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7. I advise that legislation should be introduced on the following lines:-

(a) A declaratory clause should set out the fact that the payment of money to the parent or guardian of a mui-tsai confers no right of property upon

the

payer.

(b) Employers of mui-tsais must register them at the office of the Secretary for

Chinese Affairs the fullest possible particulars being given in each case. (c) Mui-tsais who have reached the age of 18 are at liberty to leave their em- ployment at once. Those below that age must be restored to their parents at once, either on their own demand or on that of their parents, without any payment. Mui-tsais between the ages of 12 and 18 whose parents or guardians cannot be found and who wish to leave their employment must be allowed to apply to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to find them other employment. It will be necessary to provide that they must take up such employment as the Secretary for Chinese Affairs considers suitable for them.

Girls below the age of 12, whose parents cannot be found, should be required to stay with their present employers except in cases of cruelty when they should be sent to the Po Leung Kuk until some suitable ar- rangement can be made for them.

(d) Mui-tsais who remain with their present employers must be placed on the footing of paid servants, receiving wages at a rate for which a minimum

will have to be fixed.

Up to the age of 9 or 10, the services of such a girl would probably he adequately remunerated by the provision of board and lodging and I do not suggest any monetary payment in these cases.

Between that age and 18 wages should be paid at rates to be fixed hereafter, the rate would be more or less nominal up to the age of say 15 and thereafter a sum based on the rate of wages normally paid in households where paid maid servants are employed.

These wages should not be paid to the girl but should be placed to her credit in a bank and accumulate until she reaches the age of 18 when the accumulations should be at her disposal.

Girls above the age of 18 can make their own bargains in regard to wages.

(The ages quoted above are inserted for the sake of illustration. The exact ages and the rates of pay are among the details that require to be elaborated in consultation with the Chinese advisers of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs. It will also be necessary to make some provision for see- ing that payments to the girls' bank accounts are duly made).

(e) No girl must in future be taken as a mui-tsai. Mui-tsais already in the employment of families who come from China to settle here must be re- gistered on arrival and treated in all respects in the same way as mui-tsais now in Hong Kong.

(f) No one shall in future employ a female domestic servant other than one of the former mui-tsais provided for above below the age of ten years.

(This provision seems to me to be necessary in order to prevent eva- sion of the law).

8. Legislation on these lines would. I submit, effect what is required as soon as possible. The status of mui-tsai would be definitely and clearly abolished and no new mui- X tsais would be engaged: and the children who are now mui-tsais would become paid ser- vants at the earliest possible date.

9. I should not anticipate that the Secretary for Chinese Affairs would be over- whelmed with applications to find other employment for mui-tsais. The issue of the pro- clamation directed in your telegram of 21st March has contrary to expectation-not re- sulted in any appeals to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and I think it may fairly be assumed that the vast majority of these girls are satisfied with their positions. The fact that they will receive wages will probably decide practically all of them to remain in fami-