Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

CHAPTER 2.

TREACH­ER­OUS LEG­IS­LA­TION.

In 1849 a man whose name is known the world over as a writ­er of Chris­tian hymns, went to Can­ton as British Con­sul and Su­per­in­ten­dent of trade. Af­ter a few years he re­turned to Eng­land, and in 1854 was knight­ed and sent out to gov­ern the new colony of Hong Kong. It is he who wrote that beau­ti­ful hymn, among oth­ers, “Watch­man, tell us of the night.” He al­so wrote, “In the Cross of Christ I Glo­ry.” One is tempt­ed to ask, in which Cross?--the kind made of gild­ed tin which holds it­self aloft in pride on the top of the church steeple, or the Cross pro­claimed in the chal­lenge of the great Cross-​bear­er, “Whoso­ev­er doth not bear his Cross, and come af­ter Me, can­not be my dis­ci­ple”? The Cross is the em­blem of self-​sac­ri­fice for the sal­va­tion of the world. Oh, that men re­al­ly glo­ried in such self-​sac­ri­fice, and held it forth as the wor­thi­est prin­ci­ple of life! Did Sir John Bowring hold aloft such a Cross as this, and, with his Mas­ter, rec­om­mend it to the world as the means of its el­eva­tion and eman­ci­pa­tion from the blight of sin? We shall not judge him in­di­vid­ual­ly. His ex­am­ple should be a warn­ing to the fact that even the most re­li­gious men can too of­ten hold very dif­fer­ent views of life ac­cord­ing to whether they are em­bod­ied in re­li­gious sen­ti­ments or in one's pol­itics. But nowhere are right moral con­cep­tions more need­ed (not in hymn-​book nor in church), as in the en­act­ments by which one's fel­low-​be­ings are gov­erned. Oth­er re­li­gious men not so con­spic­uous as Sir John Bowring, but of more en­light­ened days than his, have died and left on earth a tes­ti­mo­ny to strange­ly di­ver­gent views and prin­ci­ples, ac­cord­ing to whether they were crys­tal­lized in re­li­gious sen­ti­ments, or in the laws of the land, and ac­cord­ing to whether they leg­is­lat­ed for men or for wom­en.

On May 2nd, 1856, Sir John Bowring, Gov­er­nor of Hong Kong, wrote to the Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies at Lon­don sub­mit­ting a draft of an Or­di­nance which was de­sired at Hong Kong be­cause of cer­tain con­di­tions pre­vail­ing at Hong Kong which were de­scribed in the en­clo­sures in his despatch. Mr. Labouchere, the Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies at the time, replied to the Gov­er­nor's rep­re­sen­ta­tions in the fol­low­ing lan­guage: “The Colo­nial Gov­ern­ment has not, I think, at­tached suf­fi­cient weight to the very grave fact that in a British Colony large num­bers of wom­en should be held in prac­ti­cal slav­ery for the pur­pos­es of pros­ti­tu­tion, and al­lowed in some cas­es to per­ish mis­er­ably of dis­ease in the pros­ecu­tion of their em­ploy­ment, and for the gain of those to whom they sup­pose them­selves to be­long. A class of per­sons who by no choice of their own are sub­ject­ed to such treat­ment have an ur­gent claim on the ac­tive pro­tec­tion of Gov­ern­ment.”

Hong Kong, the British colony, had ex­ist­ed but four­teen years when this was writ­ten. On­ly a hand­ful of fish­er­men and cot­tagers were on the is­land be­fore the British oc­cu­pa­tion. Its Chi­nese pop­ula­tion had come from a coun­try where, as we have seen, laws against the buy­ing and sell­ing, de­tain­ing and kid­nap­ing hu­man be­ings were not un­fa­mil­iar. On­ly eleven years had elapsed since the Queen's procla­ma­tion against slav­ery in that colony had been pub­lished to its in­hab­itants, and yet, dur­ing that time, slav­ery had so ad­vanced at Hong Kong, against both Chi­nese and British law, as to re­ceive this recog­ni­tion and ac­knowl­edg­ment on the part of the Sec­re­tary of State at Lon­don:

1st, That it is a “grave fact that” at Hong Kong “large num­bers of wom­en” are “held in prac­ti­cal slav­ery.”

