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RECENT CHANGES IN POLICY TOWARDS CHINE SE

COMMUNISTS IN HONG KONG.

While not abandoning the traditional policy of non- interference and neutrality in the political affairs of China, the Hong Kong Government has in recent months taken a number of steps to curb the infiltration of the Chinese Communists into the Colony and to deal with the difficulties and dangers which might arise from their activities.

2.

The measures taken are briefly as follows:-

(a) Public Order Ordinance.

(Enacted October, 1948)

7

This makes provision for :-

(1) the prohibition of quasi-military organisations

and the wearing of uniforms signifying association with a political organisation,

(11) requiring security for good behaviour from persons

suspected of inciting disaffection, subverting public order, etc.

(iii) declaring curfew, closing or evacuating particular

areas and prohibiting the movement or anchorage of craft.

(b) Education (Amendment) (No.2) Ordinance. (Enacted

December, 1948)

This ordinance empowers the Governor-in-Council, where it appears to him in the public interest, to order the closure of a school or the removal of its manager and to prohibit any person from teaching in any school in the Colony. These powers are being used to combat Communist infiltration in schools. Tat Tak College, notoriously a centre for Communist indoctrination, was closed in February 1949 and recently a number of workers schools have been brought more closely under the control of the Education Department. Five persons engaged in indoctrinating and recruiting activities for the C.C.P. were deported in November 1948 on the ground that their activities were to the detriment of the relations existing between Hong Kong and China.

(c) Immigrants Control Ordinance. (Enacted January, 1949)

This ordinance did not give the Government any important new powers but it consolidated and tightened up the several ordinances for the control of immigration and registration of aliens in the Colony.

(d) Summary Offences Amendment Ordinance. (Enacted April,

1949)

The opportunity was taken in this ordinance to centralise powers for the maintenance of public order in the Commissioner of Police.

/(e)