CO129-500-3 Canton situation- governor's despatches 29-7-1927 - 1-9-1927 — Page 48

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at Canton. But at the same time Mr. Brenan, knowing

how much that administration had to fear from Labour-

licence and the probable necessity (since actually

proved) for fresh measures of repression, begged the

Company not to be too precipitate in surrender, but

rather to lay up the ships and throw the crews on

their Union for a while in the hope that, even if

the Canton Government did not intervene, a further

spell of unemployment, by adding to the already

large body of disillusioned members, might act as

a solvent of the Union from within. In the face

af this advice and of my own known views on the

matter, a majority of the Directors has decided

that surrender could be no longer deferred, their

only reservation being that the Union shall not

send for re-engagement the actual men discharged,

but some others. This surrender is the more exasperat- ing as the picketing had so far extended only to passenger traffic which was contracted out to a "compradore" (Mr. Woo Hay Tang) and the loss was falling on him and not on the Company. Mr. Woo has his own line of steamers running to Canton, but

he has nevertheless been conducting the negotiations

with the Union on behalf of the Company. He has

more than once since 1925 come under suspicion of "trading with the enemy" and his deportation from Hong Kong has in the past been considered. Yet he professes to go in fear of his life and has applied for Police protection against possible violence by the Union whose victory he appears to have secured. I cannot pretend to know all the wheels within wheels

which