CO129-478 - Public Offices & Others - 1922 — Page 312

N

5

4

Government to handle direct, and this reason alone would make enalties for breach would be necessary. Arrangements would be difficult or impossible to interfere suddenly in any radical nquired to cover the cases of travellers passing through the Colony; with the solution the natives have found for such a difficult qued with it all we should only at best irritate without making It becomes a matter of raising the standard of a whole nation.

ay real advance. Cases of abuse could be just as easily covered. lui tsai are young and simple, with all the stupidity and timidity The attitude of the Chinese people may be illustrated by the the most rustic inexperience, and the truth is rarely to be got of Chan King Wa's attempt to alter the system in Canton she on them or through them. Witnesses on their side are very after the Revolution of 1911 which ended the Empire. Chan, Borely to be found, while the kidnapper or procuress has little Chief of Police in Canton, exercised very wide powers throughout fficulty in finding support for any story that may fit the Province, and no one quarrelled with his position (which inse. Relationship itself can be claimed, with little chance of the the power of life and death). He introduced a number of enlighten in being disproved. All the evil-disposed would be no worse off reforma, many of them far in advance of the times, and he was than they are at present, but a new burden would be laid on the well- enough to impose his will on the people while he lived in everythiosed. And the burden would be a heavy one. A registration but the question of mui tsai. In that matter, at the height of theme would create endless openings for squeeze and blackmail, in power, he forbade "sales," decreed a system of registration, set adition to the interference with private life already referred to. an expensive system of homes, and gave inquisitorial authority to the ground would be well prepared for such a development by the and nothing happened. And the tendency in many mal gustance of most of the Chinese concerned, and not less by the since the Revolution, to settle back again into the old Clad aspicions that would be aroused in a very large class, even of honest groove, makes any such movement now even less likely to succeed.eople, that the Government had some ulterior motive in their regis-

men

That the system has, and must have, its abuses cannot be drain That the number of cases in which it is abused is very large is a true; but there are no data for making a proportionate estimat beyond such generalities as that the custom is practically unive and the system accepted, and is, therefore, on the whole benefic The abuses, however, are actively recognised as abuses by all t better Chinese, and with them it is only a question of the extent which they can be checked, and, granted that the system itself be allowed as yet to continue, this problem of checking the al becomes the immediate matter in hand.

·

In a question of this nature it is not possible to dissociate Ho Kong from China. There is a very large daily passenger traffic will the Colony by river steamer, train and junk. The island itself is on some 20 miles from the Chinese border and 90 from Canton, and the Colony's native population of some 600,000 odd is for the most pat a constantly moving one, It is no more possible to recognise and keep a check on the mui taai moving to and fro than it is to cognise and keep a check on all robbers and bad characters from the interior.

The Colony has, with the active assistance of resident Chines developed its own system of detecting and dealing with abuses far as possible. This will be referred to below. It appears that a thing more is asked for, but the only suggestion made is for some fo of registration. A very slight local knowledge would show that t practical difficulties in the way of registering all mui teai in the Colost are so great as to render the suggestion of small value at the best The regulations would have to contain sections appointing Inspectors (who, if not Europeans, would have at least to be under the closet. European supervision), with large powers of entry to private houses

ration scheme. These would attempt to hide the truth, and would to give the blackmailer his opportunity. The Chinese genius for queeze and blackmail, as well as the weakness which the victims now, are matters almost inconceivable to those who have not been in direct touch with the people.

So much for general registration. It would fail because evasion would be too easy, and because it would lack public sympathy or even

enforce it would require. perhaps alienate it by the Regulations that any serious attempt to

But would a partial registration scheme be possible for Hong Kong residents alone? The abuses are not mainly in the class that seems to be intended by this suggestion, for while it is difficult to define exactly what is meant by Hong Kong resident," those who have made Hong Kong their permanent home are little, if at all, concerned in the mui tsai traffic. But all who can afford it, from the highest down, have mui taai, and this part of the community is very ready to do all it can for their protection. Such limited registration would mean in a more pointed manner than ever that the well-disposed would be put to extra trouble, and the omission from the Regulations of the regular trafficker, who moves about the country and lives nowhere, would entirely emasculate the suggestion. These people would be left to be dealt with exactly as at present by detective enquiries, leading to Police Court prosecution wherever possible, or, "where evidence for the Court might be lacking, but the case in the opinion of the Governor in Council justified such action, by banishment. The records of the Colony show that the campaign against traffickers along these lines is actively carried on, and they show also a con- stant strengthening of the law, generally on the advice of the Chinese.

308