Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 11.

THE MAN FOR THE OC­CA­SION.

Con­sis­ten­cy de­mand­ed that ei­ther the broth­el sys­tem at Hong Kong should be abol­ished, or do­mes­tic slav­ery and so-​called “adop­tion” should be tol­er­at­ed. No oth­er cours­es were open. In his per­plex­ity, the Gov­er­nor asked his learned Chi­nese in­ter­preter, Dr. Ei­tel, to give him fur­ther light as to this do­mes­tic slav­ery and “adop­tion” preva­lent among the Chi­nese. This re­quest was grant­ed in a doc­ument en­ti­tled “Do­mes­tic servi­tude in re­la­tion to slav­ery.” Dr. Ei­tel's main points were:

Slav­ery as known to the West­ern­er “has al­ways been an in­ci­dent of race.” “Slav­ery, there­fore, has such a pe­cu­liar mean­ing ... that one ought to hes­itate be­fore ap­ply­ing the term rash­ly” to Chi­nese do­mes­tic slav­ery. Slav­ery in Chi­na grows out of the fact that the fa­ther has all pow­er, even to death, over his fam­ily. The fa­ther, on the oth­er hand, “has many du­ties as well as rights.” There­fore his pow­er over his fam­ily “is not a mark of tyran­ny, but of re­li­gious uni­ty.” “Few for­eign­ers have com­pre­hend­ed the ex­tent of so­cial equal­ity, ... the amount of in­flu­ence which wom­an, bought and sold as she is, re­al­ly has in Chi­na,... the depth of do­mes­tic af­fec­tion, of fil­ial piety, of pa­ter­nal care.” “To deal just­ly with the slav­ery of Chi­na, we ought to in­vent an­oth­er name for it.” “The law, al­though sanc­tion­ing the sale of chil­dren for pur­pos­es of adop­tion with­in each clan, and even with­out, is here in ad­vance of pub­lic opin­ion, as it ex­press­ly al­lows, by an edict, ... the sale of chil­dren on­ly to ex­treme­ly poor peo­ple in times of famine, and for­bids even in that case re-​sale of a child once bought.”

This last ad­mis­sion on the part of Dr. Ei­tel, a fact al­ready point­ed out by Sir John Smale, seems to us to clear­ly demon­strate that a pre­text was now be­ing sought to jus­ti­fy at Hong Kong a state of things as to slav­ery that the laws of Chi­na for­bade and which in no wise could be jus­ti­fied as Chi­nese “cus­tom.” “The rea­son for this im­mense de­mand for young fe­male do­mes­tics lies in the sys­tem of polygamy which ob­tains all over the em­pire, and which has a re­li­gious ba­sis.” By this he means that it is from the Chi­nese stand­point a re­li­gious du­ty for a fa­ther to leave a son, up­on his death, to con­tin­ue the fam­ily sac­ri­fices. There­fore if the fa­ther has no son by his first wife, he will “take a sec­ond or third or fourth wife un­til he pro­cures a son.” “A fam­ily be­ing in ur­gent dis­tress, and re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate­ly a cer­tain sum of mon­ey, take one of their fe­male chil­dren, say five years old ... to a wealthy fam­ily, where the child be­comes a mem­ber of the fam­ily, and has, per­haps, to look af­ter a ba­by.... But the child may be sold out and out. In that case in­vari­ably a deed is drawn up.” And this is the state of things con­cern­ing which Dr. Ei­tel says: “Few for­eign­ers have com­pre­hend­ed the ex­tent of so­cial equal­ity ... the amount of in­flu­ence which wom­an, bought and sold as she is, re­al­ly has in Chi­na ... the depth of do­mes­tic af­fec­tion, of fil­ial piety, of parental care,” etc.

