THE CHINESE PETITION AND PROTEST.
We get additional and valuable light on social conditions at Hong
Kong, through statements drawn up by prominent Chinese men and laid
before the Governor. As a representation from the Chinese standpoint
it has peculiar value at all points excepting where self-interest
might afford a motive for coloring the truth.
The occasion of these statements was as follows: On November 9, 1878,
a month before the report of the Commission was published, certain
Chinese merchants had petitioned the Governor to be allowed to form
themselves into a society for suppressing kidnaping and trafficking
in human beings. This petition states that the worst kidnapers are
"go-betweens and old women who have houses for the detention of
kidnaped people." They declare that these
"inveigle virtuous women or girls to come to Hong Kong, at first
deceiving them by the promise of finding them employment (as
domestic servants), and then proceeding to compel them by force
to become prostitutes, or exporting them to a foreign port, or
distribute them by sale over the different ports of China, boys
being sold to become adopted children, girls being sold to be
trained for prostitution." "Your petitioners are of opinion
that such wicked people are to be found belonging to any of the
[neighboring] districts, but in our district of Tung Kun such
cases of kidnaping are comparatively frequent, and all the
merchants of Hong Kong, without exception, are expressing their
annoyance."
Accompanying the petition was a statement of the situation:
"Hong Kong is the emporium and thoroughfare of all the neighboring
ports. Therefore these kidnapers frequent Hong Kong much, it being
a place where it is easy to buy and to sell, and where effective
means are at hand to make good a speedy escape. Now, the laws
of Hong Kong being based on the principle of the liberty of the
person, the kidnapers take advantage of this to further their own
plans. Thus they use with their victims honeyed speeches, and give
them trifling profits, or they use threats and stern words, all in
order to induce them to say they are willing to do so and so. Even
if they are confronted with witnesses it is difficult to show up
their wicked game.... Kidnaping is a crime to be found everwhere,
but there is no place where it is more rife than at Hong Kong....
Now it is proposed to publish everywhere offers of reward to track
such kidnapers and have them arrested.... The crimes of kidnaping
are increasing from day to day."
This proposal on the part of Chinese merchants to form such a society
was cordially accepted by officials, and the Governor requested that
two police magistrates, whom he named, the Captain Superintendent of
Police and Dr. Eitel, should draw up a scheme to check kidnaping, in
concert with the Chinese petitioners. This committee met, and decided
that the objects of the "Chinese Society for the Protection of Women
and Children" should he as follows:
1. The detection and suppression of kidnapers and kidnaping. 2.
The restoration to their homes of women and children decoyed
or kidnaped for prostitution, emigration, or slavery. 3. The
maintenance of women and children pending investigation and
restoration to their homes. 4. Undertaking to marry or set out in
life women and children who could not safely be returned home.
At a subsequent meeting of these gentlemen, Mr. Francis, Acting Police
Magistrate, asked the Chinese merchants present, "If there was of late
any special _modus operandi_ observed in the proceedings of kidnapers
differing from what had been observed and known formerly?" To this
the Chinese gentlemen present replied that "there was indeed a marked
difference observable in the proceedings of kidnapers of late, because
they had become acquainted with the loopholes British law leaves open,
also with the principle of personal freedom jealously guarded by
British law, and that through this knowledge their proceedings had
not only become less tangible for the police to deal with, but
the kidnapers had been emboldened to give themselves a definite
organization, following a regular system adapted to the peculiarities
of British and Chinese law, and using regular resorts and depots in
the suburbs of Hong Kong." In support of this, Mr. Fung Ming-shan laid
on the table two documents written in Chinese. One of these contained
a list of 38 different houses in the neighborhood of Sai-ying-pim and
Tai-ping-shan used by professional kidnapers, whose names are given,
but whose residence could not be ascertained. The other document
consists of a list of 41 professional kidnapers whose personalia have
been satisfactorily ascertained.
