CO129-466 - Individuals - 1920 — Page 219

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referred

being sent out to the new Governor for

a further investigation.

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217

1352

You may be assured that the Could Even if it would Colonial Office w not tolerate the

existence of slavery in Hong Kong,

but

with your experience of the East you

will realise that it is necessary to work

warily in upsetting the established customs

of the Oriental race and that to up:

existing arrangements, with the best in-

tentions in the world, may be productive

of great misery and mischief, <if the

the spot in

unduly Luabled.

As the law

of England the subject is in force there

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1851

Easter Recess

31 MARCH 1920

It strikes me that you cannot get any- thing quietly altered in this country and you have to make a noise before you can get anything done. I am informed by the Federation of Trade Unions that the Colonial Office definitely promised to attend to the matter if the Federation would not make it public property. They promised to see that this practice was curtailed and as far as possible abolished. Now we are having letters from Hong Kong, which are about to be published in paper circulating in London, showing that this buying and selling of human beings takes place quite publicly. Any- one can go and see it done, and can offer so many dollars for one of these girls or boys as the case may be, which to my mind is a most outrageous proceeding. On this question the documents must be at the Colonial Office, and my letters must be there. A copy of the report of the trial to which I have referred at Hong Kong must be in the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office, and yet not a stroke appears to have been done to deal with the matter. This seems to me to be so unusual and opposed to our character as a nation that I wonder how the thing has lived as long as it has done. I thought it was only necessary to draw the attention of the Colonial Office to it in order that it should disappear. Three years have gone by, and, according to an advance copy of a newspaper sent to me, the thing is still flourishing and would continue to flourish if I had not been allowed use of these few minutes, which I hope will be sufficient to put this inhuman practice down.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel Amery) I was not aware that my hon. and gallant Friend was going to raise this matter or I would have taken an oppor- tunity to refresh my mind on the subject. Not very long ago my attention was drawn to it, and I made inquiries, and there are inquiries on this subject on their way to Hong Kong at this moment. Looking through the papers I came across this very material point. There is no form of slavery in force or recognised by law in Hong Kong. There are no persons who have not perfect liberty over their own Lodily self to do what they like, and they are not bound by any permanent contract as to service. What has caused confusion is that there are two Chinese customs. One is slavery which exista in China, and which in no shape or form is recognised in Hong King.

(Adjournment).

There is another practice, and I do not remember the Chir se term for it, which is the adoption of girls and youths for domestic service, in which case a lump sum is paid to the parent or guardian. As a matter of fact, the adoption does not carry with it any power of restraint over the person. If a Chinaman in Hong Kong wishes to pay a sum to the parents of a particular girl to become an adopted inmate of his house that girl can walk out of his house at any time.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: That may be so in theory, but it is not so in actual practice. They remain in servitude for the whole of their lives.

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: That is exactly the sort of point on which I wish to get fuller information. I saw a letter from the Governor about the time my hon. and gallant Friend refers to, drawing this very clear distinction between the two entirely different Chinese customs, and confirming my statement that there was nothing in the nature of slavery in Hong Kong. If, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests, children are often not able to get away and are held in restraint, that is a matter I must inquire about. I do pot think even in this country either adopted or other children can always get away as freely as they would like, and perhaps that is sometimes a good thing for them. It was suggested that attempts were made by procureurs and others to get these girls from their homes, and to that extent the courts would watch over the interests of those girls and young

men.

I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman has done no harm in raising this question, and I am much obliged to him, but it is just one of those sort of things that we ought to have cleared up, and if anything wrong is going on, the sooner we put an end to it the better. We could not know what is going on in these matters unless some hon. Members took up these questions and brought them to the notice of this House. I shall look into this matter again and see that our inquiries are accelerated.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE- for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Harms- worth) It will probably be for the con- venience of the House that I should say what I have to say-on the Armenian ques- tion at this juncture. I will say at once to my her Friend the Member for Con-