Dee. 8 fiber child labour in Shanghai, THE constant emphasis on the
particularly with regard to th foreign-owned cotton mills, is} Part of a general misstatement of conditions in this city and this country which is calculated apparently to deceive good Regple at home, It seems to be gi together forgotten that the! entire campaign for the abolition of child labour in Shanghai was initiated and conducted. by foreigners, principally Britons, and that the ultimate failure of the campaign was due not to opposi-fon by the foreign employers of tabour but by the Chinese public bodies of this port, which plaster-td the town with posters, which published advertisements in the Vernacular and foreign press and which conducted demonstrations against the passage of by-laws at the Ratepayers' meeting. It} must not be forgotten that the head of Ewo, Mr. Brooke-Smith, gnd the British Consul-General, Mr, Pratt, at a public meeting spoke in favour of the by-law and requested ratepayers to tend the meeting to register their votes. Yet there is no record of a Chinese of equal position in the community rising in public place to favour a movement which could have had but gue goal, the amelioration of the condition of working children.
"A British Mother," who wrote ug on Tuesday about conditions if it the mills, is aware of the eff ps have] been made' by B ath cin. era to effect a chiiige without} throwing the children back into the domestic system of labour, which is infinitely' worse, with-cut driving them into" the hor-of the native city. mill owners have adopted varleu methods of keeping the children out of the mills. Some of them have a system of measuring the workers, but such a system is unscientific and inadequate"and leads to no satisfactory result Most of the emplogtr: have. to guess at the age df the worker in this country where there is no government registration of births. The evil of the mother bringing her infant the factory is known to all employers of labour and all have} attempted to deal with it, with as much human kindness'as is possible in the circunistances. For to keep the infant from the mother in a country kindergartens and* fyifan lums are few, would undoubt be a form of infanticide a8 horrible to think about as are the! accidents which are bound to occur from their presefice in the! mill. In a word, in" the. cdnditions of labour as in fi else"ta China, one is faced by' the' curio cus fact that what is aljofmil and unusual elsewhere is the usual condition here and. that the problems which were solved in other countries are just appearing here.
The experience of Bris European employers and eniployces has been that labour problems can be solved most ndequately by legislation rather than by propaganda and revolu-_ tion, It is fatuous to talk of national or even provincial legislation in China, The national Government has the organs neither for_the enactment! of labour legislation nor for the enforcement of its prom! mandates. Its labour mandate: as everything else that emanates from the capital, cannot be enforced even within the walls of the capital. We who live in China know that because we se! it chary day. Legislation to he effective at all has tobe muni-polities within their own cipal because only te manic
control ti ans of enforce! their decisions. Shanghat is better governed than any other part of China not only because of the foreign' control but because its regulations deal with specific Gueations which can be solved] within the area covered by its authority. Labour legtstation, therefore, must be miusilefpal Now when the Chinese opponenita of labour legislation give ¥é At excuse the fact that a Chinese national child labour law, fs al ready in existence, they are simply throwing dust into the eyes of those whose friendship] they hope to gain. For all Chinese know that national laws are unenforeible in this' country ak] that they are never effective against foreigners. If, then a law is to be passed contfolfing child labour in factories under' foreign management, it niust be passed that it comes within the letter of the treaties.
Now the remarkable fact in the child labour situation has! been the willingness of the foreign employer of labour, the British employer of labour, place himself under such legislation, to vote for such legislation and to assume the burden upon his industry from the increased overheads resulting from such legislation. On the other hand, the Chinese employer of labour and the Chinese public man, has raised altogether impractical and extraneous issues, questions such 28 opposition to' the press bylaws, opposition to municipal Passage of additional - regula~ tions, generalities dealing With the rights of equal San ah
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.