2nd, That this slav­ery is “for the gain of those to whom they sup­pose them­selves to be­long.”

3rd, That it is so cru­el that “in some cas­es” they “per­ish mis­er­ably ... in the pros­ecu­tion of their em­ploy­ment.”

4th, That it is “by no choice of their own” that they pros­ecute their em­ploy­ment, and “are sub­ject­ed to such treat­ment.”

5th, That they have “an ur­gent claim up­on the ac­tive pro­tec­tion of Gov­ern­ment.”

6th, That the ser­vice to which these slaves are doomed, through “no choice of their own,” is the most de­grad­ed to which a slave could pos­si­bly be re­duced, i.e., “pros­ti­tu­tion.”

When Mrs. Har­ri­et Beech­er Stowe wrote “Un­cle Tom's Cab­in,” she sound­ed the note of doom for slav­ery in the Unit­ed States. Af­ter that, slav­ery be­came in­tol­er­able. Many have re­marked on the fact that the book should have so stirred the con­science of the Chris­tian world, when there are de­pict­ed in it so many even en­gag­ing fea­tures and ad­mirable per­sons, wo­ven in­to the sto­ry of wrong. Her pen did not seem to make slav­ery ap­pear al­ways and al­to­geth­er black. But there was the fate of “Un­cle Tom,” and the pic­ture of “Cassie,” cap­tive of “Legree.” It was not what slav­ery al­ways was, but _what it might be_--the ter­ri­ble pos­si­bil­ities, that aroused the con­science of Chris­ten­dom, and made the per­pet­ua­tion of African slav­ery an im­pos­si­bil­ity to Amer­icans. The mas­ter _might_ choose to use his pow­er over the slave for the in­dul­gence of his own basest propen­si­ties.

Al­most at the same time of these stir­ring events con­nect­ed with slav­ery in the Unit­ed States, Mr. Labouchere penned the above words, ad­mit­ting that slav­ery at Hong Kong had de­scend­ed to that low­est lev­el. In­famy in­stead of in­dus­try was the lot of these, en­gaged in the “pros­ecu­tion of their em­ploy­ment,” through “no choice of their own.”

Can we an­tic­ipate what le­gal mea­sures would be asked for at Hong Kong, and grant­ed in Lon­don in or­der to re­lieve this hor­ri­ble con­di­tion. It seems at once ob­vi­ous that the fol­low­ing would be some of them at least:

1st, A clear an­nounce­ment that this slav­ery was pro­hib­it­ed by the Queen's An­ti-​Slav­ery Procla­ma­tion of 1845, and would not be per­mit­ted.

2nd, Wom­en who “sup­posed them­selves to be­long” to mas­ters would be at once told that they were free agents and be­longed to no one.

3rd, The mas­ter who dared claim the own­er­ship of a for­mer slave would be pros­ecut­ed and suit­ably pun­ished.

4th, Any slave per­ish­ing mis­er­ably from dis­ease would not on­ly be healed at pub­lic ex­pense, but placed where there was no fur­ther risk of con­ta­gion.

5th, Since such slaves had “an ur­gent claim on the _ac­tive_ pro­tec­tion of the Gov­ern­ment,” they would be treat­ed as wards of the State un­til safe from like treat­ment a sec­ond time.

6th, Since this slav­ery had sprung up in de­fi­ance of law, any of­fi­cial who at a fu­ture time con­nived at such crime would be li­able to im­peach­ment.

