Look Back
25 years ago THE International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has urged the British Government to improve labour legislation in Hongkong, a communique said this week. The Brussels-based organisation said a delegation led by Mr Morris Paladino, the Assistant Secretary-General, met Lord Shepherd, Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs, in London on Tuesday. The delegation raised the issue of the ''deplorable working conditions and excessive long working hours in the colony'' and urged that labour legislation be revised in line with the standards of the international labour legislation laid down in Geneva.
A CONSTABLE stopped a nine-seater dual purpose van in Jockey Club Road, Sheung Shui, New Territories, and counted 35 heads besides the driver. Said Mr H.S. Daniell, the magistrate, at Fanling Court: ''It's certainly a record in overloading. I wonder how you managed to pack them all in.'' MR Feng Piao, Director of the Information Department of the Peking People's Daily, said in a report on the ''international situation'' that ''there is no great struggle in Hongkong'', according to a Red Guard publication called Red Seamen. He added that like ''mass struggles'' elsewhere, ''the struggle in Hongkong advances and develops in an undulating manner''. He claimed that the Communist-instigated civil disturbances in Hongkong were influenced by the ''great proletarian cultural revolution'', and thatthe scale of the ''struggle'' dealt an initial blow at ''British Imperialism''.
TWENTY-three starving Hongkong seamen of the Panamanian freighter Sun Route staged a mutiny on Thursday, injuring the ship's master and his chief officer in Zamboanga, southern Philippines, according to agency reports from Manila. The ship's crew, all Chinese and engaged in Hongkong, have been stranded in the Philippines since November as the Sun Route is involved in court proceedings for alleged non-payment of customs duties.
THE Hongkong Government has been asked by local industrial and commercial circles to give financial support to a second Hongkong week later this year - and if it agrees the week will be held on ''bigger and better scale''. The request was made only this month and no decision has yet been made by the Government.
45 years ago ALTHOUGH several factories and companies here intend to move to Hongkong and South China, not many of them have been permitted to do so on account of restrictions in those places, according to the China Press, quoting informed sources. In addition to the restrictive measures taken by the authorities in the south to limit the number of incoming firms, problems of transportation and housing are also handicapping the plans of local industrialists and businessmen.
MR Creech Jones has promised to make an early statement on claims regarding war damages and losses in Malaya, which encourages the hope that the Colonial Secretary will soon find time to deal with the same question concerning Hongkong. War damages and losses claims constitute probably the trickiest of all post-war problems insofar as the Imperial Government and its colonies are concerned.
PRESIDENT Manuel G. Roxas, the 55-year-old President of the Philippines, died in Manila this week. He was unofficially reported to have had a heart attack after delivering an anti-Communist speech to US Air Force officers at Clark Field, the American air base north of Manila. Born in 1892 and educated at St Joseph's College, Hongkong, and the University of Philippines, Senor Roxas was elected to the House of Representatives in 1922.
75 years ago
