Page
Page
DIARY
of
VISIT
TO CANTO N.
20th to 23rd December,1925
119
Hr. T.V.Sung and I left Hongkong at 9
a.m. in H.M .S."Tarantula". We got into conversation
regarding the situation almost immediately, and our
discussion continued during the greater part of the
voyage. Mr. Sung appeared to me to be a well-educated
man, with a thorough grasp of the situation, and holding most decided views which he was able to express
to good advantage.
Mr. Sung agreed that the strike and
boycott were political in origin and that it was Hong-
kong's misfortune rather than her fault that the brunt
of the trouble fell on her. The roots of the matter
were deep in the past. The foreigner had come to
China largely against China's will. He had forcibly
established himself in all the great centres of
trade and he had fenced himself in with settlements
and extraterritoriality. He had refused her autonomy,
and had regulated tariffs to suit his own convenience. The incident at Shanghai and subsequent events were an outward and visible sign that China's patience was strained to breaking point. A new nation was being borm and the Chinese would never again consent to tolerate
the old order of things. China was disunited and
powerless to assert herself by force of arms, and so
she used the only weapons available, the strike and
the boycott. The action taken against Hongkong,
whatever the immediate cause, was a method chosen for
35
age 10
the
age 10
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