The foreign Magistrates present then pointed out to the Chinese
members of the meeting that one great difficulty the Government
frequently met in dealing with such cases was the question, what to do
with women or children found to have been unlawfully sold or kidnaped;
how to restore them to their lawful guardians in the interior of
China; how to provide for them in case such women or children had
actually been sold by their very guardians, who, if the woman or child
in question were restored to them, would but seek another purchaser;
how to deal with persons absolutely friendless, etc. The Chinese
members of the meeting replied that they were prepared to undertake
this duty. They would employ trustworthy detectives to ascertain the
family relations of any kidnaped person, who would see to such persons
being restored to their families upon guarantee being given for proper
treatment; and in cases where restoration was impossible or not
advisable, they would take charge of such kidnaped persons, maintain
them, and eventually see them respectably married. It was then decided
that the Magistrates present should draw up a succinct statement of
the provisions of the British law forbidding the sale of persons and
guaranteeing the liberty of the subject, which should be translated
into Chinese, and circulated freely in the neighboring districts.
Although the action on the part of the Chinese merchants in forming
themselves into an organization to put down kidnaping was received
with much appreciation by the Governor and Secretary of State at
London, as well as by many of the officials at Hon' Kong, there were
those who from the first doubted whether the motives of the Chinese in
thus uniting were wholly disinterested on the part of the majority.
Such were confirmed in their doubts by the action of these same
Chinese as soon as Sir John Smale set to work in earnest to
exterminate slavery, and declared in his court a year later than the
formation of this Chinese Society:
"I was given to understand that buying children by respectable
Chinamen as servants was according to Chinese customs, and that to
attempt to put it down would be to arouse the prejudices of the
Chinese.... Humanity is of no party, and personal liberty is to be
held the right of every human being under British law.... Whatever
the law of China may be, the law of England must prevail here. If
Chinamen are willing to submit to the law, they may remain, but
on condition of obeying the law, whether it accords with their
notions of right or wrong or not; and if remaining they act
contrary to the law, they must take the consequences."
Sir John Smale's utterance created intense feeling among these Chinese
merchants, who at once called upon the Governor to represent their
views and to protest. The Governor informed them that "slavery in any
form could not be allowed in the Colony." They protested that their
system of adoption and of obtaining girls for domestic purposes was
not slavery; "and they referred to the more immoral practice of buying
girls for the Hong Kong brothels, which, they alleged, Government
departments had connived at, though it was a practice most hateful to
the respectable Chinese." The Governor then asked them for their views
in writing, and they sent them to him in the form of a memorial,
containing the following words:
"Your petitioners are informed that his Lordship, the Chief
Justice, after the trial of a case of purchasing free persons for
prostitution, said, in the course of his judgment, that buying
and selling of girls for domestic servitude was an indictable
offense;--which put all native residents of Hong Kong in a state
of extreme terror; all great merchants and wealthy residents in
the first instance being afraid lest they might incur the risk of
being found guilty of a statutory offence, whilst the poor and low
class people, in the second instance, feared being deprived of a
means to preserve their lives (by selling children to be domestic
servants)."
These petitioners claimed:
That the buying of boys for "adoption" and of girls for domestic
servitude, "widely differs from the above-mentioned wicked
practices" of kidnaping and buying and selling of girls into
brothels.
That the domestic slaves "are allowed to take their ease and have
no hard work to perform," and when they grow up, "they have to be
given in marriage."
That all former Governors had let them alone in the exercise of
their "social customs."
That Governor Elliott had promised them freedom in the exercise of
their native customs.
That infanticide "would be extremely increased if it were entirely
forbidden to dispose of children by buying and selling;" parents
deprived of the means of keeping off starvation by selling their
children would "drift into thiefdom and brigandage."
