CHINESE SEAMEN'S UNION
National Centre,
No.254, the Bund, Central,
CANTON.
CANTON,
1st April, 1936.
The Secretary General,
International Transport Workers' Federation, No.61, Vondelstraat, Amsterdam, W.
HOLLAND.
Dear Comrade,
We beg to acknowledge
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receipt of your favour of the
11th of February, No.91 A.0., enclosing us a questionnaire
which we have duly filled in in accordance with your
instructions.
As stated in the said questionnaire we are
not in a position, at present, to make a return of more than
ten thousand (10,000) members which is in fact only a fraction,
approximately one-sixteenth, of the total membership recorded
in the Register of our Union before the year 1927 when our
Headquarters were established in the Colony of Hong Kong.
The total membership then wwas more than one hundred and
sixty thousand (160,000), embracing in its fold practically
all the Chinese crews serving on all the sea-going and ocean-
going steamers and liners of all categories and tonnages.
The Government of Hong Kong and all the most wealthy
and influential shipping concerns operating in the Colony,
watching closely and recognising the unprecedented growth and ever-increasing power of our Union as shown by the successful
and triumphant termination of the Strike for higher wages
and better conditions in 1922 and the Great Strike of Hong
Kong in 1925, became so much incensed against us that they were constantly plotting and scheming for a pretext by which
they could, once and for all, deal a fatal blow on our Union.
Their long-waited for opportunity presented itself
unexpectedly in the year 1927 when our country, after having
been nearly torn to pieces by political strife and internal
warfare, had begun to settle down partially and the most drastic measures adopted to purge the Party and the Government
reactionary
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