CO129-522-3 Social hygiene- including trafficking in women & children- brothels- etc. 27-2-1930 - 13-4-1931 — Page 47

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they recommended that houses for the sole use of

Chinese should not for the future be subject to Government supervision.

•

In another despatch

8. In the correspondence which dealt with

this report and Sir John Smale's pronouncements the

Governor went to the length of stating to the

Secretary of State "The real purpose of the

brothel legislation here has been, in the odious

words so often used, the provision of clean Chinese

women for the use of the British soldiers and

sailors in this colony".

he states "From the information now before me I am

disposed to think that any system of Government

brothels in this colony is likely to fail and to

cause greater evils than those the Government desire

to mitigate". And again, in another despatch he

expressed the opinion that the existing law against

slavery was quite sufficient to secure the real

freedom of these women. He stated that the system

had been used to drive Chinese girls into foreign

houses; they had an abhorrence of foreign soldiers

and sailors and were the real slaves in Hong Kong.

9. Finally, in a long despatch the Secretary

of State critised the findings of the Commission on

the grounds that they were unduly favourable to

Chinese houses, that he was satisfied from evidence

that the Ordinance had greatly improved the position

as regards disease and that the Commission's

treatment both of fact and of principle was

inconclusive.

He considered that bad administration

and