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Reprinted from "THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN," 16th January, 1979,
by permission of the Proprietors.
SLAVERY IN HONG KONG.
The Mui Tsai System.
To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.
Sir, Serious allegations have just been publicly made in the British colony of Hong Kong. The gravity of these allegations is twofold:-
(a) It is alleged that the undertaking given to Parliament by Mr. Winston Churchill in 1922 to bring about the abolition of Mui Tsai slavery within one year has never been carried out.
(b) That to-day the whole system is in full and active. operation, and that the number of slaves has actually in- creased from the figure given by Lord Irwin of "8,000 to 9,000" in 1922 to 10,000 in 1928.
These allegations were publicly made at the annual meet- ing of the Anti-Mui Tsai Society by its chairman, and pub- lished at four columns length in the "South China Morning Post." The society in question is composed not only of prominent Chinese, but of British merchants in the colony.
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In 1922 Lady Gladstone presided at a public conference in Caxton Hall which called upon the Government to appoint a committee of inquiry to bring in recommendations for a practical scheme to prevent the buying and selling of human beings." Lady Gladstone said that as long ago as 1880 this matter had been brought to the notice of the British authorities in Hong Kong. "The then Lord Chief Justice, in a formal judgment, gave the decision that the system of Mui Tsai was slavery and a violation of British law."
Two months later Lady Gladstone, having had brought to her notice the assurance given by Mr. Churchill in Parliament, returned to the same platform and moved a resolution expressing the "high appreciation" of the meet- ing at the decision of the Secretary of State for the
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