30001
الحسين
3c018.
51530/25
3.
The Seamen's Union continues its policy
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of trouble-making. Headed off public meetings by the measures reported in my recent despatches, it has now concentrated on the provision on board the river steamers of accomodation for "social purposes". Some of the Chinese owners have made the concession demanded; but, until it is general, the Union will not have recovered the "face" lost in the recent set-backs (See my secret despatch of the 15th March). The British owners have refused to allot the cabin space demanded. Accordingly the crew of one of their vessels, the S.S. "Kinshan",
was ordered off on her arrival at Canton on the 30th March and the ship was brought to Hong Kong yesterday by a naval crew disguised as passengers. I cannot say at present what further measures will be taken by both sides; but
I am confirmed in the opinion expressed in the last sentence
of my confidential despatch of the 16th March that British shipping must fight the Seamen's Union or disappear from Chinese coastal and inland waters.
4.
A fresh attack on the peace and good order of the Colony has just developed from an organization known as the General Labour Union of Hong Kong. This organization has been in existence for some years and purports to be a kind of standing congress of the representatives of genuine Trade Unions. In real fact it is merely a political tool of Chinese extremist agitators, and therefore,in these times, of Bolshevism (see my predecessor's despatch No. 393 of the 16th October, 1925). The exposure of Unionism in the 1925 crisis discredited the congress; but in the last few
days
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