12.
(6)
"The first modern strike occurred in 1913. In 1919, China
ter signing the Treaty of Saint-Germain became a member of the
International Labour Organisation In 1920, Labour Day was first
observed in Peking and Canton and the same year the Chinese Communist
party was organised in Shanghai. The unions which had developed
out of societies like the Triad rather than the craft guilds, took
on more and more a leftish complexion and became frankly revolutionary,
nationalistic, and anti-foreign. After the split between the
Kuomintang and the Communist party in Shanghai the unions lost their
newly acquired political power and were generally regimented under
the Kuomintang to which they became entirely subordinate.
*.
13. "The Kuomintang established a nationalist government in Nanking
in 1927. The Dictatorship of the unions was ended and the Communist
party driven into opposition and civil war, only terminated with the
present united front against Japan. It should be noted in passing
that the leaders of the unions were politicians and frequently
careerists who were not members of the particular trade which they
professed to represent and that there was a lack of qualified leade ra
from the ranks of labour itself. As a result social amelioration was
subordinated to revolutionary nationalism, and frequently the fund s
of the unions were diverted into the pockets of the agitators in
control.
14. "Once in power the Nationalists Government established a Labour
Bureau which was soon incorporated in the Ministry of Commerce,
Industry and Labour, later known as the Ministry of Industries.
The Labour Division comprised three departments for Labour
Administration, Labour Protection, and Labour Welfare.
+ It was not until the twelfth session (May 1929) that China sent
a complete delegation: it advocated the abolition of
extraterritorially as a necessary preliminary to the successful application of labour laws.
•
X See Andre Malraux "La Condition Humaine" and "The Tragedy of the
Chinese Revolution" by H.R. Isaacs.