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is no doubt, however, that the strikers were encouraged
by the local (Cantonese) Union, since, on its conclusion
the Union attempted, this time without success, to foment
similar trouble in another printing works, the Shanghai
Commercial Press. There are many small printing shops
in Hong Kong where the employees work long hours for
small wages, and had the Union directed its attention
to these, its motives would have excited less suspicion;
instead, it chose to attack an institution the reputation
of which as an employer has always stood high. Here again
it is significant that the Union in a letter written to the
manager of the Commercial Press claimed recognition on the
ground that their first object was resistance to Japan
and were careful to explain that though communists they
were not "Trotskyites" working for world revolution.
These instances have been quoted in order to
emphasize the fact that, in Hong Kong and China, the
Labour Union has for some time been a source of friction
and trouble, not because it has sought in the face of
opposition to better the working conditions of its members,
but because its officers have in almost every case used it
as an instrument to secure either wealth or political
influence.
An honourable exception at the present time is
the Hong Kong Mechanics' Union, a society which, established
in 1910, stands nearest to the English conception of a
Labour Union. The fact that its members are mostly
employed in European-managed dockyards and that its officers
are men of higher standing and better education than the
average union official no doubt accounts for this. For the
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