He adds:

“Con­sid­er­ing the deep hold which this sys­tem has on the Chi­nese peo­ple, it is not to be won­dered at that Chi­nese can scarce­ly com­pre­hend how an En­glish judge could come to des­ig­nate this species of do­mes­tic servi­tude as 'slav­ery.' On the con­trary, in­tel­li­gent Chi­nese look up­on this sys­tem as the nec­es­sary and in­dis­pens­able com­ple­ment of polygamy, as an ex­cel­lent counter rem­edy for the de­plorably wide-​spread sys­tem of in­fan­ti­cide, and as the nat­ural con­se­quence of the chron­ic oc­cur­rence of famines, in­un­da­tions, and re­bel­lions in an over-​pop­ulat­ed coun­try. But the abus­es to which this sys­tem of buy­ing and sell­ing fe­male chil­dren is li­able, in the hands of un­scrupu­lous par­ents and buy­ers, and the sup­port it lends to pub­lic pros­ti­tu­tion, are too patent facts to re­quire point­ing out.”

“The mo­ment we ex­am­ine close­ly in­to Chi­nese slav­ery and servi­tude,” de­clares Dr. Ei­tel, “from the stand­point of his­to­ry and so­ci­ol­ogy, we find that slav­ery and servi­tude have, with the ex­cep­tion of the sys­tem of eu­nuchs, lost all bar­bar­ic and re­volt­ing fea­tures.” (!) “As this or­gan­ism has had its cer­tain nat­ural evo­lu­tion, it will as cer­tain­ly un­der­go in due time a nat­ural dis­so­lu­tion, which in fact has at more than one point al­ready set in. But no leg­isla­tive or ex­ec­utive mea­sures tak­en in Hong Kong will has­ten this pro­cess, which fol­lows its own course and its own laws laid down by a wise Prov­idence which hap­pi­ly over­rules for the good all that is evil in the world.”

There was, in­deed, a cer­tain jus­tice in de­fend­ing the Chi­nese as against the for­eign­er, on Dr. Ei­tel's part. But two wrongs do not make a right. From this time on­ward, the word of sophistry is put in the mouth of the ad­vo­cate of do­mes­tic slav­ery, just as the word of sophistry had been put in the mouth of the ad­vo­cate of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nance. Mr. Labouchere had spo­ken of the lat­ter as a means of pro­tec­tion' for the poor slaves, and the ex­pres­sion, 'pro­tec­tion,' has been kept promi­nent­ly to the front ev­er since Dr. Ei­tel sug­gest­ed, like­wise, not a change in the con­di­tions, but a change in the name by which they were known. Let it be called 'do­mes­tic _servi­tude_' in­stead of 'do­mes­tic _slav­ery_.' All the ad­vo­cates of this do­mes­tic slav­ery from that time have called the nox­ious weed by the sweet­er name.

Gov­er­nor Hen­nessey asked the opin­ion of oth­ers of his of­fi­cials. One Act­ing Po­lice Mag­is­trate replied 'When the ser­vant girls (or slaves girls, as some pre­fer to term them) in the fam­ilies in this Colony are con­tent­ed with their lot, and their par­ents do not claim them, the po­lice can­not be ex­pect­ed to in­ter­fere.' An­oth­er said 'Buy­ing and sell­ing chil­dren by the Chi­nese has been con­sid­ered a harm­less pro­ceed­ing, its on­ly ef­fect be­ing to place the pur­chas­er un­der a le­gal and moral obli­ga­tion to pro­vide for the child un­til the sell­er chose to re­pu­di­ate the bar­gain, which he could al­ways do un­der En­glish law.'

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Mr. O'Mal­ley, when asked (at a lat­er pe­ri­od) his opin­ion as to the ut­ter­ances Sir John Smale had made from time to time on the sub­ject of slav­ery, replied to the Gov­er­nor