Following the petition was an elaborate statement on the subject,
full of subtle arguments, misstatements and perversions, together, of
course, with some well-put statements, forming ten propositions in
favor of domestic slavery. Their first claim is not exactly true, as
even Dr. Eitel, who defended domestic servitude, was bound to declare,
namely, That Chinese law does not forbid adoption and domestic
servitude. We have already quoted Sir John Smale's statement of the
Chinese law, which restricted the adoption of boys to the taking of
one with the same surname as the family. And as to the buying of girls
for domestic servitude, though largely _practiced_ in China, yet these
Chinese merchants could hardly have been ignorant of the fact that it
was an _illegality_ before the Chinese law. "The reason of this," says
the Chinese protest, "is the excessive increase of population, and
the wide extent of poverty and distress." But there was neither
over-population nor distress at Hong Kong which should necessitate the
introduction of the practice into that Colony. "If all those practices
were forbidden, poor and distressed people would have no means left
to save their lives, but would be compelled to sit down and wait for
death." In other words, these men would claim that their motives were
wholly, or largely benevolent in purchasing the children of the poor!
And what better could the poor do for a living than to beget children
and sell them into slavery to the rich!
"Whilst all those practices, therefore, may be classed together
as buying and selling (of free persons), it is yet requisite to
distinguish carefully the good or wicked purposes which each class of
practice serve, and accordingly apply discriminately either punishment
or non-punishment." But anti-slavery legislation has never done this,
and never will. The question is not to any large extent the comfort or
misery of the chattel, but the forbidding that one human being should
be allowed to deal with another _as a chattel_ at all.
This attitude of the Chinese merchants who allied themselves with the
British officials for the Protection of Women and Children gave no
omen of good from the very first. Yet from that day to the present
these men have had a large share in the government of the native
women of Hong Kong and Singapore, rendering it very difficult ever
to elevate the standard of womanhood, or to educate Chinese women in
principles that should be the common inheritance of all who live in a
so called free country.
The statement continues:
"Since the last few years many Chinese have brought their
property, wives and families to the place, supposing they would
be able to live here in peace, and to rejoice in their property.
...Chinese residents of Hong Kong have, therefore, been in
the habit of following all native customs which were not a
contravention of Chinese statute law [but it seems _this sort_ of
buying and selling of human beings is contrary to Chinese law.
This is a misrepresentation]. It is said that the whole increase
and prosperity of the Colony from its first foundation to the
present day is all based on the strength of that invitation which
Sir Charles Elliott gave to intending settlers, and that this
present intention of applying, all of a sudden, the repressive
force of the law to both the practice of buying or selling boys or
girls for purposes of adoption or for domestic servitude is not
only a violation of the rule of Sir Charles Elliott, but moreover
will, it is to be feared, not fail to trouble the people."
They speak of infanticide as an evil that
"must be classed with evils almost unavoidable. Now if the buying
of adoptive children and of servant girls is to be uniformly
abolished, it is to be feared that henceforth the practice of
infanticide will extremely increase beyond what it ever was. The
heinousness of the violation of the great Creator's benevolence,
which constitutes infanticide, is beyond comparison with the
indulgence granted to the system of buying and selling children to
prolong their existence."
As though these benevolent persons only bought slaves for this one
laudable purpose, to preserve their lives! "As regards the buyers,
they look upon themselves as affording relief to distressed people,
and consider the matter as an act akin to charity," etc.
A flood of light is let in upon the matter of the reluctance of
British officials to move in the putting down of domestic slavery and
the buying and selling of boys among the natives, in the following
well-deserved thrust at the weak point in the armor of the British
officials:
"The office of the Registrar-General was charged with the
superintendence of prostitutes and the licensing of brothels
and similar affairs. But _from 80 to 90 per cent of all these
prostitutes in Hong Kong were brought into these brothels by
purchase, as is well known to everybody_. If buying and selling is
a matter of a criminal character, the proper thing would be, first
of all, to abolish this evil (brothel slavery). But how comes
it that since the first establishment of the Colony down to the
present day the same old practice prevails in these licensed
brothels, and has never been forbidden or abolished?"
This was a center shot, and calculated to weaken the hands of at
least the guilty officials. What could they say? Were the officials
prepared, since the report of the Commission a few months before had
made public the scandals connected with the licensing and inspection
of brothels, to set about reforming the abuses by radical measures?
