endeavour is made by the Hong Kong Government to keep the importance of notification of change of address in those cases well before the public, not only by the efforts of the Inspectors, but also through the medium of the vernacular Press.
It will be understood, however, that many Chinese families migrate from Hong Kong to China, and vice versa, and in cases of permanent removal from the Colony it is hardly to be expected that all employers will take the trouble to inform the Hong Kong authorities of their purpose to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong Government, The Hong Kong Government is, however, unremitting in its efforts to discover the facts in all such cases.
As regards the adequacy of the fine of $20 stated in the "South China Morning Post" to have been imposed for the offence of failing to pay regular wages to a girl on the Mui Tsai Register, it is observed that the defendant was required to pay in addition to the fine all arrears of wages.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) H. R. COWELL.
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