The Or­di­nance sent home for sanc­tion, and ap­proved of by Mr. Labouchere as need­ed for the “pro­tec­tion” of slave wom­en, was pro­claimed as Or­di­nance 12, 1857, af­ter some slight mod­ifi­ca­tions, and an of­fi­cial ap­point­ed a few months be­fore, called the “Pro­tec­tor of Chi­nese,” was charged with the task of its en­force­ment. This of­fi­cial is al­so called the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al at Hong Kong, but the for­mer name was giv­en him at the first, and the of­fi­cial at Sin­ga­pore charged with the same du­ties is al­ways, to this day, called the “Pro­tec­tor of Chi­nese.”

The new Or­di­nance em­bod­ied the fol­low­ing fea­tures:

1st, The reg­is­tra­tion of im­moral hous­es.

2nd, Their con­fine­ment to cer­tain lo­cal­ities.

3rd, The pay­ment of reg­is­tra­tion fees to the Gov­ern­ment.

4th, A pe­ri­od­ical, com­pul­so­ry, in­de­cent ex­am­ina­tion of ev­ery wom­an slave.

5th, The im­pris­on­ment of the slave in the Lock Hos­pi­tal un­til cured, and then a re­turn to her mas­ter and the ex­act con­di­tions un­der which she was “from no choice of her own,” ex­posed to con­ta­gion, with the ex­pec­ta­tion that she would be short­ly re­turned again in­fect­ed.

6th, The pun­ish­ment by im­pris­on­ment of the slave when any man was found in­fect­ed from con­sort­ing with her, through “no choice of her own.”

7th, The pun­ish­ment by fine and im­pris­on­ment of all per­sons keep­ing slaves in an _un_reg­is­tered house (which was not a source of prof­it to the Gov­ern­ment).

This was the on­ly sort of “ac­tive pro­tec­tion” that the Gov­ern­ment of Hong Kong at that time pro­vid­ed to the slave. The mat­ter of “pro­tec­tion” which con­cerned the “Pro­tec­tor of Chi­nese,” re­lat­ed to keep­ing the wom­en from be­com­ing in­ca­pac­itat­ed in the pros­ecu­tion of their em­ploy­ment, and to see­ing that the hope­less­ly dis­eased were elim­inat­ed from the herd of slaves. The rest of the “pro­tec­tion” looked to the phys­ical well-​be­ing of an­oth­er por­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty--the for­ni­ca­tors. If phys­ical harm came to them from wil­ful sin, the Chi­nese wom­en would be pun­ished by im­pris­on­ment for it, though their sin was forced up­on them. This was “pro­tec­tion” from the of­fi­cial stand­point.

Mr. Labouchere had replied with his ap­proval of this Or­di­nance deal­ing with con­ta­gious dis­eases due to vice, as though the ap­pli­ca­tion for the mea­sure had been made in be­half of the slaves of Hong Kong. Such was not the case. The en­clo­sures in Sir John Bowring's despatch had been a sen­sa­tion­al de­scrip­tion of the ur­gent need of vi­cious men for the ac­tive pro­tec­tion of the Gov­ern­ment from the con­se­quences of their vices. Lat­er, a Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to the work­ing of this Or­di­nance com­ments up­on of­fi­cial state­ments as to the sat­is­fac­to­ry con­se­quences of the en­act­ment of the mea­sure in the check­ing of dis­ease. The Com­mis­sion demon­strates that in many in­stances their state­ments were ab­so­lute false­hoods, as proved by state­ments made by the same of­fi­cials else­where. Since these of­fi­cials are proved to have been so un­truth­ful af­ter the pass­ing of the Or­di­nance, we can put no re­liance on their state­ments pre­vi­ous to its en­act­ments, and the more so be­cause the statis­tics for Hong Kong in its ear­ly days are hope­less­ly con­fused with the gen­er­al statis­tics for all Chi­na, wher­ev­er British sol­diers or sailors were to be found. There­fore they are un­avail­able for ci­ta­tion. But as to state­ments made af­ter the pas­sage of the Or­di­nance, we ap­pend a com­pi­la­tion, as set forth by Dr. Birk­beck Nevins of Liv­er­pool, Eng­land.

