156
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :--
C.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDONÍ
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
300
Each Main Tui consists of three branch Tui of 108 men each. Branch Tui are numbered consecutively from 1 to 15. Clerks, &c., making about 400 men in each Main Tui. Each Main Tui has 100 rifles and 20 revolvers.
ENCLOSURE 5 IN No. 34.
COPY OF A Letter receiVED BY MR. KING ON THE 25TH SEPTEMBER,
Canton, 25th September, 1926.
DEAR SIR,
I beg to inform you that the strike will finish but the boycott will continue more firmly. Secret meetings and arrangements have been drafted out by Strike Committee, together with a few so-called merchants bribed by the Soviet.
They have enrolled 500 dare-to-die Corps in plain clothes from the present pickets, each supplied with a dagger. Their orders are to stab anybody who is caught dealing with any Britisher or their goods.
If Hongkong. steamers go alongside the wharves again, and if Chinese passengers are seen disembarking they will be fol- lowed and a few of them will be stabbed in the legs, so that others will not dare to come up to Canton on British steamers. To go round from ship to ship forcing them to sign a pledge to have nothing to do with British goods until further orders from them, even old stocks are not allowed to be sold.
If anyone or shops are found breaking the boycott their shops will be confiscated and the owner arrested. As this is not known to any of the public in Canton, I trust this will interest you.
I have, &c.,
801
the operation of this tax at an early date. But at the same time the Government will be requested to fulfil its word that the proceeds from this tax will be entirely appropriated as subsidies for the strikers and will not be used for any other purpose.
3. The Strike Committee, the Strikers' Delegation Asso ciation, the Strike Picket Corps and the other strike organi- sations will all remain as before.
4. Strikers pending securing employment will receive same treatment as before and so will those strikers that cannot find work and return.
5. The Government be requested to instruct the Finance Ministry to take the whole responsibility for financial support for the strikers.
6. The Government be urged to open the Whampoa port and extend the Yueh-Han railway line so as to find work for the strikers. Any new industrial institutions, and those old institutions, when re-opening, must employ strikers first.
7. To join the various classes of the people for extending the severance of economic relations with the British, and also to request the Government to encourage this new movement. 8. To make all the strike comrades to understand this new policy to be the best and most effective of tactics to attain final success for the strikers.
It is learned that the Government is now having difficulties in finding suitable wording for the mandate calling off the strike and to resume communications with Hongkong." In view of the above Resolutions made by the strikers, it is said, the Govern- ment will use a number of strikers for collecting the proposed
new tax.
ENCLOSURE 7 IN NO. 34.
THE STRIKERS' NEW POLICY.
The Canton-Hongkong Strikers' Delegation had a full meeting on 30th September and formulated the following Resolutions:-
1. In order to consolidate and increase the revolutionary force, the old form of blockade is to be changed to a new boycott movement to be extended to all over the country. Before a satisfactory settlement of the massacre cases of 30th May and 23rd June, and cancellation of unequal treaties, this new movement will not stop even for a single day.
2. The strikers agree with the Government to impose the proposed new tax and will urge the Government to enforce
C.21022/26.
No. 35.
The Governor of Hongkong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
(Received 11th November, 1926.)
Government House, Hongkong, 8th October, 1926.
Secret (2).
SIR,
In continuation of my secret despatch of the 6th October,* and in confirmation of my telegram of to-day's date,† I have the honour to submit a further report in connection with the boycott situation.
• No. 34. + Not printed.