Certainly the Chief Justice was. He did everything in his power to
abolish slavery _as slavery_, not simply to abolish slavery when
unconnected with brothels. But subsequent history seems to indicate
that, from this point on, the British officials were ready to
compromise with the Chinese merchants, and the testimony from this
time forward was well-nigh universal in Hong Kong circles that
domestic slavery, or "domestic servitude," as Dr. Eitel recommended
that it should be called instead (since a weed by another name
may help the imagination to think it a rose), was very "mild" and
"harmless," and that the adoption of purchased boys was a "religious"
duty, or at least, had a religious flavor about it, as practiced by
the Chinese. But as we have already said, that adoption in order to be
lawful in China must be the adoption of one of the same surname.
On October 27th, 1879, the Chief Justice, at an adjourned sitting
of the Court for the purpose, sentenced two more offenders, one for
kidnaping a boy, and the other for detaining a girl with intent to
sell her. In the first case the Judge said:
"Received as you had been into the father's house in charity, you
availed yourself of the opportunity to steal his child, and tried
to sell the child openly, probably having hawked him from door to
door. The sentence of the Court on you, Tang Atim, is that you be
imprisoned and kept to hard labor for two years, and that you be
kept in solitary confinement for a period of one week in every two
months of your imprisonment."
Chan Achit, an old woman, convicted of having unlawfully detained a
female child of 11 years of age, with intent to sell her, was next
placed in the dock. His Lordship said:
"The evidence in this case has shown the extraordinary extent to
which, under cloak of China custom, the iniquity of dealing in
children has extended. From the evidence, I have no doubt that a
vagabond clansman to whom the father had occasionally given out of
his penury had originated the crime in enticing the child away,
and it seems to me to be clear that the prisoner was as well known
as a 'broker of mankind' as a receiver of stolen children, to sell
them on commission, as receivers of old iron and marine stores
could be found in this Colony to dispose of stolen property. The
little girl bought and sold, aged 11 years, is a very intelligent
child, and described the negotiations for her sale with great
clearness."
The Chief Justice then went on to repeat the little girl's testimony
as to these "brokers of mankind," and the child's knowledge, from
personal observation of these purchases and sales, to which he adds:
"Let me here ask, Is the trade, or rather profession, 'broker of
mankind,' also a sacred China custom? I will not ask the queries
which would naturally arise in case the question were answered in
the affirmative. At present, however, I must say that, custom
or no custom, the practice of this profession is prohibited by
statute, and it is my duty to meet its exercise by punishment."
The prisoner was sentenced to two years' penal servitude. The Chief
Justice concluded his remarks on that occasion by replying to the
statements made in the Chinese petition.
He called attention to the Chinese resting their claim on the
temporary promise of Governor Elliott in 1841; of the fact that
they ignored the proclamation of the Queen in 1845. He said that
infanticide was also a Chinese custom in the same sense that slavery
was, on the words of the petition:
"Amongst the Chinese there has hitherto been the custom of
drowning their daughters. The Chinese threaten the increase of
this 'custom' of drowning children if their sale is put down....
I can only say that in case father, mother, or relative were
convicted of infanticide, Chinese custom would be no protection,
and, unless I am grievously mistaken, the presiding judge would
have no alternative but to sentence the perpetrator to death ...
the one custom is tolerated just as the other custom is tolerated,
and both alike or neither must be claimed as sanctioned by
Governor Elliott's proclamation. All remedies which ever existed
by common law or by statute in England up to 1845 against
ownership of human beings, against every form of slavery, extend
by their own proper force and authority to Hong Kong; and, if
that were not enough, all English laws applicable to Hong Kong,
including those against ownership in human beings, were by express
Ordinances 6 of 1845, and 12 of 1873, embodied into the laws
of Hong Kong, whilst the worst forms of slavery are especially
punished by Ordinance 4 of 1865, and 2 of 1875. I am bound by
my most solemn obligations to enforce all these laws. I must,
therefore, without fear, favour or affection, discharge this duty
to the best of my ability."