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reorganization of the Seamen's Union. These murderous
attacks may, of course, merely be symptomatic of the Communist eruptions now passing round the world and
professing to be hinged on the Sacco-Vanzetti case.
But more probably they are signs of a grave local
peril to the existing order of things (if order it
can be called) in Canton. The authorities there seem
ready to take up the challenge, for they have not only
issued a number of police regulations connected with the distribution of pamphlets, the carriage of handbags in restaurants, and other matters, but have also rescinded the fabour regulation requiring the employer to pay wages for the period of a strike.
2.
The Canton Government has had further
trouble in another direction. One of its new forms
of taxation is a stamp duty on the sale of all articles classed as luxuries and on all cash sales over $1.
Against this imposition, which is distinct from and
additional to the proposed new import tariff, the
Cantonese merchants have risen in a body. On the 2nd August, a procession of 30,000 merchants made its
way to the Government offices and announced its
intention of camping there and preventing all ingress or egress until a satisfactory answer was returned.
This intention was to a certain extent carried into
effect and the procession did not leave until the
early hours of the 3rd August, and then only after the application of a certain amount of force.
hardly be said, however, that the Government has yielded
on the point, inasmuch as the reply given was that
these levies would be abolished concurrently with the
It can
imposition
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