0003160 G.F. 316
SECRET
-12-
20.
During this period there were indications of dissension
in the ranks of the communists, the more rabid lower strata of the
unions advocating direct and violent action against the Government
and Police, including physical violence, while the communist
intellectuals
and those employed in the economic sphere advocated
a long ideological struggle which would not ruin the economy of the
Colony and thus vitiate the long term objective of control on the
Macau pattern.
21.
There were still no indications that the Chinese People's Government (C.P.G.) were giving the local communists anything more than moral support. The local communist leaders were preparing for a long drawn out struggle if they could not achieve their aim in a
short term. They had come to realise that Hong Kong was a very
different kettle of fish from Macau, and they started to prepare
and make plans for continuing the struggle without assistance from
Mainland China. Reports were received that they were stock-piling
food and preparing weapons, though it now seems' that their aim in
this was not, as was first thought, an all out physical attack
upon Government, but merely to take defensive measures against
possible Government actions.
22.
Other events on the labour front which deserve brief
mention are as follows:
(a) At the Nan Fung Textiles Limited (LIC Internal
Intelligence Report for April 1967, paragraph 6 refers) agitation, fomented by the left-wing
Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing Trade Workers' General
Union (S.W.D.T.W.G.U.) (claimed membership: 5,765;
paid up membership: 3,623) continued throughout the
first half of the month.
(b) Despite the fact that one of the pretexts for the
present confrontation was the "lock out" of workers
in the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works, (the
original cause of confrontation, see paragraph 3
SECRET
/above)