-
4
31
conference with the Canton Seamen's Union. On the
8th August, Mr. Brenan replied semi-officially to
Mr. Southorn to the general effect that the Company
was at the mercy of Canton and that, as Hong Kong
was neither able to protect the Company from boycott
in Canton, nor willing to compensate it for running
their ships empty, we had much better leave the Company alone to make the best arrangement it can.
4.
I view this further surrender to the
Canton Seamen's Union with grave disapproval. At
a time when the Hong Kong Government is endeavouring
to form a local Seamen's Union free from the taint
of Bolshevism which permeates the Canton Union, a British Company, with its headquarters at Hong Kong, has pledged itself in a written agreement to recruit its crews for six months at least exclusively from a Union which the Hong Kong Government has for very good cause been obliged to proscribe. It is true that there is no reference in the agreement to the proscription of the Union's Hong Kong branch and that no objection can reasonably be taken to the provision of a social room if used in fact for the recreation of the crew. But the agreement is mere camouflage for a complete capitulation to extra-legal force. It provides no guarantee against the renewed exercise of that force at the caprice of the victors and I strongly suspect that it is the intention of the Union to use these social rooms as a substitute for their share offices here, i.e., as centres for intrigue against the peace and good order of the Colony. Instructions will be
given
58