CO885-11 — Page 209

203

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

זון

Reference :-

C.O.882/11

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

J

I

1

72

11. I take this opportunity of enclosing also copy of the following documents:-

(a) Translation from the Wa Kiu Yat Po, Hong Kong, of the 17th May, 1927, reporting a speech by Marshal Tseung Kai-shek on 2nd April (i.e., just prior to the anti-Communist coup d'état) violently denouncing the Third International and its tools in Wuh.. (Hankow) and deploring the defection to Communism of Wong Ching-wai.

(b) Translation from the Kwok Man San Man, Canton, of the 12th May, 1927, containing a manifesto by Marshal Tseung to the Nationalist armies, drawing the now customary contrast between the Communism of Hankow and the true revolutionary ideals of Nanking.

(c) Translation from the Man Kwok Yat Po, Canton, of the 7th June, 1927, containing an account of certain proposals for protesting against the action of Japan in landing troops for the protection of her nationals in Shan-tung and her part in defeating the mutiny of General Kuo Sung-ling against his chief Marshal Chang Tso-lin and certain other matters. According to the latest reports the anti-Japanese feeling has crystallized into a definite plan for a boycott of Japanese goods, commencing on the 1st July. Steps have been taken, as in the case of the anti-British boycott, to ascertain the stocks of " enemy goods held in Canton and elsewhere and there seems every indication that Japanese trade in China is about to enter on a period of serious obstruction.

I have, etc.,

C.30001/27 C. [No. 38].

No. 18.

"

C. CLEMENTI.

Governor, d'e.

The Governor of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

(Secret.) SIR,

(Received 9th August, 1927.)

Government House, Hong Kong, 7th July, 1927.

I am informed that the picketing of the British river steamers at Canton, mentioned in paragraph 3 of my secret despatch of the 30th June, † has been terminated by the abject surrender of the Company (Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company, Limited) to the demands of the Canton Seamen's Union. The position is typical of the recent actions of this Company. Without consulting either myself or any officer of my Government, and I believe without con- sulting its own Directorate as a whole, the Managing Director decided at a most inopportune moment and in a most unfortunate way to challenge the Union's power. The moment was inopportune on account of its proximity to the anniversary of the Shakee incident of 1925. As I pointed out in paragraph 2 of the despatch referred to above, the expurgated Kuomintang régime in Canton was experiencing the

+ No. 17.

• Not Printed.

73

greatest difficulty in avoiding the charge of being counter-revolutionary and pro-Imperialist, and its Communist enemies were making the fullest use of the approach of the 23rd June to rouse the masses to a new bid for the control of the machinery of government. The Com- pany's method was unfortunate because, although the new Canton Government was pressing for the re-opening of a reformed Seamen's Union in this Colony, the pro-Communist manifesto which preceded the proscription of the Union by this Government (sec enclosure to paragraph 11 of my secret despatch of the 1st June*) was aimed in such plain terms at the Canton administration and the Nanking clique as to cut all solid ground of protest from under the feet of the Cantonese authorities. But the refusal of the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company to re-engage certain troublesome members of the Union (whose very troublesomeness was sufficient indication of their power in the Union) gave to the Union a grievance which it could represent to be a genuine trade dispute, and to the Cantonese authorities an opportunity of refurbishing its rather thread- bare livery for the great Kuomintang role of Labour's friend by refusing to act against the pickets. I admit that the Company has, in my opinion, had cause to complain of lack of support from the Imperial Government in its efforts to keep the British flag flying on Chinese inland waters (please see my confidential despatch of the 16th March, 1927). It must also be conceded that the Acting Consul- General at Canton in his correspondence with the Company on this latest outrage emphasized the power of the Seamen's Union even over But at the same time the reformed administration at Canton.

Mr. Brenan, knowing how much that administration had to fear from Labour licence and the probable necessity (since actually proved) for fresh measures of repression, begged the Company not to be too precipitate in surrender, but rather to lay up the ships and throw the crews on their Union for a while in the hope that, even if the Canton Government did not intervene, a further spell of unemploy- ment, by adding to the already large body of disillusioned members, might act as a solvent of the Union from within. In the face of this advice and of my own known views on the matter, a majority of the Directors has decided that surrender could be no longer deferred, their only reservation being that the Union shall not send for re-engage. ment the actual men discharged, but some others. This surrender is the more exasperating as the picketing had so far extended only to

compradore passenger traffic which was contracted out to

Mr. Woo Hay Tong) and the loss was falling on him and not on the Company. Mr. Woo has his own line of steamers running to Canton, but he has nevertheless been conducting the negotiations with the Enion on behalf of the Company. He has more than once since 1925 come under suspicion of "trading with the enemy" and his deportation from Hong Kong has in the past been considered. Yet he professes to go in fear of his life and has applied for police protection against possible violence by the Union whose victory he appears to have secured. I cannot pretend to know all the wheels within wheels which have contributed to this miserable humiliation, I can only record my disgust

at the result.

• No. 15.

a

+ C. 30018/27 [No. 16]: not printed.

"