SHAME­LESS AND YET OF­FI­CIAL­LY-​SANC­TIONED FALSE­HOOD IN PUB­LISH­ING OF­FI­CIAL­LY UT­TER­LY UN­TRUE STATIS­TICS IN FAVOUR OF THE C.D. ACTS IN THE BRITISH COLONY OF HONG KONG WITH THE SANC­TION AND AU­THOR­ITY OF THE COLO­NIAL GOV­ER­NOR.

“Re­fer­ring to the Colo­nial Sur­geon's De­part­ment, we feel bound to point out that those por­tions of the _An­nu­al Med­ical Re­ports_ which re­fer to the sub­ject of the Lock Hos­pi­tal _have, in too many in­stances, been al­to­geth­er mis­lead­ing_.” (Re­port of Com­mis­sion, p. 2, parag. 2.)

“In 1862 (five years af­ter the Act had been in force) Dr. Mur­ray was '_com­plete­ly sat­is­fied_ with the _in­cal­cu­la­ble_ ben­efit that had re­sult­ed to the colony from the Or­di­nance of 1857'”[A]

[Foot­note A: An ex­treme form of C.D. Acts, with­out par­al­lel in any oth­er place un­der British rule.]

“In 1865 (af­ter eight years' ex­pe­ri­ence) he wrote, 'the _good_ the Or­di­nance does _is un­doubt­ed_; but the good it might do, were all the un­li­censed broth­els sup­pressed, was in­cal­cu­la­ble.'”

“In 1867 (af­ter ten years' ex­pe­ri­ence) the _pub­lic_ was in­formed that the Or­di­nance had been 'on tri­al for near­ly ten years, and _had done sin­gu­lar ser­vice_.'”

_Yet in this very same year_--1867, April 19th--“Dr. Mur­ray stat­ed in an _Of­fi­cial Re­port not in­tend­ed for pub­li­ca­tion_, but found by the Com­mis­sion among oth­er Gov­ern­ment pa­pers, and pub­lished,--'That vene­re­al dis­ease has been _on the in­crease_, in spite of all that has been done to check it, _is no new dis­cov­ery_; it has al­ready been brought be­fore the no­tice of His Ex­cel­len­cy.'” (Re­port, p. 35, pars. 4 and 5.)

What is to be thought of the char­ac­ter of such re­ports for the _Pub­lic_, and such an _Of­fi­cial Re­port_, “not _in­tend­ed_ to be _pub­lished_”?

This same Dr. Mur­ray's An­nu­al Re­port for the _Pub­lic_ for 1867, was _ac­tu­al­ly put in ev­idence be­fore the House of Lords' Com­mit­tee_ on vene­re­al dis­eases--1868, page 135. “Vene­re­al dis­ease here has now be­come of _com­par­ative­ly rare oc­cur­rence_.” Yet the _Army_ Re­port for the pre­vi­ous year (1866, page 115) states that “the ad­mis­sions to hos­pi­tal for vene­re­al dis­ease were 281 per 1000 men;” i.e., more than one man in four of the whole sol­diery had been in hos­pi­tal for this “com­par­ative­ly rare” dis­ease.

