0003230
G.F. 323
CONFIDENTIAL
petitions and statements of support were received, and while it is difficult
to estimate the total number of people they represented, the Hong Kong Buddhist
Association and the Kaifong Associations between them claimed membership of
Well over a million persons. In a political situation of such gravity, where
many factors might lead people not to express an opinion, such massive
support for law and order was particularly impressive.
There is no doubt that it also affected communist strategy as the
tactics of street demonstrations and provocation did not continue after the
22nd of May. The campaign then entered a new phase; slogans were painted on
the walls of public buildings and there was a rash of inflammatory posters.
At the same time a series of token stoppages was engineered affecting transport,
including the cross harbour ferries, the port and the dock companies and the
main utility and service organisations. These stoppages had a certain amount
of nuisance value, particularly those in the transport field, but they caused
no lasting inconvenience.
On the 1st of June emergency regulations were made strengthening the
law against the display of inflammatory posters and action was taken to remove
them from Government buildings and elsewhere. In the doctrine of the cultural
revolution street posters are regarded almost as sacrosanct as being the
visible expression of the will of the"masses", and in Hon;; Kong they were
defended with the utmost teancity.
Some impetus was given to the force of this reaction by an editorial
in the Peking People's Daily of 3rd June which called on the Chinese in Hong Kong
"to organise a courageous struggle against the British and to be ready to respond
to the call of the motherland for smashing the reactionary rule of the British".
The article also stressed that the working class in Hong Kong was to remain the
main force in the struggle, but in Hong Kong the communist press chose to
interpret it as a declaration of full support by the Peking Government and gave
it wide publicity. Employees of the Star Ferry Company and the Hong Kong &
Yaumati Ferry Company stopped work in protest at the removal of posters,
the Tai Koo Dockyard the general manager and two senior staff members were
surrounded and held prisoners by their employees. Workers at the Government
it
Electrical and Mechanical Workshops in Kowloon and at the nearby Kowloon
depot of the Hong Kong & China Gas Company barricaded the door and armed
themselves with iron bars and other offensive capons. Police forced their
way into both premises and arrested more than 500 workers, of whom 120 were
18.
CONFIDENTIAL