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help wherever needed. The boy scouts are acting as messeng- ers, are delivering telegrams for the Telegraph Offices, and
471 are generally making themselves useful.
6. The Chinese Community have been coming forward very readily to the assistance of the Government, under the energetic leadership of Mr. Chow Shou-son and Mr. Kotewall, their representatives on the Legislative Council. Special constables are being enrolled, Committees are being formed to deal with various questions, as for instance the distribution of food, and a number of Chinese are doing most
useful work in censoring Chinese letters, telegrams, and newspapers. The Chinese of the New Territories were among the first to volunteer their help, offering both their labour, and their produce in the shape of vegetables and pigs. Their offer is gratifying evidence of the goodwill which was recently cemented at the Kam Tin ceremony reported in my despatch No.231 of the 29th May, 1925.
7.
I considered it to be necessary for the
Government to take to itself the fullest possible powers to deal with any emergency, and I enclose copies of regulatione which have been made under the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, 1922, together with a copy of a proclamation putting into force the Peace Preservation Ordinance, 1886, I decided not to re-enact the regulations which, on the occasion of the Seamen's strike, gave powers to commandeer labour, as such regulations would form obvious material for hostile propaganda, and labour is being readily obtained, subject to Police protection being provided. It will be seen that the export of rice, flour, tinned and preserved foodstuffs, and money has been prohibited, and that a kind of moratorium has been granted to Chinese banks. These
banks had been involved in some difficulty owing to over speculation in connection with the land boom, which has
collapsed, and the present crisis brought a run upon them
which they could not withstand. The stoppage of rice exports is reacting upon Canton, where prices are soaring and the authorities are hard put to it to feed the strikers
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