- 5 -
audience would be allowed to make speeches and that the Chairman should be held responsible for stopping any of them who should attempt to speak, or otherwise the
police would stop him, and that only one member of the
platform party was allowed to speak. The platform party
seeing that originally the Secretary for chinese Affairs
had allowed three of their men to speak, one to announce
the occasion of the conference, one to read the funeral
essays and a third to make a speech in reply, and that
now fresh restrictions had been made, attempted to reason with him. In reply he told them that the funeral essay s
and the reply had not been censored and had therefore
to be suppressed. He also warned them that it was
unnecessary and useless for them to say any more.
--
The proceedings began at 1 p.m. Wong Tong announced
the occasion of the Demonstration and gave an account
of the life of our late President. According to the
programe, it had been arranged that the speech in reply should be delivered by of the platfom party.
But the chief Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs
and the Captain Superintendent of Police suppressed
it, and did not allow it to be read. Repeated protest
was made, but without result, One of the officials of
the meeting seeing that they had been so severely repressed
and knowing that protests would do them no good, thought
it best that the meeting should be dismissed so as to
avoid any serious trouble that might be created by the
indignant audience. He therefore came out on the stage
and announced briefly that a large number of men had
desired to make speeches, but that as they were not
allowed by the Hong Kong Government, he could only dismiss
the meeting, and that the dramatic performance called
| 21
the
Page 120Page 121