CO129-539-4 Mui Tsai system 28-6-1932 - 28-11-1932 — Page 100

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employer, and that this provision should prove an adequate

safeguard against a Mui Tsai being kept under a cloak of

adoption.

5. It was further urged by them that as a rule people

who adopt a girl do not like it to be known that she is not

their own daughter, and when the girl herself grows up, she

wishes it to be thought that she is a natural and not an

adopted daughter. Any system of registration would militate

against such desires. It is a feeling that is not peculiar to Chinese, and I found that it existed among Malays of high

standing in Malaya.

6.

There appears to me to be considerable weight in

these representations, and I should prefer to leave matters as they are unless abuses are found to occur. With the

appointment of additional Inspectors of Mui Tsai, I anticipate that it will be very difficult to avoid the law by keeping Mui Tsai in the guise of adopted daughters, and I am averse, more especially in view of the help that I have received in this matter from the leaders of the Chinese community, from introducing legislation which will be regarded as vexatious and the necessity for which has not yet in my opinion been established.

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7.

The action recently taken in the Straits Settlements, where the original proposals for registration of adopted daughters have been abandoned, would seem to indicate that the Chinese views and feelings on the question which have been submitted to me here and which I know are fully endorsed by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, are not confined to this Colony.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient, humble servant,

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