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There is, apparently, no fighting understanding between the chair coolies and their opponents who have rickshas.
The ricksha trouble would appear to have arisen out of an attempt by the proprietors to raise, by four cents, the present daily charge for the hire of a ricksha. Ordinary rickshas are hired to the coolies at charges of from 35 cents to 40 cents per day. First class rickshas cost the coolies about 50 cents. The owners say that as their fee of $72 per year to the Government has to be paid in Hongkong money, and the coolies pay them only in subsidiary coin, they must make a further charge while the rate of exchange is so low. The coolies have refused to pay, and have declared a strike. The trouble is confined to Hongkong, and the Kowloon coolies are working just as usual.
A strike of ricksha coolies occurred over a similar difficulty about three years ago, but was soon declared off.
The dispute between the proprietors and the coolies was the subject of a deal of discussion between representatives of both parties throughout yesterday morning, and up until late in the afternoon. About 4 p.m. the coolies returned to work. Hon. Mr. A.W. Brewin, Police Captain Lyons, Hon. Dr. Ho Kai and the Hon. Mr. Wei Yuk met the representatives of the twenty-three proprietors of rickshas and representatives of the men in the Registrar-General's office. The conference lasted for over an hour, and finally the owners agreed to continue to go on as before, and to consult the Government should it be necessary in the future to increase the fee for hiring rickshas. Altogether about 3,000 coolies were affected by the strike.
The main point of the dispute seems to have been the pernicious circulation locally of the "subsidiary coin" - since done away with.
The affair, we have seen, was settled, and all went smoothly for some years. The advent of the tramway, and then motor vehicles, steadily growing in number, since that time, has meant increased competition; fortunately for the coolies, offset to some extent by a rapid growth of the population. But the era of public rickshas is coming to an end within possibly another generation; restrictions on the licences issued are reducing the numbers as the years go by, and a historian of less than half a century hence will probably find material for quite an interesting article on the time when the Colony used to have such things as rickshas.