212
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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to be an assistant compradore of the firm of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire. But for reasons given below the China Navigation Company is not actively interested at the moment.
C.30:01/27 D. [No. 9].
No. 21.
I have, etc.,
C. CLEMENTI,
Governor, dr.
The Governor of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the
(Secret.) SIR,
Colonies.
(Received 16th September, 1927.)
Government House, Hong Kong, 10th August, 1927.
The tension at Canton appears to be increasing, though the threatened storm has not yet broken. It is stated that a second attempt was made on the life of General Li Chai-sum on the 30th July, this time by means of a mine laid in the usual course of his motor-launch: but there is some doubt whether this outrage may not be one of t series designed to intimidate passenger junks into compliance with the demands of pirate gangs. Piracy by means of electrically-controlled mines laid in the channels of the West River delta is the latest innova- tion of Chinese desperadoes. One enterprising gang actually stated, in a letter of intimidation received by a local Chinese steamship company, that it employed a graduate of the School of Submarine Mining. Anyhow, there seems no doubt that an attempt was made ou the 2nd August to shoot Mr. Feng Tso-wan, who succeeded the extremist Ch'ar Fu-muk as Commissioner for Labour, and there has been a bomb outrage in a tea-house at Canton connected in some way with the reorganisation of the Seamen's Union. These murderous attacks may, of course, merely be symptomatic of the Communist eruptions now passing round the world and professing to be hinged on the Sacco- Vanzetti case. But more probably they are signs of à grave local peril to the existing order of things (if order it can be called) in Canton. The authorities there seem ready to take up the challenge, for they have not only issued a number of police regulations connected with the distribution of pamphlets, the carriage of handbags in restaurants, and other matters, but have also rescinded the labour regulation requiring the employer to pay wages for the period of a strike.
2. The Canton Government has had further trouble in another direction. One of its new forms of taxation is a stamp duty on the sale of all articles classed as luxuries and on all cash sales over $1. Against this imposition, which is distinct from and additional to the proposed new import tariff, the Cantonese merchants have risen in a body. On the 2nd August, a procession of 30,000 merchants made its way to the Government offices and announced its intention of camping
79
there and preventing all ingress or egress until a satisfactory answer was returned. This intention was to a certain extent carried into effect, and the procession did not leave until the early hours of the 3rd August, and then only after the application of a certain amount ut force. It can hardly be said, however, that the Government has vielded on the point, inasmuch as the reply given was that these levies would be abolished concurrently with the imposition of the new import tariff and the abolition of likin on the 1st September.
3. The British river-steamer companies have surrendered to the Canton Seamen's Union. On the 3rd August, much to my surprise in view of the announced intentions of the main company, as described in paragraph 5 of my secret despatch of the 29th July,* the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company forwarded to the Colonial Secretary under cover of the enclosed letter,† dated the 3rd August, the draft of an agreement which it proposed to endeavour to negotiate with the Union at Canton. To this I instructed the Colonial Secretary to reply that such an agreement would, in my opinion, be inimical to the best interests of Hong Kong as well as detrimental to the Company itself. I attach a copy of this lettert which was despatched on the 5th August. At the same time I caused a copy of the correspondence to be sent privately to the Acting Consul-General at Canton in the hope that he would at least discountenance the proposed action. How- ever, on the 7th August, the Chairman of the Company informed my Private Secretary that the agreement had been signed at Canton, in an atmosphere of complete cordiality, with certain minor amendments; and on the following day the Secretary of the Company forwarded to the Colonial Secretary a copy of the final text of the agreement. attach a copy of this agreement indicating on it in red ink! the "minor amendments" agreed to by the Chairman of the Company at his conference with the Canton Seamen's Union. On the 8th August, Mr. Brenan replied, semi-officially to Mr. Southorn to the general effect that the Company was at the mercy of Canton and that, as Hong Kong was neither able to protect the Company from boycott in Canton, nor willing to compensate it for running their ships empty, we had much better leave the Company alone to make the best arrangement it can.
I
4. I view this further surrender to the Canton Seamen's Union with grave disapproval. At a time when the Hong Kong Government is endeavouring to form a local Seamen's Union free from the taint of Bolshevism which permeates the Canton Union, a British Company, with its headquarters at Hong Kong, has pledged itself in a written agreement to recruit its crews for six months at least exclusively from a Union which the Hong Kong Government has for very good cause been obliged to proscribe. It is true that there is no reference in the agreement to the proscription of the Union's Hong Kong branch, and that no objection can reasonably be taken to the provision of a social room if used in fact for the recreation of the crew. But the agreement is mere camouflage for a complete capitulation to extra- legal force. It provides no guarantee against the renewed exercise
+ Not printed.
* No. 20.
NOTE. In this volume the amendments made have been indicated by printing in italics all additions to, and enclosing within square brackets all deletions from, the original draft.