CO885-11 — Page 185

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

ཀ

نسياتسلا

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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(6) Translation from the Kwok Man San Man, Canton, et 21st February, reporting the speeches of welcome made to the delegates of the Third International on the occasion of their visit to Canton. (See paragraph 3 of my secret despatch of 25th Feb- ruary as a mark of popular resentment.

for the north by the Yüeh-Han railway train on the 6th March.

(7) Translation of a report published in the Man Kwok Yat Po, Canton, of 21st February, of a meeting held in Canton Que to protest against the despatch of British forces to China. of the results of this conference was the imposition of an hour's cessation of traffic and work throughout Canton on the 28th Feb- ruary a mark of popular resentment.

on

(8) Copies* of reports the closure of the two large sugar refineries. (See my telegram referred to above.)

(9) Extracts from reports by the Assistant Superintendent of Police, New Territories, dated 20th and 27th February.

2. The further celebration by the Seamen's Union, mentioned in para- graph 4 of my despatch of 25th February,† was held on board the Sui An" of the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company on the 1st March, and proved fully as objectionable as that on the s.s." Tai Shan." The possibility of instituting a prosecution under Regulation No. 5 of the additional regulations forming Enclosure No. to my secret despatch of 4th February was carefully considered by my legal advisers; but the danger of revealing our system of surveillance and the inherent difficulty of convincing a court of law that the bounds of reasonable free speech had been transgressed rendered this course undesirable. Clearly, however, gatherings of this nature could not be allowed to continue. They are open challenges of British authority in this Colony and, apart from the intrinsic danger of such propaganda, they must, if allowed to go unchecked, have a most serious effect on the morale of the Colony's Chinese population. I have, therefore, as foreshadowed in my despatch referred to above, taken power to prohibit future meetings of the same nature. A copy of the regulations made for this purpose is enclosed. The penalty for any offence against these regulations is that reported in my telegram of 2nd March,§ namely a fine of $1,000 and/or imprisonment for one year. I have also caused the owners of all steamers on which such meetings are likely to be held to be informed that this Government will not hesitate to use the powers contained in these regulations and I have requested them to co-operate with me by refusing all facilities to promoters of meetings likely to be seditious.

3. No further meetings of exactly the same nature have yet been organised but the Seamen's Union has announced its intention of hold- ing on the 12th March at a Cluñese theatre in Hong Kong, a meeting in honour of the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen. It is practically certain that at this meeting anti-British speeches, placards and slogans will be forth- coming. I have, therefore, caused the promoters to be warned that, if the proceedings are confined to the declared purpose, namely, to reverential tributes to the memory of a national hero, no sort of inter- ference by this Government need be feared, but that the denunciation

Not printed.

† No. 5. No 2. § C. 30003/27 [No. 43]: not printed.

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of Great Britain cannot be tolerated in a British Colony and, that, if the proceedings take this form, the meeting will be forcibly broken up under the regulations mentioned above.

4. Events at the John G. Kerr Hospital in Canton (see paragraph 5

f my secret despatch of 4th February)' have marched to their mevitable conclusion. The foreign staff, feeling unable to carry on any longer with subordinates who would neither obey an order nor evacuate ils allow themselves to be dismissed, endeavoured to patients, the paying ones to their friends and the pauper ones to The Department of Public Health, with a view to closing this estab- lishment. This, as the Chinese staff and those abetting them well know, proved quite impracticable and in the end a solution was found in the lease of the Hospital for a year to the Department of Public Health at a nominal rental. The Nationalist Government Thus acquires control of yet another piece of foreign property by the simple process of allowing its subjects to make the position of the foreign owners intolerable.

5. The press is full of rumours regarding a split in the Nationalist Party. It is clear that there is serious friction somewhere: but. whether it is merely the result of a conflict of personal ambition or affects the fundamental aims of the Kuomintang, it is difficult to judge. The protagonists are Comrade Sun Fo and General Tseung Kai-shek, respectively, and it seems possible that the struggle between evolution and revolution, democracy and communism, for mastery of the Nationalist programme has again become acute. Comrade Sun poses as the advocate of proletariat rule, while General Tseung appears to realise that proletariat rule is self-destructive and the recent repression in Canton of a few of the more outrageous forms of labour tyranny seems to have been carried out by his ex- press orders. The rumour at Canton is that the Bolshevised extre- mists are calling a congress of the Kuomintang at Wuchang in Ilupeh Province, with the object of overthrowing both the party generalissimo Tseung Kai-shek and his friend, the Chairman of the Central Kuomintang, Mr. Chang Ching-kiang (Chinese characters). both of whom are trying to suppress the extremists and abate the Comrade Borodin. It is said, if power of their "high adviser,'

he extremists succeed, that Comrade Wong Tseng-wai (Chinese characters), who was head of the Canton Soviet until General Tseung ejected him, will return to China and resume office as leader of the Nationalist Party. There is at present noisy clamour from a section of the party for his return. On the other hand, His Majesty's Consul-General at Canton had learned from a very authoritative Source that General Tseung, having had enough of communist and Russian interference, has convened a conference of Kuomintang leaders, to be held shortly at Nanchang in Kiangsi Province, with the intention of defining and limiting the position of the communists in the Nationalist Party and of getting rid of the Russians. The outcome of this struggle within the Kuomintang is, likely to have important results in the near future.

* No. 2.