B.
6
anti-Communist and therefore anti-Hankow.
8.
20
77
The elimination of Communists from Canton
having been decreed, the "purging" and "re-organiza- tion" of labour unions was taken in hand by the Cantonese Authorities. The Seamen's Union in Canton was naturally among the first objects of attack by the anti-communist régime. It did not yield without a struggle. In fact it attempted to call a general strike in Canton as a protest against the coup d'état, a move which, had it succeeded, must have meant com- plete defeat of law and order and the surrender of the city to mob rule. But General Li Chai-sum (1)
(李濟琛 promptly showed that he would be ruthless in suppress- ing opposition of this nature; the striking seamen scurried back to their ships, and the Chairman, Hoa Loi,
(a) fled into hiding.
9. But even the most anti-communist section of
the Nationalist Government cannot afford an open break with Labour generally: So rash an act might rapidly bring about its downfall. Consequently, the new Government in Canton issued instructions, not for
the dissolution of the unruly Unions, but for their reorganization. The reorganization of the Seamen's Union was first placed in the hands of two leading officials of the Hong Kong branch. Of these, one, Fung Wing-wun ( t ), took a very truculent part in the matter of the Sun Yat-sen commemoration (see my secret despatch of the 18th Mardh) and the other, Chan Hang-lam (#), was named as one of the chief gunmen in the plot against the lives of prominent Hong Kong officials. Such a selection was, therefore, hardly likely to achieve reorganization on
moderate lines; and after a very brief stay these two
gentlemen
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