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Hong Kong telegram No. 1372 to Commonwealth Office (D.T.D.)
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supplies from China by road and rail. Normal quantitie of food (pigs apart) continued to arrive by sea and prices remain, generally firm.
(f) A quiet, more relaxed atmosphere at the frontier.
Farm workers have crossed to carry out their daily work in British territory peacefully. The PLA have withdrawn to their normal posts and camps and have been carrying out normal training. There are indications that
the PLA have calmed down militants and by verbal persuasion have prevented demonstrations from taking place at crossing points. PLA control of the border appears to have become more effective during the past few days.
2. Police action against Communist organisations and premises has continued, in the course of which further quantities of inflammatory posters, documents and weapons were seized. A number of persons including union members were arrested and charged with offences relating to these seizures.
No prominent local Communists were detained during the week.
3. During the week the second and third group of defendants brought to trial on charges of sedition and related offences arising from articles in the three recently suspended independent pro Communist newspapers were convicted. The prosecution of all three newspapers is now complete. Reaction so far, both local and from China, has been surprisingly mild. Delicate sources report that Communist - newspapers circles are planning to replace the three supressed papers by re-publishing a defunct local newspaper or by establishing a new newspaper in Macau for circulation in Hong Kong. These proposals may indicate that inflammatory "mosquito" newsheets are not regarded by the Communists as a successful substitute for newspapers. It is perhaps significant that few of these newsheets have come to notice during the week,
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On 7 August the first inspection of a Communist school on lines prescribed by the Director of Education, (telegram 1351 refers) was carried out, in a comparatively cooperative atmosphere. No inflammatory matter was seen but a number of portraits
of Mao and quotations from his works were displayed in classrooms and offices. So far the general reaction of Communist school authorities to inspection notices indicates that, whilst insisting on their right to propagate the thoughts of Mao, they do not intend to openly defy the conditions contained in the letter sent by the Director of Education.
5. New emergency regulations were introduced during the week, prohibiting possession of fireworks. This measure was taken to deny Communist easy access to local stocks of gunpowder which has been the major explosive of their "home made" bombs. All licensed stocks were subsequently withdrawn to storage points under government control and an appeal to members of the public to surrender private stocks has so far met with good response.
6. Delicate sources have reported that a leading personality in publishing circles is now (contrary to his line of a fortnight
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