As re­gards the Navy, Dr. Mur­ray says, “the ev­idence of Dr. Bernard, the Deputy In­spec­tor-​Gen­er­al of Hos­pi­tals and Fleets, is even more sat­is­fac­to­ry. He writes (Jan. 27), 'I am en­abled to say that true syphilis is now rarely con­tract­ed by our men in Hong Kong.'” Yet the “Chi­na sta­tion,” in which Hong Kong oc­cu­pies so im­por­tant a po­si­tion, had at the time 25 per cent. more _sec­ondary (true) syphilis than any oth­er naval sta­tion in the world, ex­cept one (the S.E. Amer­ican_); it had 101 of _pri­ma­ry (true) against 68 in the North Amer­ican_, 31 in the S.E. Amer­ican, and 22 in the Aus­tralian sta­tions (_all un­pro­tect­ed_); and _gon­or­rhoea_ was _high­er than in any oth­er naval sta­tion in the world_. This _of­fi­cial_ mis­lead­ing fea­ture is to be found in oth­er quar­ters than Dr. Mur­ray's Re­ports; for in the _Navy_ Re­port for 1873 (p. 282), Staff Sur­geon Ben­nett, med­ical of­fi­cer of the ship per­ma­nent­ly sta­tioned in Hong Kong, says--“Ow­ing to the ex­cel­lent work­ing of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Acts, vene­re­al com­plaints in the colony are re­duced _to a min­imum_. The _few cas­es_ of syphilis are chiefly due to pri­vate pros­ti­tutes not known to the po­lice.”

In a rep­re­sen­ta­tion made to the Sec­re­tary of State by W.H. Sloggett, In­spec­tor of Cer­ti­fied Hos­pi­tals, Oc­to­ber 7, 1879, we get an ex­act ac­count of what led to the pas­sage of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nance of 1857. He says: “In 1857, ow­ing to the very strong rep­re­sen­ta­tions which had been made to the Gov­er­nor dur­ing the pre­vi­ous three years, by dif­fer­ent naval of­fi­cers in com­mand of the Chi­na Sta­tion, of the preva­lence and sever­ity of vene­re­al dis­ease at Hong Kong, a Colo­nial Or­di­nance for check­ing these dis­eases was passed in Novem­ber of that year.”

When Lord Kim­ber­ley was Sec­re­tary of State he wrote (on Septem­ber 29, 1880) Gov­er­nor Hen­nessy of Hong Kong in de­fence of the Or­di­nance of 1857,--at least as to the mo­tive ex­pressed by Mr. Labouchere for con­sent­ing to the pass­ing of the Or­di­nance: “These hu­mane in­ten­tions of Mr. Labouchere have been frus­trat­ed by var­ious caus­es, among which must be in­clud­ed that the po­lice have from the first been al­lowed to look up­on this branch of their work as be­neath their dig­ni­ty, while the san­itary reg­ula­tion of the broth­els ap­pears from re­cent cor­re­spon­dence to have been al­most en­tire­ly dis­re­gard­ed.” To this Gov­er­nor Hen­nessy replied: “On the gen­er­al ques­tion of the Gov­ern­ment sys­tem of li­cens­ing broth­els, your Lord­ship seems to think that I have not suf­fi­cient­ly rec­og­nized that the es­tab­lish­ment of the sys­tem was a po­lice mea­sure, in­tend­ed to give the Hong Kong Gov­ern­ment some hold up­on the broth­els, in hope of im­prov­ing the con­di­tion of the in­mates, and of check­ing the odi­ous species of slav­ery to which they are sub­ject­ed. I can, how­ev­er, as­sure your Lord­ship, what­ev­er good in­ten­tions may have been en­ter­tained and ex­pressed by Her Majesty's Gov­ern­ment when the li­cens­ing sys­tem was es­tab­lished, that it has been worked for a dif­fer­ent pur­pose.” ... “The re­al pur­pose of the broth­el leg­is­la­tion here has been, in the odi­ous words so of­ten used, the pro­vi­sion of clean Chi­nese wom­en for the use of the British sol­diers and sailors of the Roy­al Navy in this Colony.”

The re­al ob­ject of the Or­di­nance, com­mend­ed by the Sec­re­tary of State as an­swer­ing to “an ur­gent claim” on the part of slaves “up­on the ac­tive pro­tec­tion of the Gov­ern­ment,” the op­er­ation of which was placed in the hands of the so-​called Pro­tec­tor of Chi­nese, was plain­ly de­scribed in the pream­ble of the Or­di­nance as mak­ing “pro­vi­sions for check­ing the spread of vene­re­al dis­eases with­in this Colony.” No oth­er ob­ject was stat­ed.

