2600027
C.S. 20A
SAVING DESPATCH
XSKAVING RAM
24
From the Governor, Hong Kong
To the Secretary of State for
Commonwealth Affairs
XCocoex
LAST
123
No.
293
RFF.
No.
Repeated to:---
NEXT
Rif.
Repeated to :—
128
No.
11th October, 1967.
My Reference...
CR L/M 318/67
HWB 18/6
Your Reference.
R
10 del bot
RECEIVED ARCHIVES
IN
ItWB 18/6
Your Saving Despatch No. 125 of 29.9.1967
Letter from Mr. Ernest Thornton. M.P.
CHIEF REGISTRAR'S Cine 10001196/
COMMONWER.
DEPENDE
I attach for your information relevant extracts from the China Mail of 12th and 13th September, 1967 con- cerning the 15 year old girl referred to in his letter by Mr. Thornton. The Commissioner of Labour has arranged an enquiry into the allegation about Miss SO Lai-wah and the factory, Tong Chie Chinese Doll and Art Company, has been visited by a Labour Inspector. Miss SO was not at the factory and the workers and foremen interviewed there had no knowledge of her. The proprietor was co-operative and produced all his records in an attempt to identify this person among his staff. No trace of Miss SO was found in these records. The proprietor denied that he had ever em- ployed Miss SO and he stated that he intended to seek le- gal advice on the press report because of the adverse pu- blicity given to his firm.
2.
The Commissioner has no power under section 4(1) (e) of the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance, Chapter 59, to examine Miss SO, unless she is prepared to come forward voluntarily to corroborate her father's story. -This section does not permit the statutory examination of a person after an interval of two months since last being employed in a factory.
3.
You will note that the newspaper article attached also refers to a Miss YEUNG Lai-yin and following the Com- missioner's enquiries into Miss S0's case, the proprietor of the factory brought Miss Yeung to the Labour Department on his own accord because of his concern over the press re- port. Miss Yeung conversed freely with a senior woman Labour Inspector and she appears to be an intelligent girl. She said that she had worked in the factory from 25th November to the end of December, 1966. The working hours were 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily with a lunch break of one hour and a rest day every Sunday. She left the factory following the death of her father and became an out-worker. She visits the factory once every four or five days to collect materials and return finished products, and said that during one of these visits, she was asked by a person, whom whe did not know, what were the working hours for women in the factory. She replied that
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