Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers

by Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew; Katharine C. Bushnell

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."