“With re­gard to Sir John Smale's ob­ser­va­tion, I know that dif­fi­cul­ties na­tion­al, so­cial, of­fi­cial and fi­nan­cial be­set the Gov­ern­ment in ref­er­ence to the spe­cial ques­tions I have raised, I have on­ly to ob­serve that I have nev­er heard of those dif­fi­cul­ties. My own im­pres­sion is that the re­spectable parts of the com­mu­ni­ty, Chi­nese as well as Eu­ro­pean, in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment and the po­lice, are ful­ly alive to the broth­el and do­mes­tic servi­tude sys­tems, and as well in­formed as Sir John Smale him­self as to the re­al facts. One would sup­pose from the tone of his pam­phlet that he stood alone in his per­cep­tion and de­nun­ci­ation of evil. But I be­lieve the fact is that the Ex­ec­utive and the com­mu­ni­ty gen­er­al­ly are quite as anx­ious is he is to in­sist up­on prac­ti­cal pre­cau­tions nec­es­sary to pre­vent the abus­es, and to di­min­ish the evils nat­ural­ly con­nect­ed with these sys­tems, but they look for this to prac­ti­cal se­cu­ri­ties and not to decla­ma­tion. The ob­vi­ous line of prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions to take is that of care­ful reg­is­tra­tion and con­stant in­spec­tion of broth­els, so that full and fre­quent op­por­tu­ni­ty may be giv­en to all per­sons whose free­dom may be open to sus­pi­cion to know their le­gal po­si­tion, and to as­sert their lib­er­ty if they like ... Par­tic­ular­ly it might be thought right to cre­ate a sys­tem of reg­is­tra­tion ap­pli­ca­ble to do­mes­tic ser­vants and strangers in fam­ily hous­es. It would be a good thing if Sir John Smale would place at the dis­pos­al of the Gov­ern­ment (as I be­lieve he has nev­er yet done) any facts con­nect­ed with the broth­el sys­tem or the do­mes­tic servi­tude of which he pos­sess­es any re­al knowl­edge.”

This let­ter gives us some con­cep­tion of the al­most in­su­per­able dif­fi­cul­ties Sir John Smale had to en­counter in his en­deav­or to put down slav­ery, for not a case could come up in the Su­pe­ri­or Court for con­vic­tion on the Judge's in­for­ma­tion, of course, for that would be as­sum­ing both pros­ecut­ing and ju­di­cial pow­ers, and the men who oc­cu­pied in turn that of­fice, dur­ing Sir John Smale's in­cum­ben­cy, re­fused to act in uni­son with him, and this At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's lan­guage be­trays hot prej­udice, lack of can­dor as re­gard­ed the facts, and in­so­lence to­ward Sir John Smale.

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has a fling at the Chief Jus­tice as “im­prac­ti­ca­ble,” yet the on­ly prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tion that the for­mer makes in his let­ter as to how to meet the con­di­tions he seems to have tak­en from Sir John Smale's own words up­on which he was asked to ex­press an opin­ion. The Chief Jus­tice had said:

“I think the evils com­plained of might be less­ened,--(1) By a bet­ter reg­is­tra­tion of the in­mates of broth­els, and by fre­quent­ly bring­ing them be­fore per­sons to whom they might freely speak as to their po­si­tion and wish­es, and by such au­thor­ita­tive in­ter­fer­ence with the broth­el-​keep­ers as should keep them well in fear of ex­er­cis­ing acts of tyran­ny. (2) By a strin­gent­ly en­forced reg­is­ter of all in­mates of Chi­nese dwelling-​hous­es, &c., (at least of all ser­vants) with full in­quiry in­to the con­di­tions of servi­tude, and an au­thor­ita­tive restora­tion of un­will­ing ser­vants to free­dom from servi­tude. This would ap­ply to 10,000 (ac­cord­ing to Dr. Ei­tel 20,000) bond ser­vants in Hong Kong.”

The in­jus­tice of the at­tack of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al up­on Sir John Smale was not ig­nored by Gov­er­nor Hen­nessy, when he for­ward­ed Mr. O'Mal­ley's let­ter to Lon­don. He said:

