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Case There is no slaving-
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SLAVERY.
LABOUCHERE, on rising to call attention to the slavery, referred to the letter from Sir Benson ll, which appeared in The Times of the 25th of March the subject of slavery in the protected Malay That letter disclosed two facts--first, that our was more absolute over those States than it was own colonies: and, secondly, that not only debtor but also domestic davery existed there. The Secretary for the Colonies stated in the House, Boon e publication of the letter in question, that he out to take steps for the abolition of debtor slavery, hoped papers would shortly be laid on the table g that domestic slavery had likewise been diseon- Again, in North Borneo, which was now a State and to the British Empire, provisional regulations had laid down respecting slaves. One was to the that all slaves absconding would be for the pre- turned to their masters, unless they could par their freedom or showed that they had been cruelly He hoped the Under-Secretary for Foregin Affairs take these regulations into his serious consideration. stato of things existing in Hongkong was a dis-
said to this country; the free trade which was
to at for its progress included free trade in slaves; the place was literally an entrepôt for slavery in . The statements showing this were made by Justice Smalo and other authorities, and they quite sufficient to justify us in demanding that the should be put an end to at once. It might be in- that Chief Justice Smale had done his best to the Attorney-General of the colony to institute utions, and the Attorney-General appeared to have that there was no use in doing so in the present of the law. But the law in Hongkong was precisely me as it was in this metropolis; that was the effect Minances passed in 1843 and 1845. A report had been to Chief Justice Smale by Mr. Francis, a barrister, id that relatively there was little or no family life Longkong among the Chinese, and therefore, no legiti
demand for either adopted male children or for domestic servitude; that from three-fourths to ths of the Chinese women in Hongkong are prosti- for live directly by prostitution that the bulk of prostitutes are slaves bought and trained up at con- ble expense for the purpose; owned there, at Canton, so; prostituted for the sole profit of their owners mable only by purchase, and rarely able to purchase freedom; that every Chinese woman who is not in ctual practice of prostitution engages, if she can get means, in buying and rearing girls for the work; Singapore, Australia, and San Fransisco are supplied Hongkong with prostitutes, kept women, and concu- that the profits of this trade are a great and the and so strong that Chinese men and women are daily ed into a career of open crime as kidnappers of ta and children to supply the demand, not sufficiently ed by the breeders; that there is a veritable slave and a genuino slave trade carried on in Hongkong, bat on a very large scale indeed; that the proseca-
under the local ordinances only touch the fringe of garment of crime-only the abuses that have grown of this tolerated slavery and slave trade; and that this slave holding and slave dealing are entirely sup- the grosser abuses arising out of them and incidental Je kidnapping of women" and children) can never be end to." Girls of 18 or 14 were brought from Can- elsewhere, and delivered according to bargain, and regular matter of business for large sums of money Ab go to their owners, and frequently, it would appear, eir own parents. Their regular earnings went to the gaolers, and the unfortunate creatures were subjects of lation to regular traders residing beyond our jurisdic- There were from 18,000 to 20,000 prostitutes in ghong, and from 4,000 to 5,000 respectable Chinese en. Mr. Francis said :--
on
When some of the girls are sent away Dant of age, new ones are got from Canton, Thare about eight or ten abanges year (among tris); they remove into other Chinese brothels back to Canton. Na woman is kept in a frat- Chinese brothel after 24 years of age. Then, if are not married, the parents (pocket mothers) take away. What becomes of them is not known. They me, perhaps, hair-dressers, servants, or prostitutes in brothels. If these giria are not slaves in every of the word there is no such thing as slavery in exist- If this buying and selling for the purpose of train- emale children up for this life is not slave-dealing, never was such a thing as slave dealing in this
lober, 1879, Ohief Justice Smale, from his place the bench, called attention to a placard offering da for the detention or restoration of a slave girl,and id:Has Cuba or has Pera ever exhibited more ble, more public evidence of the existence of gene- recognized slavery in these hot-beds of slavery than placarde do Writing in October, 1879, Chief Lee Smale said :--
The more I penetrate below the polished surface of
And in another communication, he said:
"I take shame to myself that the appalling extent of kidnapping, buying, and selling slaves for what I may call ordinary servile purposes, and the buying and selling young females for worse than ordinary slavery has not presented itself before to me in the light it ought. It seems to me that it has been recognized and accepted as an ordi- mars
onttura of Chinese
habite, a special attention has been excited, it bas escaped
and thus that, until notice. The practice is on the increase. It is in this port public And
in this colony especially that the so-called Chinese ustom prevails. Under the English flag slavery, it has been said, does not, cannot ever be. Under that flag it does exist in this colony, and is, I believe, at this moment more openly practised than at any former period of its history."
