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CONFIDENTIAL
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6.
Over 200 workers unions are now registered under the Ordinance and if these were exempted, as they would have to be exempted, from any system of probation, the imposition of this system on new unions would involve such "loss of face" in Chinese eyes that it would effectively prevent their formation. I should be sorry to see this happen at present in Hong Kong, because so many of our larger unions are being run by minorities of political extremists that the best hope of developing a sound and democratic trade union structure lies in the growth of break-away unions under the leadership of the more sober-minded workers who have been showing signs of restiveness against the present regime.
During the last 18 months there have been two or three break-away unions from the large Communist-affiliated groups but, as can readily be appreciated, these break-aways have considerable difficulty in establishing themselves and, if there was a possibility that they might be placed on probation they would never succeed in overcoming the initial difficulties of formation.
7.
The promotion of sub-trade unions would not be worth while in Hong Kong. It is true that from time to time small organisations (on a workshop basis) are formed, usually for the specific purpose of conducting a dispute, but they never continue for any length of time as self-contained units but are either absorbed into an existing association or attract to themselves workers from other workshops and then press for registration as a union. This system is, I imagine, far more likely to prove of value in Colonies which have a greater area and a more sparsely distributed population.
8.
Local legislation does not contain any section empowering the Registrar to refuse registration to general unions and, on the whole, I am not in favour of introducing such a section into the Ordinance at the present moment. The idea of a general labour union, preferably embracing all labour in Hong Kong, is one which has always been present in the minds of politically ambitious trade union leaders. It stems from the mass organisation of Chinese labour for political ends to which I have already referred. The heyday of the general union in Hong Kong was undoubtedly during the years immediately following the First World War and this form of labour organisation was probably most powerful in 1924 - 1925, when it made possible the general strike of 1925, which was a political anti-foreign strike engineered and controlled by Canton. This form of union has never shown the slightest interest in furthering the economic and social needs of its members and is in fact merely an organisation imposed from above for political ends. Since the war there have been one or two half-hearted attempts to organise a general union but they have not been successful, largely because the political cleavage in China has been against them. The place of the general union has in fact been usurped by two so-called Federations, neither of which are federations on an industrial basis. These federations strive to control labour through their affiliated unions and in accordance with their respective political creeds. Their control is not, however, as close as it would be under a general labour union and they are not accepted as competent negotiating bodies. While in some ways I should like to have legal provision · empowering the Registrar to refuse registration to general unions, I fear that if such powers were introduced into the Ordinance at the present moment they might in fact have the effect of reviving this form of association. It would be easy to produce a constitution for a general union which, on paper, "rovided all
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CONFIDENTIAL