the Chinese Government is moved in the matter with a view to
checking the evil at the fountain head. Failing this, it would be
worth considering whether the system of "unpaid passengers" might
not advantageously be abolished, especially as this class of
immigrant represents only 11 per cent of the total immigration,
and more than one-third of the labor contracts last year were
voluntarily signed by "paid passengers." It seems probable that if
the "unpaid passenger" system were abolished, and the market thus
thrown open to free competition, a much larger number of "paid
passengers" would offer for contracts. But, even if this plan
should appear to involve too great a risk of diminishing the flow
of Chinese coolies to Singapore, it surely would not too severely
tax the ingenuity of the Straits Government to devise a system of
State-aided immigration, closely resembling that which has for
many years been working in Canada, and more in accord with the
dictates of ordinary humanity and English ideas of the liberty of
the subject.

Among the Chinese at Singapore the women number less than
one-fifth of the population, and at Penang the proportion between
males and females is practically the same. In the immigration
returns the disparity is even more marked, for there is only
one female immigrant to every eighteen men. This extraordinary
preponderance of males in the Chinese population of these towns
has given rise to, and is made the standing excuse for, a
wholesale system of prostitution to which it would be difficult
to find a parallel. Government registration and protection have
favored the growth of this diabolical plague spot, for, strange to
say, this gigantic system of debauchery is under the direction
of the department which is euphemistically entitled "The Chinese
Protectorate," the "Protector of Chinese" at Singapore being also
the Inspector of over 200 brothels, and the Registrar of about
1,800 prostitutes. Many streets of well built three-story houses,
chiefly in one particular quarter of the town, are devoted to this
nefarious traffic, and are thronged every night with Chinamen who
loaf about and gaze into the front rooms and verandahs of the
brothels, for these front rooms open on the street and there
the women and girls are assembled in their best attire for the
ins