hon. member read the text of a bill of sals under which a boy had been sold, and also the statement made by a a Chinese girl of 14, who at the age of 11 had been sold her parents to Chinaman, who in Hongkong sold her to a young Chinese gentleman, who took her to his family house, from which she ran away, because she was beaten
by her mistress. He observed that t there was a dispo sition to represent that these girls were well treated, and were benefited rather than injured by being thus dealt with. On that point he would quote from a judgment delivered by Chief Justice Smale in a case that came before his court. The victim was brought into court in the of an inspector of police. She could not stand, and was with pale and hollow
vilization, the more convinced am I that the broad current of life here is more like that in the Southern of America when slavery was dominant than it bles the all-pervading civilization of England. ng less powerful than a commission with legislative ers to investigate and to examine on oath will ever bare the evil which from suggestions I have received, lieve to underlie our seemingly fair surface. My estion that the wild intervention of the law should be ked was ignored. It was also not by the assertion Pastom bas so sanctioned the evil in this colony they are above the reach of law, and that by custom lavery was wild. I must leave it to the Government ide whether there shall or shall not be investiga and whether the status in quo of public morals in colony in these particulars shall be allowed to con- as one of the many evils which neither law nor tion can cope with. That is a question which, for- ly, is not within the province of the Jadge; it is
statesman only to decide."
by
arms
placed in a chair, much medical man almost dying; cheeks, to the eye of a
and she then narrated the history of her sufferings. This abild, of about 13 years of age, lost her father, about year ago her mother sold her to some one who brought her to Hongkong and sold her to the female prisoner. The female prisoner beat her very often, some- times with a rattan, and sometimes with arewood, taken from the ordinary bundles of split firewood, perhaps two or three times a week. She was beaten with firewood on the 3d of November last, when her leg was broken. She cannot walk even now. Some time after that the female prisoner burat her on the arm and band with a hot crimping-iron. The little girl showed eight places where the
marks of the burning remained. One neighbour described the beating on the d of November last--that the little girl was tied up by her hands to a bamboo, which hung from the ceiling, by the clothes line by the male prisoner, and that she was beaten by the woman with a piece of firewood (described as being about 2ft. long aad Zin. in diameter.) This witness saw the female prisoner strike the little girl two or three times on of her legs; then the man atruck the little girl, still tied up; and he then untied her, aad on the support of her being tied up failing her the little girl fell down. It would be said, perhaps, that this was an isolated case, but Chief Justice Smale was not of that opinion. "I fear,” said he, "that, though it
ona
may be pre-eminently atrocious, hun dreds, nay, thousands, of cases of a like kind have existed in this colony and under the British flag." (Hoar, hear.) In Hongkong a regular slave market existed for the purpose of supplying Australia and California. The price was various : bought in Hongkong the women cost from $50 to $150, and when sold in California they were to be disposed of for from $250 to $350. That was stated in evidence in the course of a trial at Hongkong. In such a matter the public opinion of an eastern colony was sure to be wrong (hear, hear), and the view taken of it by the Chinese might be gathered from a petition published in the Blue-book. The petitioners (natives) set forth that the decisions of the Lord Chief Justice had “**
'put all native residents of Hongkong in a state of extreme terror, the merchants and wealthy classes fearing that they might be found guilty of an indictable offence, and the low class people that they might be deprived of means to preserve their lives, that is by selling children to be domestic servants. Now, his hon. friend might, perhaps, argue that there was a defence for that state of things, und, if he did so, would probably take the line that the adoption of children was for their advantage, and that they were educated as domestic servants at
Hongkong.
But there was the authority of the Chief Justice of the colony to the affect that very few of these women becaus domestic servants, and that the children who were brought to Hongkong were sold from one home to snother,
Hús last they were exported to Australia and California. hon. friend, who had so often raised his voice on behalf of humanity, would, he was sure, not defend such a system now that he was in office, (Hear, hear.) He need say no more on this subject; the facts he bad brought forward were incontestable, and be only hoped that the Govern- ment would do all their power to prevent Hongkong from becoming an entrepôt for the most infamous slavery. (Hear, bear.)
of
SIR H. HOLLAND desired to remove a few of the misunderstandings that would probably be raised by the speech of the bon, member. The Gold Coast and Lagos did not besome protected States after the Ashantee War, but ware Crown colonies long before, though certain other States were protected after the war, and were the subject a proclamation by Lord Carnarvon, which had had an admirable effect in suppressing domestic slavery. What was the case with regard to Borneo. The terms of the charter provided that there should be a gradual cessation of domestic slavery. They must do these things gradually. As to Hongkong, the state of things there was very much to be deplored. The evils which flowed from the Chinese system of marrying young girls was enormous. But it was a different thing from the institution of slavery. The hon. member had cut the ground from under his feet as regards this country, because he had admitted that the law of that country was the same as the law here. If any case of slavery was brought before the Court at Hongkong it would be dealt with as in England. He ventured to submit that the law as regards slavery was in full force.
Mr. ARNOLD said that no one could doubt that slavery had increased of late. The Consul'a report from Jeddah showed that the stock of slaves had so increased by in- portation that prices had gone down 50 per cent. Froma other quarters they had proved that the Circassian and Georgian slaves were also increasing. This was the white slave trade, and many of those were as fair and as lovely as the handsomest of our own people. He reminded the House that just a year ago a Circassian female slave sought refuge from ill-treatment in the British Consulate at Larissa. He had a deliberate purpose in taking part in that debate, He was well aware of the difficulties which surrounded the actions of the representatives of this country in lands where domestic slavery existed. Bat he also knew something of what they could do. In this case at Larises there was no question of the exteritoriality of the Vice-Consulate. The civil Governor told Mr. C.
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