'Tha union pickets in Canton, armed workers employed to enforce demands and intimidate employers, and the workers' volunteer defence corps, (a military organization supplementary to the local police: and military), have all been)instructed by the Workers' Delegate Conference, acting under the auspices of the Communist Party, to remain indoors for the present, pending readjustment of their standing in the Southern Capital.
Since the workers gave their aid to the Kuomintang in regaining party power in the middle of 1925, the "labour unions have become! practically an imperium in imperia, Jand professional labour leaders wrrogate to themselves the right to arrest and punish not only. their Jeomrades but also outsiders, nonunion workers. and employers of labour. A Kuomintang order of! December 7 explicitly prohibited farther outrages of this character. On December 16 ths Canton Police began to take workers into custody for assault and battery agains, one another; and on the 18th, instruc-were issued to all police captains in charge of district stations to regard all offending ]workers as common persons subject} to arrest and punishment for violation of law.
Many professional labour agitators denounce the latest acts of the local authorities as unfriendly, but in the opinion of most enlightened Chinese, the Kuomintang policy to promote the welfare of the working and farming classes will be best Jearried out by making all persons—including workers and farmers—understand that all alike are entitled to the protection of the law.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.