CO885-11 — Page 285

283

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TLC.O. 882/11

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

20

to the Committee only after they had been given in evidence. Nor would a previous knowledge of their opinions have, in the slightest degree, influenced the Committee in the selection of its witnesses.

Although not specifically stated in the Reference, it was clearly understood that the scope of the inquiry was limited to Singapore. Dealing with the assevera- tions in detail we record :-

(i) We understand that many years ago Dr. Connolly practised for a short period in Singapore. The phenomenal growth of the city during the past ten years We have no know- must render any knowledge acquired then of little value now. ledge of Dr. Connolly's opinions.

(ii) Dr. (Mrs.) Ferguson-Davie was asked to submit a memorandum, which is to be found in the Appendix. So far as we can recollect the chief reason of the Committee for not calling her to give evidence was to save her personal trouble. The Committee also felt that the information gained from experience of the class of patients attending a mission dispensary was not that from which a correct inference of the conditions prevailing in the masses could be drawn. This opinion finds substantiation in the memorandum just mentioned.

(iii) Dr. Tertius Clark has, so far as we know, never practised in Singapore nor are his opinions known to us.

(iv) The request of the Bishop of Singapore to be permitted to give evidence was not acceded to, and such is stated to be a departure from the procedure followed in England.

This was not a Royal Commission on Venereal Disease but an expert Com- mittee, created to report in accordance with the terms of reference.

The Committee have throughout their Report insisted that the conditions existing here are such as to render any attempt to establish a parallelism between them and those which obtain in England impossible.

That the pastoral and spiritual heads of a community speaking one language and professing one morality as in England should be asked either to give or to weigh evidence on a social matter of such grave importance as that under considera- tion is so obvious as to require no comment. But the European element of the population of Singapore amounts to very little over one per cent. of the whole, while a figure representing four times that number would amply cover all the adherents of the Christian faith of every race, sect and denomination. The Com- mittee very early in the course of their inquiry recognized that this section of the community, partly because of its numerical insignificance, but chiefly because of its amenability to moral influences, did not form any large part of the question, but that the crux lay with that great mass of the people composed of representatives of every Asiatic, and many other races, of every shade of religious belief or supersti- tion except Christianity, or of none, and whose various views on sexual questions it is hopeless to influence for many generations, if at all. It was forced upon the Committee the more strongly as evidence accumulated that its immediate and press- ing duty lay with those, not only from their numerical preponderance (95 per cent.) but from the urgency of their needs. The Committee concluded that the only way of dealing with this mass was by the methods it advocated in its Report. We do not hesitate to state the belief in which the Committee acted, that the Venereal Disease problem as regards this section of the community is now and will remain for a period of time, the duration of which it would be futile to attempt to guess, but at the present rate of progress, probably for many generations, a purely medical one, both from its preventive and therapeutic aspects.

The above provides, though not wholly, the reason for an answer to the Bishop. These have The other part is supplied in the utterances of the Bishop himself. attained a great publicity and have been carefully studied by us, and we do not find in them any sufficient reason for departing from the decisions of the Committee because of (a) failure to envisage the whole question, (b) the lack of any first-hand knowledge, and (c) the total absence of a constructive policy for dealing with the

inasses.

We wish to express our recognition of the single-minded sincerity and high aspirations of his Lordship.

We have recollection of only one witness whose opinions were opposed to regu- letion and, on referring to the record of his examination, we find that it fills five and a half pages of the printed evidence and extends to eighty-two paragraphs. In the first thirty-five of these he gave most valuable evidence of fact. but with the

21

thirty-sixth he began his evidence of opinion and, with the aid of questions from the Committee, proceeded to elaborate that throughout the remaining forty-six paragraphs.

(d) In asking two of its members to give evidence the Committee did not admit the necessity for any precedent. The two members had had for a very long period an exceptional experience of local conditions in the sphere of this inquiry, and, actuated as they were by the desire to obtain first-hand facts, the other members felt that they had no right to lose the benefit of that experience. The examination was confined to matters of fact.

(e) The reasons for the evidence being confidential have been given. (This statement is merely "a bow drawn at a venture" and scarcely deserves serious consideration. We are, however, desirous that no point, however small, should be eluded, and therefore make the following categorical statement:-

(1) a. Compulsory notification was fully considered and negatived as being heyond the limit of possibility in a population such as this.

b. Compulsory treatment was fully considered, and the same answer applies to it with even greater force.

c. Penalties for both men and women who communicated disease presuppose legislation and the introduction of such legislation as is practicable under the con- ditions which prevail here is recommended in the Report.

(2) This seems to us to be a matter for arrangement between those philanthropic, bodies and Government.

(3) a. Segregation of brothels in special areas is advocated in the Report, and explicit instructions given as to the manner in which those should be conducted. The question of their location is a large one for the joint consideration of all the public bodies as well as the interested individuals, but we do not think that distance is necessary or even desirable.

b. We do not think it forms any part of the duties of a Government to provide amusement and are opposed to it if only on the ground that it deprives philan- thropic and religious bodies of an opportunity.

Employment can always be had by those who wish to be employed. The labour difficulty of the past few years has arranged itself.

We have, &c.,

Enclosure 4 in No. 11.

DAVID GALLOWAY. MALCOLM J. RATTRAY. G. A. FINLAYSON.

L. S. O'MAY.

P. S. HUNTER,

MEMORANDUM BY THE SECRETARY FOR CHINESE AFFAIRS, DATED 7TH APRIL, 1924. I.

REGARDING the question of yellow slavery; if it exists now, it will still exist whether there is registration or not.

2. Apart from this I think that in the old days when the age-limit was sixteen years there was a good deal of slavery in the case of prostitutes arriving from China, even though with the object of rescuing such unwilling slaves the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Hongkong, first of all examined, as he still does, such girls before allowing them to proceed to Malaya, and this Department took and still takes the greatest pains to induce such girls not to take up a life of prostitution

here.

3. The procedure was and is to interview each girl or woman claiming to be a prostitute on arrival privately and apart, and in such interviews to explain to her that, if she had come here under compulsion or felt bound by any debt and desired not to be a prostitute, she was entirely free to take up a respectable life or to return to China, and that the Protectorate would assist and protect her in every possible way.