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Reasons for the Spread-(b) Enemy Propaganda.
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8. In this case the predisposing cause was prolonged propa- ganda among the workmen by the Canton Authorities and the agitators. And as practically all workmen had been compelled to join the guilds, they had been exposed to clever addresses and lectures, and to equally clever propaganda by leaflets and subsidised newspapers such as the Chung Kwok San Man Po (The China News) and the Shun Po." The San Man Po was particularly flagrant. Its daily articles and stories preached Bolshevism, while from time to time attacks, most veiled, were made on the merchants and ruling classes. At last it over- stepped the utmost limits of toleration by ridiculing His Majesty the King on the eve of his birthday, after having a few weeks previously published a scurrilous article in which His Majesty was referred to as the "Big Devil," and His Excellency the Governor as the Little Devil." The paper was closed by order of the Government, ostensibly on the ground that its registered printer and publisher was absent from the Colony without having an authorised substitute as required by law. A few days before the strike began, it was allowed to re-open on the publication of an apology and on promise of better behaviour in future. this newspaper was the organ of the Canton Authorities could be inferred from the facts that Mr. C. C. Wu, the then Foreign Minister of the Southern Government, and Mr. Foo Ping-sheung, the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs in Canton, who were in the Colony at the time, personally interceded for it and its editors; and that the man who was in reality in supreme charge of the paper (one Chan Chau-lam) was on the 15th July appointed to be the Commissioner of the Government Supervisory Bureau, and also given another important post under the notorious Liao Chung-kai. It may be interesting to add that this man was assassinated in Canton together with Liao Chung-kai some time in August.
Strike Agitators and Intimidators.
That
9. At the commencement of the strike the agitators had it all their own way, because we were quite unprepared to meet their propaganda and intimidation. Men were posted at every strategic point in the Colony-at street corners, on the Praya while boats were loading and unloading, on steamers and wharves, in the markets and at the stopping-places of trams to induce people to strike or to leave the Colony. As an illustration of their clusiveness, and the impunity with which they worked at first, they went into offices and dockyards to distribute free passage- tickets to Canton; and not a single man was caught, though they must have distributed something like 25,000 tickets.
Resulting Exodus.
10. In addition to the strikers and members of their families, large numbers of the ordinary residents, particularly women and children of the middle class, left the Colony for Canton and Macao, as a result of wild and lying rumours spread by our enemy. It has been estimated that between the 19th June and the middle
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