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was to organise in Hong Kong under Leung's chairmanship a
social club for members of local Triad and other illegal
secret societies, the object being to bring these persons
under the control of the Canton Kuomintang on whose behalf
Leung claimed to be acting. Needless to say, I caused the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to reply that the Government
could not countenance such an organisation, but the proposal
is of interest, not only as showing the close connection
which exists between the Kuomintang and the Seamen's Union,
but also as indicating the willingness of both these organisations to employ gangsters and racketeers to achieve
their ends.
4.
The Union has for some time been a force to be
reckoned with in Chinese politics, and attempts have been
made in the past to affiliate it to the Kuomintang in order that that organisation might be able to use the Union's
influence for its own purposes. At one time an attempt was
made to require all members of the Seamen's Union to join a society known as the Luen Yee She which was to control the political side of the Union's activities, and a branch of this Society opened, and was suppressed, in Hong Kong in 1928.
5. On the non-political side there is a long record of high handed action against owners of river steamers and of coasting vessels trading with Canton, Swatow and other ports in China where the Union Officials are in a position to exert
The incidents pressure by means of a strike or boycott. which have been reported to this Government are too numerous even to precis; I will content myself with referring to the boycott directed against the China Navigation Company in 1933 by the Canton branch of the Union which was the subject of considerable correspondence between His Britannic Majesty's
In this case, Minister and the Foreign Office at the time. the pretext for the boycott did not in any way concern the