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Bus Co. on 24th May therefore the dissident workers were told plainly that if they stopped work they would not be paid. There is no doubt that this action by the company strongly influenced the decision to resume work the next morning, although the strikers gave as their reason that they did not wish to inconvenience the public. Employees in Government departments were warned that absence from duty in these circumstances might lead to dismissal, and absentees in the Marine Department and the Public Works Department were interdicted from duty or discharged. Following this lead, similar action was taken by the other companies affected and it was this, coupled with Police intervention in any cases of intimidation that were reported, that took most of the impetus out of these stoppages.
52. The period of 'token stoppages' had been accompanied by a spate of posters that appeared on the premises affected and elsewhere, urging attacks on the Government and support for confrontation. These posters, usually crudely written by hand, had come to be regarded in China as a legitimate expression of the opinion of 'the masses' and, as such, almost sacrosanct. In Hong Kong they served the double purpose of providing a useful vehicle of propaganda to gain and stimulate the interest of the public and, at the same time, a challenge to the Govern- ment. If this challenge had not been accepted the authorities would to a large extent have abdicated from control of the situation. On 1st June, therefore, emergency regulations were made to strengthen the law relating to the display of inflammatory posters and action began to remove them.
53. The first reaction took place on 1st June, when a senior officer of the Marine Department was forcibly detained by workers at the Yaumati Slipway who stopped work and demanded, in a most hostile manner, that he should apologize for removing posters. The following day the Director of Marine announced that 515 employees out of a total work force of 850 were suspended. Only 70 men reported for duty that day and 90 the following day. A total of 316 men were eventually dismissed.
54. During the next week the 'poster war' continued. A full-scale operation was mounted by the Police to clear posters from buses and ferries and from public buildings; this met with some opposition but no outright violence. However, as soon as they were removed, more posters surreptiously appeared. On 6th June posters appeared again en masse. Every vessel of the Star Ferry had a dozen placards and
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