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closure 3.
416
which I refer in detail below. I would further in this connection draw your attention to the enclosed report of a
paper by the Rev. H. R. Wells on the subject, with the discussion following. Mr. Wells, a member of the London Mission, is an old resident with a reputation as a Chinese scholar, and as he is an enthusiast on this question, it may be taken that the case as he puts it is as strong as it can be made. A perusal of the paper, however, reveals the fact that enthusiasm has been permitted to outrun careful judgment, and the paper as a whole affords striking support to the opinions of Mr. Lau Chu Pak and Dr. Pearce.
4.
I have given careful consideration to the suggestion that all children who have left their own families under the customs of adoption or of presentation should be registered and thereafter subject to visitation, but while I should be very glad to adopt any arrangement which would have the result of putting an end to the bringing of charges which cannot fail to irritate the Chinese community, I regret that I cannot regard the proposal as a solution of the difficulty.
5,
In the first place I think it is clear that legislation on the lines proposed could never be anything more than "window-dressing". The Chinese community would not understand it and (unless very stringent penalties were attached to failure to register) would largely ignore it if
A kinau
they did. The majority would prefer the possibility of having at worst to pay a fine, which I take it is the only penalty
the that could be imposed, rather than have privacy of their households invaded by Government Inspectors, And it is obvious that registration without inspection and an inquisi- torial right of entry into every private house in the Colony would be merely nugatory. The well-disposed good citizen, nervously anrious to do everything right and with nothing to hide or to fear, might perhaps register: the evil disposed would take care to do nothing of the kind, and there would be
little
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