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Q-Including everything?
( 162 )
A-Yes. One thing, we bave a reputation to keep up, and if anything goes wrong we would be reprimanded and called over the coals for it.
Q-Do you think you would get the work done quicker?
A-That is another question; I think we would get it done equally as quick. If I might be allowed to say it-it is going off at a tangent, I know--if you introduced the Secret Society Ordinance here on the same lines as the Secret Society Ordinance intro- duced in Singapore, you would get the work much quicker than now. The guilds are at the bottom of all the delays, and you want nothing more than to have the guilds registered. Governments departments as well as myself have notices posted on their works, printed on red paper, with the chop of the guild on them, telling contractors not to resume that work until the original contractors have been paid so much; and they dare not do it.
At Quarry Bay, we have no difficulty in getting labour now. At the beginning of last year there were only three or four hundred men working per diem, now we have got over three thousand men.
Q-Because the inen are working without a contractor ?
A-Because they know they will get their money. If a contractor owed a man
a dollar, the Government would not go and pay him sixty cents.
to?
Q-Do you think there is a guild among contractors.
A There is a very strong combination.
By Mr. Thurburn. What are these regulations in Singapore that you refer
A-It is the Secret Societies Ordinance. The principal point is that there is to be no secret society of any kind without registration, and secret societies are defined in rather a broad manner.
By the Chairman. You recommend registration of Secret Societies?
A-Yes, register them, and the names of the leading men connected with them. That is all we want here now. In this case I referred to in the matter of notices, they have a private notice stuck on the wall of the building warning any other contractor from resuming or taking up that work. The notices are all the same; they have the chop of the guild on them.
By Mr. Shewan.-Have you called the attention of the Government to these notices?
A-The attention of the Government has been called-not lately, but years before. They are proper chops-not printed. I have ascertained that these notices emanated from the head of the guild at a house somewhere behind the juss-house in Taipingshan. When I got as far as that in the matter of information, I got no further; they i.e., my informants, seemed to have an idea what I was driving at. And they all shut up.
By Mr. Thurburn.-In Singapore this registering prevents that kind of thing and they are "down" on them ?
A-Mr. GOMPERTZ can you give more information on that subject than I can. All we want is that Ordinance introduced here and it will stop all these combinations. It is a very simple thing.
Q-Of course, Singapore and Hongkong are not situated exactly the same, we being so close to Canton. Do you think it would work as well here as in Singapore?
A-I don't see why it should not. These notices emanate from the guild, and they have got the chop of the guild on. might send you one to-morrow; it would be of interest to you.
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