1
CONF ID ENT TAL
going on strike during the disturbances in the Colony
last year.
The lack of success so far achieved by these
delegations is having an adverse effect on communist
morale, especially since three trade unions have recently
announced that strike pay to their members is to be
terminated. The Kowloon Bus Company has been the primary
target of these delegations. There are clear indications
that the local communist leadership does not seek an
open clash with the authorities but it may have increasing
difficulty in controlling the more militant elements among
its supporters as time goes on, The Hong Kong authorities
attech considerable importance to holding out against
requests for reinstatement, particular y since it is inown
that any success achieved in this sphere would be used by the
communists in an attempt to regain control over the
departments and services concerned,
Prison Visits and air, Grey (Reuters' Correspondent in Peking)
Efforts by the British Chargé d'affaires in
3.
Peking over the past few months to obtain access to Mr. Grey,
Reuters' correspondent in Peking, who has been under
house arrest there since last July, have met with very
little success, The one occasion on which Sir Donald Hopson
managed to see Mr. Grey (23 April) was made possible as
the result of arrangements made in Hong Kong for special visits
to be paid by local NCNA officials to communist journalists
and press employees imprisoned there for various offences
committed in connection with last year's disturbances,
These "special visits" were in addition to the normal
CONFIDENTIAL
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