CO129-501-8 General policy in China 30-11-1926 - 30-11-1926 — Page 114

proposed from time to time with the object of buying

off the boycott. On the contrary we were convinced

that no settlement of the boycott could be honour-

able or lasting unless the so-called "economic

weapon" was broken in the hands of the Canton Strike

Committee. We knew that the strike pickets were

nothing better than pirates and brigands: and we wel-

comed the decision of His Majesty's Government to

treat them as such. We much regretted Mr. Brenan's action, taken without consulting the Hong Kong

Government, in suspending further action by the British Navy at Canton and in resuming conversations with Comrade Ch'ên, in whose sincerity we had no

faith, We knew that the general effect of the boy- cott had been only slightly relieved by clearing

strike pickets off the waterways at Canton and that it

was the aim of the Canton Strike Committee, now that

its pickets had been driven off the river, to make the

boycott ashore as severe as possible. We knew also

that any relaxation of our naval action before the

boycott was entirely removed would be interpreted by

the Canton Soviet to mean that we shrank from the

consequences of such action. We, therefore, urged that our next step should be to demand within twenty- four hours an undertaking that all anti-British manifestations in all the territory controlled by the

Canton Government should cease forthwith and that

British ships on the Yangtsze and elsewhere should be

respected by Cantonese troops, failing which we would act as to us seemed proper. We believed that in view

of

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