14
REVIEW
the police three hours to complete the break in. The secretary of the union was killed during the struggle; and 81 people were arrested, to the obvious approval of other occupants of the building. Sub- sequent raids met with little or no physical opposition. Indeed the threat of invasion by the police, at any time, forced the opposition to avoid gathering for meetings at their usual premises and many centres that were raided were found to be unoccupied. Sporadic violence continued, but the communist organizations were disrupted and driven underground. They began to talk of a long struggle and, although their newspapers continued their stream of inflam- matory propaganda and were now inciting to armed insurrection, their readers grew less and support for confrontation dwindled to a hard core of dedicated and fanatical men and women.
Pressure against the communist organizations was maintained. Action was taken against known centres of subversive activity and, in August, three communist newspapers were suppressed and two of their editors were prosecuted for sedition, an action which resulted in a strong protest from Peking. A similar protest had been made in July when an employee of the New China News Agency was arrested for taking part in an illegal assembly. The protest was rejected and was followed by the Reuters corre- spondent in Peking being placed under house arrest. Two other employees of the New China News Agency in Hong Kong were subsequently arrested on similar charges and the Peking Govern- ment, on August 20, issued what amounted to an ultimatum. Within 48 hours all three employees of the New China News Agency must be released and action against the newspapers and their editors must be withdrawn. Failure to do so would result in 'serious consequences'. This demand was also rejected. The threatened reprisal took place, not against Hong Kong, but against the office of the British Chargé d'Affaires in Peking, which was sacked by a mob on August 22.
In Hong Kong, confrontation entered a new phase of indis- criminate 'bomb' attacks. There was a hint of terrorism to come in the publication, in August, of a list of prominent members of the community who were said to be marked for assassination. But, in the event, the only victims were a well-known wireless commentator, Mr Lam Bun, and his cousin who, together, were drenched in petrol