MULTSAI
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your issue of March 27th you publish--doubtless in good faith—a series of misconceptions regarding the mui-tsais or so-called " child " slaves in Hong Kong, Kowloon under the Nine Dragon Hills, and the Federated Malay States. As one who has travelled over China from Nan-Kow Pass on the Great Wall to Yunnan-fu, Saigon and the Shun States, and from Shanghai up the Yang-tze-Kiang to a point 600 miles above Chung-King—this latter city being 1,700 miles from the river mouth—I am competent to discuss the vicious system you refer to.
To commence with, out of the 2,000 odd admitted (by the Crown) registered slaves, we find the majority cannot legitimately be called children as they are young women. Twelve months ago the Slave Market News, from figures supplied by the Anti-Slavery Society (derived from official sources), published some interesting figures and revealed that 322 slaves were fifteen years old, but an even larger total was shoWn for the slaves at sixteen and for seventeen years of age ; over sixty were in their twenty-first year, and over thirty in their twenty-second year, one woman slave being found in her twenty-ninth year. At the other end were some babies of four and five, who have to work from sunrise to sunset, and in many cases are half-starved and thrashed severely.
We find that, after much agitation, the Crown registered on December 1st, 1929, 4,299 slaves, but it was estimated then that there were 8,000 in the colony (South China Morning Post, October 27th, 1934), and at the close of 1934 it was found that 1,500 odd had left the register, due to a variety of causes, but principally because the had removed to fresh addresses. This reduction might be regarded as an indication that eventually the " trade " would dwindle to nil, but the Hong Kong Telegraph on July 3rd, 1934, says : " actually, the official figures have little value. It is safe to assume only a small proportion were originally registered and many more have since arrived. But nothing is to be gained by shutting our eyes to the fact that this slavery will continue for long years to come, whether the local register shows one, or one thousand slaves."
You refer to the " Permanent Commission of Slavery of the League of Nations " : the situation assumes an ironical aspect, as we see on this Body, and at Geneva generally, representatives of nations who, in their desire to show a lead to the world in - abolishing these mediaeval survivals, take no steps to clean the Augean slave stalls in their own Empires, and among these States Italy, France, Britain and Portugal must be quoted. Little good can be expected of this slavery Commission when we see the League allowing Signor Grandi to sit on a major problem to judge, whilst his own land (Italy) both encourages Red Sea slave transhipment from Eritrea to Arabia and bombs hospitals and churches in defiance of Geneva.
You contend abolition is not " feasible or beneficial " : I strongly disagree. The inhabitants of the colony, to quote you again, the " wealthy families," derive too much value from those unpaid, half-clad and ill-kempt slaves to want to see them released. Nobody will suggest or think that young woman slaves will commit.suieide unless-they see nothing ahead but despair when they are on the threshold of life, but it is noted man.: do so—(South China Morning Post, December 8th, 1934). Seemingly in the House of Commons there are members who are desirous of seeing in this " supposedly free Empire " slave retention tactics and who are most anxious that the social customs of Hong Kong's classes shall not be permeated by the contact of the slave masses.
Last year a local Hong Kong Committee sat, and on September 6th, 1935, published a report which in effect said "complete registration was impracticable"; yet on February 7th, 1934 (eighteen months before) Mr. Malcidm MacDonald told Miss Rathbone in the House, " I am satisfied that the system of registration is sufficient . . . to make impossible . . . the system of slavery." This " system " was the engagement of three inspectors (two being women) to follow up 500,000 people in Victoria, 250,000 in Kowloon, and a further 330,00() in sampans, junks, and villages, and trace slaves—perfectly feasible to a politician but ridiculous to anyone on the spot. The Hong Kong Telegraph. in July, 1935, says " The prosecutions undertaken from time to time only touch the fringe of the problem ; there must be a constant coming and going of unregistered slaves."
This Committee's report urges that no public money must be used to redeem slaves or alleviate distress; only charitable sources must be used. This is an evasion on the part of the Administration, as to limit expenditure to charity means no more than " three inspectors " and no more than " existing investigations "—which will play into the hands of the " vested interests," white- and yellow, which desire slavery
to emit' The proposed " guardian " should not he a local colony official--an entire stranger is preferred, who can give an unbiased mind to the project and free thousands whose lives up to now have been the scenes of cruelty, degradation and often forced sexual intercourse with their owners. In the South China Morning Post of October 25th, 1935, we find an official of the Hong Kong Tramways Co. tined for raping his seventeen-year-old slave—and there must be many in this country who will wonder what lies at the back of the desire to retain surplus young women of fifteen to twenty-nine years of age in married households and among young bachelors in these far-away colonies under the Union Jack.—Yours most
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