CO_968_257_COMMUNIST_ACTIVITIES_IN_HONG_KONG_1952 — Page 37

Outward Telegram from Commonwealth Relations® Office

TO:

U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN CANADA U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN AUSTRALIA U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN NEW ZEALAND

Y.No.64

U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN SOUTH AFRICA U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN INDIA U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN PAKISTAN U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER IN CEYLON

(Dated 4th March, 1952)

SAVING

UNCLASSIFIED

My Y.No.63 Saving.

DISTURBANCES IN HONG KONG.

Following is text of statement referred to in paragraph 10.

Begins.

Listeners who may have heard earlier B.B.C. reports, founded upon new agency messages despatched from the Colony in the prelimin- ary stages of the disorders, will be relieved to learn that these reports were exaggerated and somewhat inaccurate.

2. The disorders arose out of the proposed visit of a group of people from Canton, styling themselves the Comfort Mission to the Tung Tau Village Fire Victims. This group has been announced as arriving in the Colony today, but during the morning, news was received from Canton that the Mission was postponing its visit. It appears that this information was not relayed to members of local trade unions and other sympathizers, who had throughout the morning congregated in large numbers at Tsim Sha Tsui railway station to meet the Mission upon its arrival in Kowloon.

3. Meantime, a welcoming party had gone to the border to meet the Mission. When this party arrived back in the railway station, about 3.10 p.m., the news was broken to the crowd, which by then numbered some 4,500 people, that the Mission would not be arriving and that they should disperse. This the crowd did and, at first, the dispersal appeared to be taking place in an orderly manner.

4. A large body of the crowd, however, went in procession up Nathan Road, and, at the corner of Nathan Road and Ashley Road, an incident occurred which resulted in an attack by a section of the procession upon a Police vehicle. Two private cars were also over- turned.

5. Some three further incidents took place along the route on Nathan Road, the last of these in the neighbourhood of Mong Kok Police Station, being dispersed at about 5.45 p.m. The police used tear gas to disperse the processionists in two of the incidents.

6

Less than twelve people have been treated for minor injuries. A Chinese Police Lance-Corporal, finding himself about to be overrun, by the push of the mob in the vicinity of Mong Kok Police Station, fired one round from a shot gun, peppering three Chinese males,

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