[
    {
        "id": 211360,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 76,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "Introducing a motion for the adoption of the recommendations of the sub-committee, Mr. Bowley stated that in the Peace Treaty then under discussion provisions were made for an International Labour Convention and for a League of Nations. In the proposals for both organizations the welfare of women and children were dealt with. Appended to the section of the Peace Treaty dealing with the Labour Convention was the affirmation of the principle of an eight hour working day and a forty-eight hour week.\n\nMr. Bowley reminded the Board that the matters being proposed were on the agenda of the Labour Convention which was to be held in Washington, D. C. in the United States in October 1919. These developments had a particular meaning for Hong Kong as a British outpost in the East, for if Hong Kong took action as a part of the British Empire it might influence “our neighbouring allies' China and Japan, both of whom were parties to the Treaty and who had accepted both the League of Nations and the Labour Convention.” He continued. “If Hong Kong, China and Japan are to be included in the comity of nations on equal terms, it behoves us and our neighbours to consider these questions very carefully”.\n\nHe contrasted the absence of factory legislation in Hong Kong with Britain where such legislation had been gradually developed and enforced over the past eighty years. One reason for the difference between the two places was that Hong Kong until only recently had not been much of a manufacturing centre, but now there were many new factories. \"The time has come\", he said, \"when some, at least, of most of the elementary principles of the Factory Acts should be introduced into the Colony”. The experience of England had been that factory legislation had to be related to provisions for education and it would be difficult to apply the same laws to Hong Kong if there was no movement at the same time toward compulsory education, but since the Sanitary Board had no jurisdiction over education, the committee had concluded that it was impossible to prohibit employment of children even of the tenderest age, for it was better for children to be occupied with light tasks with their parents than playing in the gutter. Moreover, the criminal law contained provisions for the punishment of parents or masters and mistresses who ill-treated or neglected their children or child servants. So until something was done about universal education, the present measures were as much",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211365,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 81,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "57\n\nto the building sites, often staggering up the hillsides of the island under the weight of burdens which are far too heavy for their physical strength\". The editor tried to prick the consciences of his fellow countrymen. \"We are all apt, when pointing out the development and growth of Hong Kong to strangers, to indulge in petty platitudes concerning the evidence of British perseverance and skill to be found in the magnificent roads and the imposing houses on the higher levels. But do we ever stop to think that our Peak residences and the roads leading to them have been largely built by the sweated labour of women and children? It is a fact, none the less.\n\nWhat was needed, the editor wrote, was legislation that would deal with the whole problem. He was convinced that even worse conditions existed in some of the factories where children were employed, and he warned that eventually the colony was going to have to face the problem of compulsory, free education for all.\n\nThe editorial put the problem within the context of the \"white man's burden” and Imperial ideas. It reminded readers that only when the problem of child labour and universal education were seriously faced would expatriate residents \"be able to talk with more pride and justification both of Hong Kong's place in the Empire and of the object lesson which it provides China in the civilising influence of British ideals\".\n\nQuestion by Dr. Ozorio in Sanitary Board\n\n——\n\nMay 1920\n\nAt a meeting of the Sanitary Board in May 1920, Dr. F. Ozorio asked if the Government contemplated the creation of the post of Factory Inspector, and, if so, would the post be open to women.\n\nIn reply the Chairman stated that if by Factory Inspector he meant an inspector whose duties were to ensure the sanitary maintenance of factories, all inspectors of the Sanitary Department were already doing so. There was no plan to change them for women, but if vacancies occurred the matter would be kept in mind. If, however, Dr. Ozorio had meant Factory Inspector with duties as set forth in the British Factory Acts, the Chairman had been authorised to state that the question of the industrial employment of children was under the consideration of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]