The in­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment was that the Or­di­nance should be worked by the aid of the whole po­lice force; but as ear­ly as 1860 we find the Pro­tec­tor, or Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, D.R. Cald­well, re­port­ing to the Colo­nial Sec­re­tary that “up­on the first pro­mul­ga­tion of the Or­di­nance, the Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice man­ifest­ed an in­dis­po­si­tion to in­ter­fere in the work­ing of the Or­di­nance, from a be­lief that it opened a door to cor­rup­tion to the mem­bers of the force un­der him.” Lat­er, Mr. May, the su­per­in­ten­dent of po­lice al­lud­ed to, said be­fore the Com­mis­sion of In­quiry: “That he would not have per­mit­ted the po­lice to have any­thing to do with the con­trol or su­per­vi­sion of broth­els un­der the Or­di­nance, be­ing apart from the gen­er­al ob­jects of po­lice du­ties, and from the great prob­abil­ity of its lead­ing to cor­rup­tion.” Let this be told to Mr. May's last­ing cred­it. Where­upon, on the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's ap­pli­ca­tion, the of­fice of In­spec­tor of Broth­els was cre­at­ed.

We have re­ferred sev­er­al times to a cer­tain Com­mis­sion which was ap­point­ed to in­quire in­to the work­ing of the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Or­di­nances of Hong Kong. This Com­mis­sion was ap­point­ed by Gov­er­nor Hen­nessy on Novem­ber 12th, 1877, and was com­posed of William Keswick, un­of­fi­cial mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil, Thomas Child Hal­ly­er, Esq., “one of Her Majesty's Coun­sel for the Colony,” and Ernest John Ei­tel, M.A., Ph.D., Chi­nese In­ter­preter to the Gov­er­nor. We shall have fre­quent cause to quote from this Com­mis­sion's re­port, and as it is the on­ly Com­mis­sion we shall quote, we shall hence­forth speak of it mere­ly as “the Com­mis­sion.” This re­port says, con­cern­ing in­spec­tors of broth­els: “These posts, al­though fair­ly lu­cra­tive, do not seem to be cov­et­ed by men of very high class.” For in­stance, we find in a re­port dat­ed De­cem­ber 11, 1873, by the cap­tain su­per­in­ten­dent of po­lice, Mr. Dean, and the act­ing Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al, Mr. Ton­nochy, that they were not pre­pared to rec­om­mend any­one for an ap­point­ment to a va­can­cy which had just oc­curred, ow­ing to the re­luc­tance of the po­lice in­spec­tors to ac­cept “the of­fice of In­spec­tor of Broth­els.” Mr. Creagh says, that the post is not one “which any of our in­spec­tors would take. They look down on the post.” “They are a class very in­fe­ri­or to those who would be in­spec­tors with us. I don't be­lieve any­one wish­es it, but con­sta­bles, or per­haps sergeants, would take the post for the pay.” Mr. Dean would al­so “ob­ject to its be­ing made a part of the du­ty of the gen­er­al po­lice to en­force the Con­ta­gious Dis­eases Acts.” “My in­spec­tors and sergeants,” he says, “would so strong­ly ob­ject to tak­ing the of­fice that I should be un­able to get any­one on whom I could re­ly.... The In­spec­tor of Po­lice looks down on the In­spec­tor of Broth­els.” Dr. Ayres tells us: “You can­not get men fit­ted for the work at present salaries, and you have to put tremen­dous pow­ers in­to the hands of men like those we have.”

Yet in­to the hands of men low­er in char­ac­ter than the low­est of the po­lice force was com­mit­ted, in large part, the op­er­ation of Or­di­nance 12, 1857, rec­om­mend­ed by Mr. Labouchere as a sort of benev­olent scheme for the de­fense of poor Chi­nese slaves un­der the British flag, who had “an ur­gent claim on the pro­tec­tion of Gov­ern­ment.”