reactionary elements, particularly the Communists.
The
Hong Kong Government, amply represented by the most
influential financiers and wealthy shipowners who were, and
are still, the greatest and mightiest opponents to the
advancement of the Labour Movement not only in China but also
all over the world, confident now of being able to deal the
death blow by accusing our Union of having had political
activities and communistic tendencies despite their utter
failure to produce any evidence at all in support of their
unjust and purely groundless allegations, acted immediately
on the above-said assumptions and, without the slightest ado,
ordered the dissolution of the Chinese Seamen's Union in
Hong Kong without permitting us to acquire even legal aid.
Thus ended the existence of the most powerful Chinese labour
organisation in Hong Kong, and, despite repeated
negotiations since then, our Union remained proscribed till
to-day without the slightest possibility of re-establishing it
in view.
But, now that we are affiliated to your Federation
and confident of international support and universal sympathy,
morally and financially, in the event ofour re-opening
the subject, we seem to see a ray of hope ifyou will be good
enough to take up the matter with the International Labour
Office of the League of Nations and approach the British
Seamen's Union which can then request the Colonial Office
of the British Government to instruct the Government of
Hong Kong to negotiate with our Government or with us
directly for a re-discussion of the re-establishment of our
Union in Hong Kong where all the Chinese seamen are
practically thoroughly disorganised and left entirely to the mercy of the designing and unscrupulous shipowners who are
never tired of exploiting the poor innocent seafarers.
From