Enclosure No..............
No.28
for pam?
73
His Excellency met lir. Hu Chun-lin and Mr. Wai Yuk at Government House on the 20th instant. Mr. Hallifax, Sir Shouson Chow and I were present.
Apart from the matter of the Chinese Telegraph Office, the question of the Seamen's Union was raised, Mr. Hu asking whether the Hong Kong Government would recognize the Seamen's Union if it were reorganized under an entirely non-political form with a new name and entirely free from communist elements His Excellency stated that this Government would welcome any purely non-political seamen's society but there could be no question of allowing any political union under a trade name. The Government had no objection to a genuine trade union, but would not tolerate any Seamen's Union in Hong song which had anything to do with politics, nor would the Government allow anything in the nature of a general labour union.
The impression gained from the interview was that the Canton Government is still very much afraid of labour and had really sent delegates to see the Governor more to ascertain what could be done towards re-establishing the Seamen's Union in some form than for any other purpose.
Much was said about re-establishing friendly relations between Canton and Hong Kong, and His Excellency pointed out that the first move must come from Canton and that if the Canton Authorities moved Hong Kong would go more than half way to meet them. Particularly His Excellency requested that the Canton press should be prevented from continually vilifying everything connected with Hong Kong and Great Britain.
The Chinese delegates undertook to issue a communiqué regarding this meeting to appear in the press on Thursday next and to send us a copy beforehand. We should then issue a
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