CO129-514-2 Mui Tsai system- suggested regulations and possible abolition 9-1-1929 - 16-5-1929 — Page 67

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GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONGKONG. 16th May, 1929.

32

Sir,

>

I

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt

of your telegram dated 20th April, in which you ask me to furnish by despatch as soon as I can further information, as complete as possible, on ten points concerning the mui-tsai question. I propose to take up these points one by one and to deal with each of them, although not in the order in which they are set out in your telegram; but before doing so desire to state very definitely that the abolition of the mui-tsai system is the settled and declared policy of this Goverment. Our difficulty is to ensure that this policy is made effective in practice. This difficulty is due to the fact that Hong Kong, geographically speaking, forms part of the Kwangtung province, in which the systan is still prevalent, and that Hong Kong cannot effectively abolish the mui-tsai system unless and until the authorities of the Kwangtung province do likewise.

2.

It is desirable that I should explain in the first instance what the mui-tsai systan really was according to Chinese custom and law as it stood prior to the "reforms" which followed the revolution. When a girl was bought in China as a mui-tsai, the following obligations on the part

of the purchaser arose:-

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LIEUTENANT COLONEL L.0.1.S. AMERY,

* 2

·

(a)

&C.,

&C.,

&c.