The Present Situation in China
WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
The fundamental causes of the present trouble are, first, the terrible conditions of the workers, chiefly under foreign industrial control, and, secondly, the abuse of special privileges and immunities by foreign imperialists.
The immediate cause of the outbreak appears to have been a demonstration by Chinese workmen employed in a Japanese-owned cotton mill at Shanghai, because members of the staff of the mill had killed a Chinese workman.
Workers and students who made a demonstration demanding redress of this wrong, marching through the Nanking Road of the British Settlement, were fired at by the police employed by the Municipal Council, who killed six and wounded many more.
On the next day three were killed and many were wounded. On the third day twenty-one were killed and hundreds were wounded.
In regard to the street fighting all the casualties have been on one side, indicating that the Chinese are entirely unarmed and defenceless. According to the official Chinese protests, medical evidence states that the workers had been shot in the back, and no armed police had been injured.
CONDITION OF THE WORKERS
"
The following is taken from Report of Child Labour Commission appointed by Shanghai Municipal Council, June, 1923, and published July, 1924. The average wage of workers varies from 16s. to 30s. per month, which is below the amount necessary for bare existence in Shanghai. A woman worker gets 24d. to 6d. a day. There is no insurance, compensation, old-age pensions, &c. The hours of work of men, women, and children alike are from twelve to thirteen and a-half hours a day.
"The Commission heard evidence that contractors obtained young children from the country districts, paying the parents two dollars a month for the service of each child. By employing such children in the mills and factories the contractor is able to make a profit of about four dollars a month in respect of each child.
"The children are frequently most miserably housed and fed. They receive
no money, and their conditions of life are practically those of slavery."
Of course the adult workers are under similar conditions.
The following is an extract from a pamphlet published by the International Federation of Working Women:-
"The factory conditions of 80 or 100 years ago in the West are being, unfortunately, reproduced in China. The ordinary working hours are twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours a day. In the cotton mills a twelve-hour day and a twelve-hour night shift are worked, and the workers go alternate weeks on each."
"Small children of six, seven, or eight and upwards are working the long hours and under the bad conditions described above. Hundreds of girls between the ages of eight and twelve are employed to stir cocoons placed in steaming hot water, which often scalds their little hands, leaving white stains on them. In cotton mills they work at spindles joining threads. In both cases they are on their feet working twelve hours a day. In some cases even longer, or on night shifts." Out of 82,696 workers in the Shanghai mills 13,062 are under fourteen. "Besides these small children employed in factories there are babies of two or three years seen toddling or playing about in some of the factories. Mothers
often work at machines with babies strapped on their backs or lying at their feet. How many of these babies, who are brought up under such conditions, survive we have no way of finding out,"
In Shanghai the British and Japanese-owned spindles amount to 967,432 out of 1,740,556. The remainder is still largely under the control of foreign capital.
ORGANISATION OF CHINESE WORKERS
Not until 1919, after the general strike in Shanghai, did the Chinese workers begin to organise themselves effectively. Until then the unions had been more in name than in fact.
At first the shopworkers organised themselves according to locality, ie, streets, but factory workers organised according to their trade. The organisation of the factory workers is most active and sensitive to the grievances of the workers.
Their protests have been always neglected by the owners and by the authorities of the Settlement, and their headquarters are often raided by the foreign police and frequently suppressed.
Any sort of complaint and aspiration after the improvement of working conditions is considered as Bolshevism and, therefore, the common enemy of the capitalists, who consider they ought to be shot.
Amongst the most important unions are:-
The All-China Industrial Salvation Union.
The Shanghai Weavers' Union.
The Shanghai Cotton and Silk Women-workers' Union.
WHAT ARE THE TREATY PORTS?
The Treaty Ports are foreign colonies within the Chinese Republic, taken against her will; concessions for which no rent is paid and in which the Chinese themselves have no rights.
Over half a century ago, as a result of the Opium War, the Powers established themselves at Treaty Ports. The Treaty of Nanking, 1842, opened the ports of Shanghai, Canton, Amoy, Foochow, and Ningpo. Later by the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 were added the ports of Newchang, Tangchow, Swatow, and Kungchow. To-day there are forty-nine Treaty Ports.
The foreigners enjoy special privileges and immunities, and often abuse them under the name of extra-territoriality.
HOW THEY ARE GOVERNED
"
Municipal Government" in the Treaty Ports is a farce, and actually means dictatorship by the Consuls and foreigners. Occasionally a Chinese is co-opted as an adviser. The Chinese population has not votes, but they have the privilege of paying the rates.
These alien municipal councils have their own police, often Sikhs or non- Chinese under foreign officers. It is these who have fired on the unarmed strikers. In these settlements many evils are overlooked through corruption; for example, munition traffic, opium smuggling, &c.
CHINA'S VITAL SERVICES CONTROLLED BY FOREIGNERS
Tariffs are fixed by Foreign Powers, limiting the tax on imports to 5 per cent. The Washington Conference promised to increase this to 7 per cent., but after three years has elapsed, this promise is still unfulfilled. These conditions threaten the very economic existence of the Chinese nation.
Customs that is to say, the bulk of the revenue outside the Salt Gabelle- are controlled by an Inspectorate-General, composed of various nationalities. The Salt Gabelle, the main source of revenue, is under the control of an Englishman.
517