NOT FALLEN--BUT ENSLAVED.
The Report of the Commission affords the following instructive
account of the difference in the moral and social status between the
prostitute of the East and West:
"In approaching the subject of prostitution, as it is found in
Hong Kong at the present day, it is absolutely necessary for a
full and just comprehension of it, to keep in mind two distinct
considerations. One is the almost total identity of the whole
system of prostitution, which since times immemorial is an
established institution all over the large empire of China. The
other point to be kept in mind is the radical difference
which distinguishes the personal character, the life and the
surroundings of Chinese prostitutes from all that is
characteristic of the prostitutes of Europe." ... "At the present
day the Chinese prostitutes of Hong Kong have but very little to
distinguish them, either in the past, present, or future of their
personal lives, or in their position and surroundings, from
the prostitutes of the 18 provinces of China.... Those of the
prostitutes of Hong Kong who are inmates of brothels licensed for
foreigners only, or who live in sly brothels for foreigners,
have adopted a different style of dress, but are otherwise in no
essential point differently situated from prostitutes in China,
except that the inmates of brothels licensed for foreigners are
subject to compulsory medical examination, and consequently far
more despised by their countrymen and even other prostitutes."
"Prostitutes in Europe are, as a general rule, fallen women,
the victims of seduction, or possibly of innate vice. Being the
outcasts of society, and having little, if any, prospect of being
again admitted into decent and respectable circles of life,
deprived also of their own self-respect as well as the regards
of their relatives, occasionally even troubled with qualms of
conscience, they mostly dread thinking of their future, and seek
oblivion in excesses of boisterous dissipation. The Chinese
prostitutes of Hong Kong are an entirely different set of
people.... Very few of them can be called fallen women; scarcely
any of them are the victims of seduction, according to the English
sense of the term, refined or unrefined. The great majority of
them are owned by professional brothel-keepers or traders in women
in Canton or Macao, have been brought up for the profession, and
trained in various accomplishments suited to brothel life.... They
frequently know neither father nor mother, except what they call
a 'pocket-mother,' that is, the woman who bought them from
others.... They feel of course that they are the bought property
of their pocket-mother or keeper, but they know also that this is
the feeling of almost every other woman in China, liable as each
is to be sold, by her own parents or relatives, to be the wife or
concubine of a man she never sets eyes on before the wedding day,
or liable, as the case may be, to be pledged or sold, by her
parents or relatives, to serve as a domestic slave in a strange
family.... They have the chance, if they are pretty and
accomplished, of being wooed ... and they may look forward with
tolerable certainty to being made the second, or third, or fourth,
or at any rate the favorite wife of some wealthy gentleman. If
not possessed of special attractions or wealthy lovers, they look
forward to being taken out of the brothel by an honest devoted man
to share the lot of a poor man's wife. Or they may endeavor to
save money by singing, music and prostitution combined, and not
only to purchase their freedom, but to set up for themselves,
buying, rearing, and selling girls to act as servants or
concubines or prostitutes, or they may finally come to keep
brothels as managers for wealthy capitalists or speculators. There
is further a certain proportion of prostitutes in Hong Kong who
have, by the hand of their own parents or husbands, been mortgaged
or sold into temporary servitude as prostitutes, or who of their
own will and accord act as prostitutes under personal agreement
with a brothel-keeper, for a definite advance of a sum of money,
required to rescue the family, or some member of it, from some
great calamity or permanent ruin."
"There is, however, one class of women in Hong Kong who can
scarcely be called prostitutes, and who have no parallel either in
China, outside the Treaty Ports, or in Europe. They are generally
called 'protected women.' They may originally have come forth from
one or other of the above-mentioned classes of prostitutes, or may
be the offspring of protected women...."
The Report describes the situation of the "protected woman" in the
following terms:
"She resides in a house rented by her protector, who lives
generally in another part of the town; she receives a fixed salary
from her protector, and sublets every available room to individual
sly prostitutes, or to women keeping a sly brothel, no visitor
being admitted unless he have some introduction or secret
pass-words. If an inspector of brothels attempts to enter, he
is quietly informed that this is not a brothel, but the private
family residence of Mr. So and So.... This system makes the
suppression of sly brothels an impossibility.... The principal
points of difference between the various classes of Chinese
prostitutes of Hong Kong and the prostitutes of Europe amount
therefore to this, that Chinese prostitution is essentially
a bargain in money and based on a national system of female
slavery."
"It must not be supposed, however, from what is said above, that
the Chinese, as a people, view prostitution as a matter of moral
indifference. On the contrary, the literature, the religions,
the laws and the public opinion of China, all join in condemning
prostitution as immoral, and in co-operation to keep it under a
certain check. The literature of the Confucianists, which, as
regards purity and utter absence of immoral suggestions, stands
unrivalled by any other nation in the world, does not countenance
prostitution in any form.... The laws and public opinion ... agree
in keeping prostitution rigidly out of sight. Although the Chinese
are a Pagan nation, they have no deification of vice in their
temples, no indecent shows in their theatres, no orgies in their
houses of public entertainment, no parading of lewd women in their
streets.... In short, as far as outward and public observation
goes, China presents a more virtuous appearance than most European
countries."
