CO537-2188 — Page 229

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.