Mar. 20.
Tue Special Vice Committee, appointed at the last Ratepayers' Meeting to investigate and report on conditions in Shanghai, who have just issued their report, have to be congratulated upon the production of a very sane review of the situation and some suggestions which deserve the serious consideration of ratepayers no matter what their previously formed opinions may have been. While, in fact, it tells us nothing startling about the whole subject in its local aspects the report contains a strong indictment of the manner in which, by reason of a laissezfaire policy, the system of commercialized vice in Shanghai has been allowed to grow in the International Settlement. It is by no means pleasant reading to see that the committee estimate that ''there are at least 633 brothels with 4,575 inmates in the International Settlement"' those who come into contact with this side of Shanghai life will probably agree that the figures err on the side of understatement. They certainly fail to give any adequate picture of the real state of affairs by reason of its being utterly impossible to keep any track of those unfortunates who are not inmates of these houses; if the Committee had stated that they estimated the total number of women so engaged at 7,500, or thereabouts, there appears to [be no evidence to suggest that their opinion would be wrong. In such circumstances the Committee's finding of fact, together with the allowances under the heading just mentioned, must make ratepayers pause and reflect as to where these conditions must ultimately land the Settlement.
The outstanding point in the report is that the Committee. advocate no new municipal legislation to deal with the matter. They find, in fact, that since 1898 the necessary machinery has exist ed in the shape of the provision in By-law XXXIV to licence brothels, that it has never been used and that it should be now. To ensure that all existing houses should be licensed, to prosecute keepers of unlicensed houses, and annually to reduce the number of licences issued until their extinct tion is reached, does seem about all that the municipality can be expected to do and the wisdom of the suggestions lies in the moderate and merciful speed at which this reform isto be effected. At first sight a licence fee of $1, as a purely nominal fee, seems to meet the desires of those who oppose any form of licensing in this connexion, but, assuming that a fee has to be charged at all, the acceptance of the principle should entail a somewhat heavier charge on those who profit by the issuance of these permits, viz., the keepers of the houses. It is not suggested that the municipality should reap their share of this terrible income: the sums resulting can be applied towards dealing with one of the great results of the evil—venereal disease.. A licence fee of Tls. 10 per annum would bring in at least Tls. 6,330, a. substantial sum for the use of the Health Department in the work it is suggested it should undertake or further develop under Nos. 18, 14 and 15 of the Committee's recommendations. The above sum of Ts. 10 is itself nominal and if it is urged that some of the houses would be unable to pay it, ratepayers would probably regard their earlier disappearance for that reason with more than usual equanimity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.