The report goes on to show that nevertheless the practice of polygamy,
"leaving the childless concubines liable to be sold or sent adrift
at any moment, the law of inheritance neglecting daughters in
favour of sons," and "the universal practice of buying and selling
females combined with the system of domestic servitude," makes
the suppression of prostitution difficult. "This intermixture of
female slavery with prostitution has been noticed in Hong Kong at
the very time when the Legislature first attempted to deal with
Chinese prostitution."
We now understand the nature of this wretched form of slavery as
carried on at Hong Kong. There did not exist a class of women brought
to the pitiable plight of prostitution by the wiles of the seducer, or
through the mishap of a lapse from virtue, after which all doors
to reform are practically closed against such, as in Western
civilization, nor were there those known to have fallen through innate
perversity; but such as existed among the Chinese were literal
slaves, in the full sense of that word. From the standpoint of these
officials, for the most part, prostitution was necessary. This was
plainly declared in many official documents. The fact that they
licensed brothels proves also that prostitution was considered
necessary. And since necessary, if the means failed whereby brothels
in the Occident are maintained, then they must be maintained by
Oriental means,--which was slavery. Under such circumstances, to
license prostitution meant, from the very nature of the case, to
license slavery. To encourage prostitution, as it always is encouraged
by the Contagious Diseases Acts, meant to encourage slavery. Hence
they reasoned, and declared--to use the language of the Registrar
General, Cecil C. Smith--that it was "useless to try and deal with
the question of the freedom of Chinese prostitutes by law or by
any Government regulation. From all the surroundings the thing is
impracticable."
It must be admitted that the conditions at Hong Kong favored the
development of social impurity. From the moment of British occupation,
and before, in fact, there were at that place large numbers of
unmarried soldiers and sailors, many of very loose morals; also
many men in civil and military positions as officials, and numerous
merchants, etc., most of them separated far from their families and
the restraints that surrounded them at home. On the Chinese side,
there were men accustomed to deal with their women as chattels,
willing to sell them to the foreigners.
But we need to inquire a little further into the matter before
conceding that because a thing will almost inevitably take place,
therefore it is best to license it in order to keep it within bounds.
The superficial sophist says: "Prostitution always has existed and
always will exist. Painful as the fact is, such is the frailty of
human nature. You cannot make men moral by act of parliament, and it
is foolish to try. We will have to license the thing, and thus control
it as best we can. That is the only practical way to deal with this
evil." Such reasoning as this exhibits the most confused notions as to
the nature of law.
No law is ever enacted except with the expectation that an offense
against it will take place. Law anticipates transgression as much as
license; but law provides a _check_ upon offenses and license provides
an _incitement_ to them. "The law was not made for a righteous man,
but for the lawless and disobedient." Have not murder and stealing
always existed? Are they not likely to exist in spite of laws against
them, so long as human nature remains so frail? Then why not license
_them_ in order to keep _them_ under control? It is perfectly apparent
to all that to license murder and stealing; would be the surest way of
allowing them to get quickly beyond control. "But you cannot make men
moral by act of parliament, and it is foolish to try; to put a man in
jail will not change him from a thief into an honest man." "But," you
reply, "we do not punish men for stealing and for murder for their own
good, but for the good of the community at large." Certainly. Then
what becomes of the argument that because men will not become pure by
act of parliament they are to be allowed to commit their depredations
unmolested? The primary object of law is not reformatory but
protective,--for the victims of lawlessness.
Our great Law-Giver, Jesus Christ, admitted a certain necessity of
evil, but He did not say, "therefore license it, to keep it within
bounds." He said, "It _must needs be_ that offenses come." But His
remedy for keeping the offenses within bounds was, "woe to that man by
whom the offense cometh." As inevitably as the offense was committed
so invariably must the punishment fall on the offender's head. That
is the only way to keep any evil within bounds. This is the principle
that underlies all law.
These Hong Kong officials who believed in the licensing of brothel
slavery and brought it about, have much to say about the "unfortunate
creatures" who were the victims of men. But if the advocate of license
is self-deceived in his attitude toward this social evil, we need not
be deceived in him. One does not propose a license as a remedy for an
evil, except as led to that view by secret sympathy with the evil.
A license of an evil is never proposed excepting upon the mental
acquiescence in that evil.
British officials who licensed immoral houses at Hong Kong did not
wish the libertine to be disturbed in his depredations. The Chinese
merchants were able to see this fact if those officials were not ready
to admit it even to themselves. They knew how to throw a stone that
would secure their own glass houses. Hence they said in their memorial
to the Governor:
"From 80 to 90 per cent of all these prostitutes in Hong Kong were
brought into these [licensed] brothels by purchase, as is well
known to everybody. If buying and selling is a matter of criminal
character the proper thing would be first of all, to abolish this
evil (connected with the brothels). 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?"
It is to be noted that none of the officials at Hong Kong accused the
Chinese merchants of slander in saying that from 80 to 90 per cent of
the thousands of prostitutes in the Colony were absolute slaves. The
Government was placed in a very awkward position by this challenge on
the part of the Chinese. How could a Government that held slaves in
its licensed brothels forbid Chinese residents holding slaves in their
homes? But the Governor did not propose to be compromised. He wrote to
the Secretary of State at London: "I believe I only anticipate your
instructions, in giving orders that the law, whatever may be the
consequences to the brothel system, should be strictly enforced so as
to secure the freedom of the women." But he reckoned without his host.
The Secretary of State did not stand by the Governor. So far as the
records show, the Governor and Chief Justice stood alone, his entire
Executive Council taking the opposing side. What was to be done?