CHILD LABOUR IN SHANGHAI
IN order to understand the bearing of conditions of labour in Shanghai upon recent events it is necessary to have some understanding of the whole question of child labour in China. For many generations the children of China have been employed in labour, and such employment, on account of the present economic conditions, is still essential to the life of numberless families. It may be divided into three main categories. The vast majority of the child workers of China are engaged in farm work or in home industries. The child begins to work, broadly speaking, at the earliest age at which he is of any economic value.
The second type of child labour is apprenticeship in shops and in %he native industries. Recent investiga- tions in the rug industry in Peking and in various trades in Ningpo show that this system is, in most cases, little short of slavery. During five to ten years of his life the child receives in many cases nothing beyond a bare subsistence. Living accommodation is often of the very worst. The child gets no general education and scarcely any personal attention. Hours of labour will be from twelve to fifteen in the day. At the end of this ," apprenticeship " he is frequently turned loose, as his old employer can get an endless supply of fresh " apprentices."
The third type of child labour is the domestic service which has recently come up for special attention in connexion with the " Mui-Tsai " system in Hong Kong. This is known in many parts of China. It is open to the gravest abuse. While some of these little slaves are kindly treated, there are many whose lives are lived in constant fear and misery. Many are used for immoral purposes. Many are ruined physically and morally for life.
Such child labour is, of course, uninfluenced by the contracts of China with foreign nations except in so far as these may add to the number of " apprentices " in particular industries. The conditions_ urgently need to be altered, but the problem is only in a minor way connected with the position of foreigners in China.
- The introduction of Western power factories has turned a certain proportion of the child workers of China into mills and workshops in the few centres where modern industry has been established. The total number of such child workers is very considerable. Relatively to the entire number it is not, of course, more than a mere fraction. In the Shanghai area it is estimated that there are between 20,000 and 25,000 boys and girls under twelve at work in modern or semi-modern industries.
Many of the children who are to be found in the factories to-day have been brought in by their parents, some still babies in arms, others little tots who are just beginning to do odd jobs, and others children of six and upwards who have already begun to take their place as employed workers receiving, say, from 3d. to 6d.
for a twelve-hour day. In addition to such children there are, however, a considerable number who have been brought in by contractors. They are collected from the surrounding country, the parents getting about $2 (silver) a month, the child a bare subsistence, and the contractor $3 or $4. It is this large class of children whose condition is most urgently demanding attention. Their living conditions are abominable, and the whole system is virtual slavery.
It is scarcely necessary to point out that the con- ditions in the factory are much more dangerous to the child than those in the fields or in the home industries.
In the silk factories especially the atmosphere is damp and hot, and the actual work the children do is more tiring than in the cotton mills. Most stand all through the day. The usual plan is a twelve-hour day with an hour or less for a midday meal. Occasionally there may be a second short break for a meal. Machinery is very rarely guarded in any adequate way. Illness and accident are, of course, very common. The Shanghai Child Labour Commission in their report say of the children in the silk factories :— " In the main they present a pitiable sight. Their physical condition is poor, and their faces are devoid of any expression of happiness or well being. They appear to be miserable both physically and mentally. The adults are given a certain number of cocoons from which they have to produce a certain quantity of silk. Should they fall short of this quantity they are fined. They then frequently revenge themselves by ill-treating the children working under them. The Commission is satisfied that the conditions under which these children are employed are indefensible."
That these conditions have been created without deliberate ill-will is no argument for leaving them alone now that they have been investigated and brought to light. The movement to improve the conditions has come, as a matter of fact, not from the workers them- selves, but from interested persons who have observed matters from outside. The foreign employers in Shanghai' have taken steps to deal with the situation.
Attention was drawn to the facts through the Washington Labour _Conference, which led to the adoption by the Peking Government of a series . of regulations. Lacking in methods of enforcement and. With no factory inspection, these regulations remain a' dead letter. In June, 1923, the Shanghai Municipal. Council appointed, a Commission which- presented. its report a year ago. The diffieulties faced by the Coin-. mission were great, but had not the recent troubles in Shanghai occurred there is little doubt that new by-laws would have been passed.
To look for a moment to the question as to how far the child-labour situation is a factor in these troubles, it may fairly be said that it is almost negligible. To the mass of the Chinese the conditions do not appeal as very undesirable or urgently needing remedy. Those who have agitated the question have been mainly. foreigners. The lead has been taken by the Christian forces. It is foreigners and Christians who are now being attacked. The workers of Shanghai are probably not in favour of the proposed limitation of child labour in the factories, as it appeals to them mainly as a means of reducing the family earnings. Students in their writings on the situation refer occasionally to the problem. But it is not unfair to say that it is simply advanced by them as propaganda, and that those who use the argument well know that it makes no popular appeal in China.
As one who has for several years been giving much time to the betterment of industrial conditions in China the writer will not be accused of wishing to minimize the actual evils which have been here referred to. But it cannot with truth be urged either that these con-' ditions in the matter of child labour are at all widely felt to be serious among the Chinese, or that they have entered into the present situation as anything more than a side issue. At the same time it is true that resentment in regard to " economic exploitation " by foreigners in China is a factor of first-rate importance. But that is another story.
HENRY T. HODGKIN.
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