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.'"
CHAPTER 12.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE ANSWERS HIS OPPONENTS.
The Acting Attorney General at the time of Sir John Smale's first pronouncement against slavery had suggested to Governor Hennessy that Sir John Smale's statements should be sent to London to the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and he and other advisers recommended that no prosecutions in connection with "adoption" and "domestic servitude" should be instituted, pending the receipt of instructions from the Home Government. The Chief Justice concurred in these views, and also suggested that the Chinese be told that no prosecutions as to the past should take place, but that in future, in every case where buying and selling occurred in connection with adoption or domestic service, the Government would undoubtedly prosecute.