Canton, June 20, For a time during the past few days a strike of the coolies, boatmen and office helps employed in the Canton Customs House scerned certain, but the danger has now his passed.
The Customs workers have formed a union, to which the Farmers and Labourers' Bureau of the government gave official recognition, The Commissioner of Customs, Colonel Hayley Bell, was not wil ing that members of his staff should join any labour or political forgenization, and announced that any employee fourd doing so would be dismissed from the Service.
The Customs workers who had already joined the union in viola tion of that order posted a in front of the Customs House demanding that every employee of the Customs Service should at once un up at the usion headquarters, ing to do which drastic a suid bu tehan, "rose Sat net of the coolies, boatmen and office helps did not take kindly to the idea of being forced to affiliate with the new organization, and sent a petition to Commissioner Bell asking him to protect them as they intended to follow his order, and not that of the union.
The officers of the new organization threatened to force every Customs employee to leave his post. if the Commissioner dismissed a. single man from the Service, but to date there have been no dismissals, and consequently no clash between the Commissioner and the newly-formed union, and it is generally thought that there will be no trouble in the immediate future, Dragon Festival The celebration of the Dragon Day Festival far surpassed any similar celebration held in this ity during the last few years. More than 100,000 persons took part the parade, and it took almost two hours for the procession to.
While races between the dragon boats were not permitted, some 30 boats paddled up and down the iver for the benefit of hundreds of spectators who lined the river edge, and filled many thousands of junks and sampans, The day's celebration was managed by the Workers, "Peasants, Merchants and Educators Associ tion, a new organization, said be the creation of General Chiang Kai-shek, who intends using it as an instrument to force the government to adopt his policy. The afternoon parade, the lantern pro-in the evening, the fireworks which were set up in several public parks, the dragon-boat Pageant were not only in celebra-Hon of the Dragon-boat Day, but of the fact that the seven petitions by the Workers, Peasants, chants and Edueators Association were granted in full by the government, thus ending the kerosene oil monopoly, and causing the government to approach the Hongkong Government with a view to settling the existing strike.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.