CO129-473 - Individuals - 1921 — Page 150

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2.

the protection of women and girls.

There is no doubt that all the best public opinion in the

Colony regards this traffic as a blot on British administration.

Many newspaper articles can be produced in support of this con-

tention, and many reports of cases arising out of the traffic

would seem to supply additional evidence of local anxiety about

this matter. A typical report of such a case one of many

is attached.

-

-

It is known that representatives of other Governments will

be inclined to justify their inactivity in dealing with the

traffic in women and children by pointing to the conditions ob-

taining in a British Crown Colony. The efforts towards stamp-

ing out such a traffic in this country having been so eminently

successful and the general conditions obtaining throughout the

Empire being satisfactory, it is felt that it will seriously di-

minish the British pre stigs if such a flagrant case, remedial by

no simple an adtin strative act, can still be quoted when the

British representatives at have to meat the representatives of

other Powers at Geneva.

No te.

Enclosures:

Questionnaire circulated by the Se- cretariat of The League of Nations Union (see p.3) and the Meno upon the Mui-Tsai system in Hong Kong and 'Case of Girl Slave'

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