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60. It occurred in the banknote printing department of the Chung Hwa Book Company, Kowloon, and involved about fifteen hundred workers. There had been unrest for several months, the root cause of which was a feeling of insecurity among the workers, many of whom had left their families in Shanghai, and who felt them- selves strangers in the Colony, where their future was obscure. Two trivial in- cidents brought matters to a head. The management declared a lockout-with pay. and dismissed sixty-nine men whom it regarded as ringleaders. When the works were opened the other workers returned and, adopting an equally novel technique, seven hundred in one department commenced a combined sit-down and hunger strike.

The trouble was settled amicably on the intervention of the Labour Office whose offer to arbitrate the management had at first declined.

The peculiar circumstances of this Company, however, contain the seeds of further trouble, as the contract which affords employment for the majority of the men will be completed in a few months.

b1.

1. So far as is known, and for such information as is available I am indebted to the Police Department, there are at present about three hundred associations in Hong Kong with a nominal membership of 111,400. These include twenty-eight merchants' guilds with a membership of 2,700; twenty-eight craft guilds or guilds which include both masters and men, with a membership of 12,000; four clan asso- ciations or societies of persons having the same surname, membership 3,000; thirty- six district associations or societies of persons from the same district with a member- ship of 40,000; eighty-four labour unions, membership 44,000; and eighty-nine clubs some of which are purely social while others approximate closely to labour unions, membership 7,000, and thirty-one seamen's clubs, lodging houses and employment agencies with a membership of 2,700.

62. The association with the largest membership, namely 20,000, is the Sung Tsing General Association, a kind of clan association, which has been in existence for about eighteen years and whose members are Hakkas. It is the only Hakka association in the Colony. This association has branches in New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, and Amsterdam. It supports six free schools for the benefit of Hakka children.

63. The Chung Shan Commercial Association whose members are natives of Chung Shan has about 4.000 members; the Tung Sai Commercial Association, com- posed of masters of various shops, brokers, and employees of European firms, 1,200; the Plasterers' Guild (Kwong Yee Tong), about 3,300; the Printers' Union, about 3,000; the Cargo Coolies Guild, 1,500; the Shing Fat Stonebreakers Guild, about 1,270: the Building Construction Workers Guild, 2,700; the Tung Tak Chung Kung Wui, a coolies guild, 2,000; the Market Stall Meat Coolies Guild, 1,500; the Brick- layers Guild, 3,000; the Wai Yeung Merchants' Club, formed by merchants and workers of Wai Yeung District. 3,000; the Fong Yin Kung Wui, composed of board- ing house workers, 1,400; the Wong Kong Ha Tong Clansmen Association. consisting of members of the Wong clan, 1.000: the Yeung Mo Kung Wui-Foreign Employees Guild*-composed of boys employed in European residences, 2,000; the Hong Kong Sai Yee Boat-Builders Guild, 1,250; the Hoi Ping Merchants Association, merchants from Hoi Ping district, 1,000; the Chung Wah Lam Sai Ho Tong or Lam Clansmen Association, 1,200 all surnamed Lam; the Toi Shan Commercial Association, 1,200, natives of Toi Shan District, and the Chinese Engineers Guild, which is one of the oldest trade unions in the Colony and which most closely approximates to the English model, 1,500.

64. Each association has its own rules and regulations regarding membership, privileges and duties, organization, meetings, maintenance expenses, and frequently funeral money.

This contains a section of women members-amahs-which is the only organization of female workers in

the Colony. A few unions admit women as ordinary members.