TNAG-0110-FCO40-146-Detainees-and-prisoners-following-19671968-disturbances-1968 — Page 45

"Weighing all perhaps a thire

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vidence, the sample suggests that

the group were hard-core communists, induced by indoctrination, Eut

factors may be at work. For

who may have bee other non-politic:: example, of the 10 soners under 20 years of age, only three came from familics with both parents alive and resident in Hongkong; of the 26 aged 20 to 25, only 11 had both parents alive and resident in the Colony. Is it possible that they are seeking a substitute for absent parents when they speak of the "motherland" and set up Chairman Mao as a father figure? Is it possible that home in which young people grow up without both parents is a potential breeding ground for the communists of the future?

"One popular theory is that the ordinary person will refuse to turn to communism as long as he enjoys a reasonable standard of living and as long as he knows how much better off he is in Hongkong compared to his native village, On this argument, the typical extremist of last year would come from the most depressed classes of society and have very little first-hand knowledge of China today. While the records of this group of 100 prisoners are not con- clusive, they suggest that these communists were not scraping the bottom of the economic barrel before they were sent to gaol. Only three were un- employed. There was a wide spread of average daily earnings, but only 24 earned less than $10 a day, and 38 earned between $11 and $15 a day. Of the hundred, 35 were earning more than $480 a month. They seem to have been steady workers: 84 of them had not changed their jobs in the last three years. They came from a great variety of trades; some had been working as craftsmen on their own account, while others had been employed in large factories. Nor have these communists been bred in resettlement estates (the homes of only 12 of them) or squatter huts (the homes of 16). Economically and socially, these prisoners are not remarkably different from any other group in the population.

Only 18

"Again, most of them have ample opportunities for learning the tough conditions of life in China today. Almost a quarter have visited China since 1964, and 25 came to Hongkong after the Great Leap Forward began at such cost to the Chinese masses, arrived in Hongkong before 1948. Of the sample, 40 stated that they had members of their immediate family in China (and so, presumably, they had received letters from China asking for food parcels and money over the last few years), while another 24 had other relatives across the frontier. In other words, despite their access to first-hand information on the economic and political difficul- ties which have overtaken China, a majority of the hundred were not deterred by the material advantages of living in Hongkong from taking to the streets last year.

"One vital question is what attracts the young communist to the Party's ranks, The history of one student with a brilliant academic record in an out- standing missionary school throws some light on this problem. A 20-year-old boy, he was studying physics, chemistry and biology in the lower sixth when he was arrested on a charge of putting up and distributing inflammatory posters on the school

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