The strike of employees at the Hanyang Ivonworks which has just been settled has been in some respects an instructive if at times mysterious affair. Dr. Wu, the superintendent of the works, at one period had to declare that he did not know what it was about. Rather over a month ago the labourers organized themselves into a trade union, and formed a club for their headquarters. This was the now famous "glee club," though why such a name -is. no more apparent than some other matters connected with the affair. One day General Hsiao Yao-nan's soldiery arrived to close up the club, which was the signal for a strike, and 2,000 men walked out. No sooner, however, did the officials of the works start negotiate ing with the strikers than the club assumed a secondary importance, and the principal demand seems to have been for higher wages. A settlement. was on the point of being reached when, it is reported, agitators from Shanghai arrived on the scene, and some days elapsed before the dispute was finally adjusted. There seems little doubt that from now onward the labour agitator in going to play an ever increasing part in disputes throughout the country, and knowing the harm this class of man has wrought elsewhere, his increasing influence is to be deplored. It is doubtful whether the Tuchuns of the country are yet prepared to learn anything, but if they are this strike must be instructive for them They must know that the day is past when labour can be coerced at their will, they must concede it the right to combine, and only, as in the case of the Hongkong strike where its headquarters were found to be the centre of activity directed against the very life of the community, can they arbitrarily put an end to their operations. This was done without apparent cause at Hanyang, and the result was to bring all other grievances of the workmen to a head.
This Picture and That Recently a lady purchased Shanghai for /Tls. 21,000 a five-roomed house with one mow of land. In a Home newspaper is advertised for sale a nine roomed residence, situated in 143 acres of land for pasturage and_ wheat near Ashford, Kent, with outhouses, labourers' cottage and dairy farm, the price asked being £3,500. This sum at the current rate of exchange does not fall far short of that paid for the small house in Shanghai standing on one-sixth of an acre, viz. one mow. Cold comfort for those who intend to buy homes in the Settlements, and a startling reminder of the profits that can be made here in land and building.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.