CO537-4835(2) — Page 71

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Register verities of Tile 30/6/49

MÉS THURSDAY JUNE

Imperial and Foreign

LABOUR CONTROL

-IN HONGKONG

LEFT AND RIGHT GROUPS

From Our Special Correspondent

HONGKONG, JUNE 29 "To-day marked the expiry of the 30-day period during which societies and trade unions had to register with the police under an amendment to the colony's Societies Ordinance passed on May 25.

The Government announced officially that 724 application forms had been issued, 57 societies had been registered, 14 had been exempted and the applications of 596 were under consideration. The Kuomintang had not applied for registration, it being one of the bodies with political affiliations outside the colony against which the amendment is specifically directed. The amendment has been unpopular with the Left-wing groups and has on several occasions been the target of! attacks by Peking Radio.

Although it has not done so to date, it is expected that the Hongkong and Kowloon Federation of Trade Unions which is Com- munist-controlled will apply for registration shortly in the normal way. For the first three years after the war this federation could make little headway against the Right-wing Kuomin- tang-controlled Hongkong and Kowloon Council of Trade Unions. As a result of the Communist successes in China the Left-wing federation has been gaining ground and to-day controls the labour of nearly all the colony's utility services and dockyards. The council retains control of port labour, stevedores, andj waterfront workers.

This curious division extends throughout the colony's labour: for example, while all the colony's taxi drivers belong to the left-wing federation, all the rickshaw pullers belong to the right-wing council. The federation leaders have on the whole remained fairly quiet since they celebrated the fall of Nanking with a large party that they called an oxtail party," a term which they apparently invented themselves to distinguish their function from the capital- istic cocktail party. They are expected, how- ever, to become progressively more active as the Communist forces draw near to thei frontiers of Hongkong.

3.

Extract from

"The Times'

30.6.49.