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we kept charges stable, and the need to recognize that very heavy expenditure lay ahead if we were to be able to maintain adequate supplies. We were always aware that the increases would be opposed and that the reaction might be troublesome increases in water charges have always been objected to (water being an emotive subject to a population of peasant origins), just as strongly as increases in the cost of other basic services. We did our best to minimize the criticism by most reasonable modifications of the original proposals: indeed, although objection is wide-spread, that it has not been worse is a measure of the acceptance our action has really had.
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Almost simultaneously came the Hill incident and the release of more confrontation prisoners, fairly widely described in the press as 'bombers". The coincidence of these two events and the publicity given to objections to our action over the prisoners (although in fact overt objection to the releases was quite limited and our action was not wholly disapproved by any means) could well, after the initial incident, have suggested using bombs as a means of protesting over water charges popular and widely publicized current method of protesting in many parts of the world nowadays anyway. One cannot entirely follow the trains of thought of bomb planters. But Hill's injury did at first cause some public apprehension that we might be in for another spate of bombing; apprehension which died away as most bombs turned out to be fakes. It also inevitably on the one hand caused the public to speculate briefly about a link between the incidents and released confrontation "bombers' and on the other led to further speculation (encouraged by the Communists) about whether this was not a Nationalist-inspired action indicating disapproval of "improved Sino-British relations". Finally, the fuss generally gave a number of people, for a variety of reasons, an added impetus to plant fake bombs, and so the practice built up.
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The one thing that is clear about the "bomb" planters in general, as the variety of slogans used also shews, is that they were unorganized, and came from no
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