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hardship on account of the attack on commerce since the
24th June this year. Now you on your first arrival made sympathetic enquiries about the strikers, and this shows
that you have had a notice of their hardship, which has
affected each individual of them equally seriously. When they were in Hongkong, the strikers had an income of $50
or $60 a month, but now they are exposed to cold without
suitable clothes and hungry without suitable food. We
understand that the merchants in Hongkong and the strikers
here have suffered the same hardship, and that for the
same object; within the last two days you and the strikers
have met on grounds of mutual sympathy and encouragement,
all of you determined to fulfil the destiny of the Republic
and suffer for your country; wherefore your feelings towards
one another are abundantly cordial. This, I daresay, will
shed lustre on the career of Kwong Tung as well as that of
the Republic (applause).
Now that you masters have taken so much interest in
the business of the shop, we, employees, would naturally
work with greater attention. However, our management of
the shop has not yet given much satisfaction, and its
sign has not yet become very well-known, and we cannot
fail to be sorry for that.
To speak the truth, the people of Kwong Tung had
indeed suffered very auch during the past several years.
Not only the masters had bitter complaint at this, but even
their employees had much grief which could not be expressed
in words. Now I take this opportunity to relate to you what has not yet been known to you. The hardship suffered
by the people of Kwong Tung in the 12th year of the
Republic (1923) was the worst of all that have ever been
seen since the establishment of the Republic, or, rather
during the whole of the Tsing Dynasty. It was the desire of our revolutionary organisation to make Kwong Tung our base for the reform of China, and from this you may
imagine