Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 898

[LXXXV]

In the same letter the Chief Justice expresses his satisfaction at the proposal (which your Lordship has sanctioned) of the Chinese community to assist in putting down kidnapping.

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No. 12.

Governor Sir J. Pope Hennessy, K.C.M.G., to the Right Honourable the Earl of Kimberley.

(Extract.)

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONGKONG, November 13th, 1880.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's Despatch of the 29th of September 1880 with reference to my Despatch of the 23rd June, on the subject of brothel slavery in Hongkong.

Having quoted an extract from my Despatch to the effect that the existing law against slavery, if properly enforced by the police, should be sufficient to secure the real freedom of the Chinese women referred to, your Lordship expresses the opinion that I cannot have formed any distinct plan for grappling with this long-standing evil, and that the Despatches I have written have reached no further than exposing the abuses connected with the Government brothel system I found here, and especially the employ- ment of informers. I venture, however, to point out to your Lordship that, in addition to the agency mentioned in the extract from my Despatch, I indicated, in paragraph 5, another source to which the Government would have also to look in dealing with this subject, that is the co-operation of the leading members of the Chinese community.

I take some blame to myself for not having stated this more emphatically, as, in fact, upon it depends the possibility of securing any beneficial effect in this important matter, quite as much as upon the proper action of the police.

On receipt of the Despatch now under reply, I called for a précis of the recorded views of the leading Chinese, and a statement of what the Chinese Society your Lordship had sanctioned in Despatch of the 20th May 1880 bad actually accomplished in this matter, and on receiving this information I shall forward it without delay, when it will, I think, be made clear to your Lordship that a beneficial effect has already been secured by the action of the leading Chinese residents.

No. 14.

Governor Sir J. Pope Hennessy K.C.M.G., to the Right Honourable the Earl of Kimberley.

MY LORD,

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 15th June 1881.

With reference to my view of certain legal questions relating to the so-called slavery in Hongkong on which, as your Lordship points out, I differed with the late Attorney General, Mr. PHILLIPPO, I have had some opportunities of considering them in consultation with Mr. O'MALLEY, the present Attorney General, and the result is that, whilst I am clearly of opinion that there is nothing illegal in the ordinary mode of adoption of Chinese children in this Colony, I still think that, in the particular case of TSANG SAN FAT's child, I was not wrong in instructing Mr. PHILLIPPO to prosecute LEUNG A TSIT, as in that case there appeared to be some evidence that the child was about to be taken out of the Colony, against the wish of the parents, to be sold in Canton. This seemed to me to involve an offence at common law.