CO129-500-1 Canton situation- governor's despatches 18-5-1927 - 9-6-1927 — Page 98

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times. In China the Communists who have monopolized the

various labour unions, have levied on the workmen heavy membership fees and have made use of the very money they

have earned by their blood and sweat to oppress them further.

While the workmen at Wuhan are in a most miserable condition,

yet many of the officers of the labour unions there have made large fortunes. Thus we should introduce a ninth slogan, "Down

with the Communists who have oppressed the workmen and exacted

forcibly from them membership subscriptions".

The Communists have adopted the most drastic and

iniquitous measures to oppress the peasants and workmen and

destroy the National Revolution. On the one hand they have

set up the spurious so-called Central Government in Wuhan,

and deliberately withheld our supplies of funds and arms

during the military crisis at Shanghai and Nanking, thus seriously impeding our military progress. On the other they

have enlisted the defeated troops of Pat Shu Ching and Sun

Chun Fong in Shanghai into the so-called Pickets Corps which

is in reality intended to bully the workmen, furnished them

with deadly arms and ammunition and instigated them to create

disturbances at our rear. This was devised to prolong our

war and reduce our country to the gravest chaos, so that when

we are helplessly hemmed in on all sides, they can put into

practice the despotism at which they have been aiming. Therefore our tenth slogan should be "Down with the Communists

who have damaged our National Revolution".

We cannot bear to leave the people of our country in difficulties as serious as those of flood or conflagration, or see our workmen harnessed under their yoke permanently without any hope of freedon, or allow our National Revolution

to be destroyed. Therefore we have had the labour unions

which