“The ap­par­ent dif­fer­ence be­tween Mr. O'Mal­ley's views on broth­el slav­ery and the views of Sir John Smale is due to the fact that Sir John Smale knew that the re­al broth­el slav­ery ex­ists in the broth­els where Chi­nese wom­en are pro­vid­ed for Eu­ro­pean sol­diers and sailors, where­as Mr. O'Mal­ley, in dis­card­ing the use of the word slav­ery, does so on the as­sump­tion that all the Hong Kong broth­els form a part of the Chi­nese so­cial sys­tem, and that the girls nat­ural­ly and will­ing­ly take to that mode of earn­ing a liveli­hood. This is a mis­con­cep­tion of the ac­tu­al facts, for though the Hong Kong broth­els, where Chi­nese wom­en meet Chi­nese on­ly, may seem to pro­vide for such wom­en what Mr. O'Mal­ley calls 'a nat­ural and suit­able man­ner of life' con­sis­tent with a part of the Chi­nese so­cial sys­tem, it is ab­so­lute­ly the re­verse in those Hong Kong broth­els where Chi­nese wom­en have to meet for­eign­ers on­ly. Such broth­els are un­known in the so­cial sys­tem of Chi­na. The Chi­nese girls who are reg­is­tered by the Gov­ern­ment for the use of Eu­ro­peans and Amer­icans, de­test the life they are com­pelled to lead. They have a dread and ab­hor­rence of for­eign­ers, and es­pe­cial­ly of the for­eign sol­diers and sailors. _Such girls are the re­al slaves in Hong Kong._”

We un­der­score the last sen­tence as a most painful fact in the his­to­ry of the deal­ings of the British of­fi­cials with the na­tive wom­en of Chi­na, set forth on the au­thor­ity of the Gov­er­nor of Hong Kong, who, with the help of Sir John Smale, the Chief Jus­tice, waged such a fear­less war­fare against slav­ery un­der the British flag, with such un­wor­thy mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and op­po­si­tion on the part of the oth­er of­fi­cials equal­ly re­spon­si­ble with them in pre­serv­ing the good name of their coun­try, and in de­fend­ing rather than tram­pling up­on its laws. Gov­er­nor Hen­nessy con­tin­ues

“To drive Chi­nese girls in­to such broth­els [i.e., those for the use of for­eign­ers] was the ob­ject of the sys­tem of in­form­ers which Mr. C. C. Smith for so many years con­duct­ed in this Colony, and which in his ev­idence be­fore the Com­mis­sion on the 3rd of De­cem­ber, 1877, he de­fend­ed on the ground of its ne­ces­si­ty in de­tect­ing un­li­censed hous­es, but which your Lord­ship [Lord Kim­ber­ley, Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies] has now just­ly stig­ma­tized as a re­volt­ing abuse. On an­oth­er point the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so seems not to ap­pre­ci­ate ful­ly what he must have heard Sir John Smale say­ing from the Bench in the Supreme Court. It would be a mis­take to think that the Chief Jus­tice had not be­fore he left the Colony, re­al­ized the pub­lic opin­ion of the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty on the sub­ject of kid­nap­ing. In sen­tenc­ing a pris­on­er for kid­nap­ing, on the 10th of March, 1881, Sir John Smale said he was bound to de­clare from the Bench that, to the cred­it of the Chi­nese, a right pub­lic opin­ion had been grow­ing up, and on the 25th of March, 1881, (the last oc­ca­sion when Sir John Smale spoke in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong), he said, in a case in which the kid­napers had been con­vict­ed--This case presents two sat­is­fac­to­ry facts first, that a Chi­nese boat wom­an hand­ed one of these pris­on­ers to the po­lice, and that af­ter­ward an agent of the Chi­nese So­ci­ety to sup­press this class of crime caused the ar­rest and con­vic­tion of these pris­on­ers. These facts are in­dica­tive of the pub­lic mind tend­ing to treat kid­nap­ing as a crime against so­ci­ety, call­ing for ac­tive sup­pres­sion. On the same oc­ca­sion, in sen­tenc­ing a wom­an who had severe­ly beat­en an adopt­ed child, Sir John Smale said, 'In fi­nal­ly dis­pos­ing of these three cas­es, with all their enor­mi­ty, sources of sat­is­fac­tion present them­selves in the fact that, in each of these cas­es, it has been ow­ing to the spon­ta­neous in­dig­na­tion of Chi­nese men and wom­en that these crimes have been brought to the knowl­edge of the po­lice.' The Gov­er­nor clos­es his let­ter with the state­ment, 'It is on­ly due to Sir John Smale to add that his own ac­tion has great­ly con­tribut­ed to fos­ter the ”healthy“ pub­lic opin­ion of the na­tive com­mu­ni­ty, which in­duced him, when quit­ting the Supreme Court, to take a hope­ful view of the fu­ture of this im­por­tant sub­ject.'”