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that on the whole it was humane and benevolent, having regard to conditions of life in China. Its origin is not any absence of love in Chinese parents for their female children, for I am persuaded that Chinese parents are as a rule very fond of their daughters, but rather excessive philoprogenitiveness among a people living habitually "one jump ahead of starvation". The Secretary for Chinese Affairs writes:- "Those who have had experience of famine relief work will realize that it is seldom the desire for money which induces parents in China to part with their children and that the alternative may quite well be starvation". I can corroborate this from my personal experience. From April to June 1903, I was seconded by the Hong Kong Government for famine relief work in the province of Kwangsi. While engaged on this duty I repeatedly travelled by launch up and down the West River and I well remember how at each township and village by the riverside, where my launch put in, Chinese women with babies in their arms and children at their sides were lined up begging the launch passengers, myself included, not to buy but to take from them as a gift the little ones who otherwise would starve and for whom the mothers were totally unable to provide. Muitsai, so acquired, are as a rule well treated and it is considered by Chinese public opinion to be obligatory on their employers to see that they are married or suitably provided for when they are about 18 years of age
8.
The recent repetition in Mr. J. H. Harris's letter of the charge of slavery seems to make it desirable to assert once more that, whatever may be said against the customs of employing muitsai, it cannot, as it exists in Hong Kong, be called slavery, except by a gross misuse of
that
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