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campaign directed against the Macau authorities earlier this year.
The blame for the situation was, not unnaturally, placed at the door of the British, as represented by the Hong Kong Government, which, it was alleged, had deliberately engineered a test of strength so as to bring about an eclipse of Communist union authority.
3.
The two major disputes, mentioned in paragraph 2 above, occurred at the Green Island Cement Works Limited, and the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works at San Po Kong (see paragraph 8 of the L.I.C. Monthly Internal Intelligence Report for April 1967). The combined labour force of these two factories totals 1,600: the former is predominantly european owned and managed and the latter is Chinese owned. The dispute at the Artificial Flower Works came to a head on the 6th May 1967, and provided the spark which led to the situation deteriorating suddenly and erupting into violence. Groups of workers, many wearing MAO badges and shouting communist slogans, had, for two days, been picketing the main factory gates protesting against a notice put up by the management announcing various adjustments made to working hours and allowances.
On that
day these pickets illegally obstructed the movement of company vehicles and started vigorously to push at the gates which had been closed by the managemont. A telephone complaint brought uniformed Police to the scene who, after giving prolonged warnings to the workers to desist, were forced to arrest twenty of the agitators in order to avoid further breaches of the peace. These arrests provoked protest after protest in the pro-Communist press, at the Folice Station to which the agitators had been taken, and even at Police Headquarters. In the following days the entire pro-Communist press devoted itself to the San Po Kong incident with front page
banner headlines. Police intervention was described in vitriolic
and abusive terms. The Hong Kong Government was attacked while the Police Force was accused of brutally attacking unarmed workers, persecuting and arresting workers for being in possession of MAO'S works and of interfering by force in a labour dispute.
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