CO129-492 - Governor Sir Clementi - 1925 [12] - 1926 [1-5] — Page 469

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fact that the present anti-British boycott in Kuang-tung had an anti-Japanese origin.

6.

A recapitulation of recent events may

be useful in this connection. The troubles arose out

of labour disputes in Japanese cotton-mills in Shanghai and Tsingtao over the question of collective bargaining. "In a fight at a Shanghai mill on the 18th May,1925,

a Chinese striker was killed by a member of the

Japanese staff. The employers granted some concessions

to the workers, but refused to recognize their unions. At Tsingtao the workers thereupon started a 'go-slow'

strike; the employers retorted with a lock-out. On

the 28th May several thousand workmen broke into the mills, smashing windows and damaging property. As the Chinese authorities were apathetic, two gunboats were at once sent from Japan. Then at last the Chinese provided troops to drive the strikers out of the mills. At one mill there was resistance: the Chinese troops fired on the mob and two were killed. The strike then broke down and the ring-leaders were arrested. Mean- while the cause of the Tsingtao strikers had been taken up by the students and communists in Shanghai. Sympathetic strikes occurred in Japanese factories in that city also; and it was a monster demonstration in connection with the Tsingtao strike which led to the affair at the Louza police-station on the afternoon of the 30th May" (Report on Foreign Affairs, Vol vi. No. 3, p. 262).

7.

From this moment the agitation became anti-British as well. Violent anti-foreign demonstrations broke out at Canton on receipt of the news of the trouble at Shanghai. On the 23rd June a long procession

of students and communists, followed by Chinese troops,