CO129-475 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1922 [5-7] — Page 13

11.

Statement made by Mr. F. S. Harrison on the 22nd March, Statement made by Mrs. Evans on the 22nd March. Some notes on the case by the Attorney General. Hongkong Weekly Press of the 25th March. (This report

is fragmentary and often inaccurate, but it may be referred to by the petitioner).

I also enclose one set of the photographs referred to in

the evidence,

5.

I attach great importance to this case because undoubtedly the murder was committed as part of the

policy of intimidation which was such a serious feature of the recent seamen's strike, and which was a direct challenge to all Government authority. The Chinese are peculiarly susceptible to methods of intimidation, and, whatever protection can be afforded within the Colony to persons who would wish to resist such methods, no protection can be

given by this Government to the families of such persons in

China, This reason for submission to the threats of the

organisers of the strike was actually given in some cases. The effect of the intimidation was widespread, and there is

little doubt that it was on intimidation and not on any

economic propaganda that the leaders of the strike mainly relied. Some seamen who were forced out by threats 'stated

that they had no grievance whatever against their employers,

and in the early stages many seamen seemed to know little about the Seamen's Union. The majority of the domestic servants were probably moved much more by fear than by sympathy in their "sympathetic" strike. The intimidation was so serious that it was quite impossible to obtain any evidence of it for the purposes of prosecution.

6. In the particular case now in question the

deceased had been threatened and he quite expected an attempt on his life. He was the manager of a firm of stevedores who had acted as stevedores for certain ships which sailed during the strike. He had been the means of

stopping