CO129-468 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1921 [6-8] — Page 429

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Enclosure / .

425

Hon. Colonial Secretary,

Report on the Ladies Committee.

▲ Committee of 16 Chinese Ladies was appointed

at the end of March this year to visit the Po Leung Kuk. My object in getting this Committee appointed was twofold. In the first place it was obvious that men however kindly, as the Po Leung Kuk elders invariably are, towards the children in their charge, can not possibly know as much about the wants of young children and the best way of making them happy as women do,

In the second place I thought it would be a useful training for the Chinese Ladies themselves. I think that through this Committee we may gradually form a mucleus of Ladies who will undertake social work among this poorer and more helpless fellow country women. So far nothing of this sort has been done by Chinese women in this Colony.

The Ladies have visited the Kuk, two at a time weekly since they were appointed. They have made several useful suggestions and have just had a joint meeting of all Lady Visitors at the Kuk in order to vote the appointment of a teacher in sewing and knitting. This appointment will be made in a day or 80. The whole business is still rather tentative. In the first instance I was advised that it would be quite impossible to get ladies to join such a committee. I want these ladies to go on visiting these 50 odd girls and looking into their welfare, and I have little doubt that later on some of these ladies will be useful members on Committees to look after the much wider question of the welfare of children in workshops and to help in dealing with the question of the mui tɛai,

(Sd.) S. B. C. Ross, Secretary for Chinese Affairs.

25th July, 1921.