I dealt with the last point by methods which, I. believe, aroused some criticism. With the assistance of the respectable Chinese, who afforded us admirable support, we succeeded in arresting n certain number of the persons who were going about' the town practising methods of intimidation. Here I should emphasize the fact that there was no trade or industrial question issue. The strikers made no demands which could be made a basis of negotiation. They had no grievances and pretended to none. They simply ceased work. Having. collected some 50 of these intimidaters, and after they had. been sentenced to reasonable terms of imprisonment, I extended the rules of prison labour in such a fashion as to make it possible to employ ners on necessary public work outside the gaol, and put on the intimidators to assist in the pre-ion of the cleanliness of the town.
This course was singularly unpopular. with them, because most of the intimidating persons were either Canton roughs, probably rates, or of the student class and particularly disliked manual labour of any kind.
As a result of this measure, which was useful in the interest of sanitation and health, the practice of casual intimidation died out. But ere one o two attempts of a bolder character, assaults and even murders. These were dealt with by ritants. A Labour protection society was formed, and its first rule was to protect labour by preventing people from interfering. The results were interesting and successful, and after one or two trifling incidents, the process of intimidation had entirely coosed, except by the use of the telephone, which was used for the purpose of sending mysterious messages to different persons, with the eect of bringing some of them out. That. we had to stop by closing down the Public telephone booths.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.