46
without being confronted at every turn by Acts of Parliament, and systems of espionage, that seem especially designed to restrict individual enterprise and frustrate industrial endeavour.
Letter of 1900 - Hong Kong Telegraph
▬▬
The effects of this "freedom" of the individual to sell his labour but occasionally pricked the conscience of the Hong Kong resident only occasionally. A letter writer using the pen-name "Balthasar" observed in the Hong Kong Telegraph, 18 May 1900, that,
Among the labourers carrying bricks and lime up the Glenealy may be noticed several children whose physique is quite unequal to the toil. These poor young children gasp under their burden. One of them, on being spoken to, answered that his father had died of plague, and if he worked not had no rice. He was thirteen years of age, and yet carried two baskets of lime, usually borne by adults, and which he had to lay down several times along the way.
After describing these conditions, the writer asked, "Is there no law in Hong Kong to regulate the employment of minors?" The answer, as he well knew, was "No".
It was not that there was no money in Hong Kong for charitable purposes. He reminded the community that a Colony "that can exceed all expectations in its contribution to the War Fund [the Boer War] may well look to the relief of its own stricken poor".
Bowley's Articles on "The Children's Charter"
Mr. Francis Bulmer Lyon Bowley, a solicitor practising in Hong Kong since 1893, published a series of articles in a Hong Kong newspaper in 1911 on "The Children's Charter", that is, the British Children's Act of 1908. He contrasted its provisions with the situation in Hong Kong. The Attorney General took the matter up and two provisions were subsequently introduced into the laws of the Colony.
46
without being confronted at every turn by Acts of Parliament, and systems of espionage, that seem especially designed to restrict individual enterprise and frustrate industrial endeavour.
Letter of 1900 - Hong Kong Telegraph
▬▬
The effects of this "freedom" of the individual to sell his labour but occasionally pricked the conscience of the Hong Kong resident only occasionally. A letter writer using the pen-name "Balthasar`` observed in the Hong Kong Telegraph, 18 May 1900, that,
Among the labourers carrying bricks and lime up the Glenealy may be noticed several children whose physique is quite unequal to the toil. These poor young children gasp under their burden. One of them, on being spoken to. answered that his father had died of plague, and if he worked not had no rice. He was thirteen years of age, and yet carried two baskets of lime, usually borne by adults, and which he had to lay down several times along the way.
After describing these conditions, the writer asked, "Is there no law in Hong Kong to regulate the employment of minors?" The answer, as he well knew, was "No".
It was not that there was no money in Hong Kong for charitable purposes. He reminded the community that a Colony "that can exceed all expectations in its contribution to the War Fund [the Boer War] may well look to the relief of its own stricken poor".
Bowley's Articles on "The Children's Charter"
Mr. Francis Bulmer Lyon Bowley, a solicitor practising in Hong Kong since 1893, published a series of articles in a Hong Kong newspaper in 1911 on "The Children's Charter", that is, the British Children's Act of 1908. He contrasted its provisions with the situation in Hong Kong. The Attorney General took the matter up and two provisions were subsequently introduced into the laws of the Colony.
!
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.