Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers. Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew
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,