The joint communique issued at the end of Sir A. Douglas Home's talks in China declared that the discussions had been "free and unrestrained". What this means is anybody's guess: does it refer to the doting Foreign Secretary's inability to control himself? However one question was undoubtedly discussed: Britain's Chinese colony, Hong Kong.
The island is a capitalist's paradise, as an excellent government knows where its priorities lie: it new pamphlet by the Association for Radical East Asian Studies shows. A combination of Chinese capitalists who fled China in 1949 and American, Japanese and British firms are all making huge profits from exploiting Hong Kong's 98 per cent Chinese population, Between 1960 and 1967 the rate of return on capital rose from 20 per cent to 35 per cent, while the share of Hong Kong's working class in the proceeds from manufacturing industry fell. There is no reason to believe the situation has improved since then. It is this exploitation which enables Hong Kong with a population of 4 million to export more than India with a population 140 times greater. In world trade Hong Kong ranks 18 or 19.
ESSENTIAL PROP Hong Kong is an essential prop to the tottering pound. It is estimated that around £800 million from Hong Kong, providing about half the backing for the pound, is deposited in London. About half this sum is accumulated budget surpluses of the Hong Kong government. As the standard rate of tax on wages and profits is 15 percent, most of this money comes from the already underpaid Hong Kong workers, not from the huge profits made in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong economy operates in the classic colonial manner; low wages, long hours, round the clock working, laws against trade unions and political parties, derisory social services. Hong Kong workers have the longest hours in South-East Asia. Twelve hours a day (including travelling), 7 days a week is the rule for the majority of men. The average daily wage for this a family must work. One out of every four factories employs (illegally) children under 14. Eight year old children earn 10 cents (1p) an hour by threading necklaces with plastic beads at home.
Social services are pathetic. Only 1 per cent of government expenditure is devoted to it. In the 1972-73 budget expenditure on social services was actually cut by 8 per cent. The Hong Kong spends five times as much on the police force, where corruption is rampant at all levels, as it does on the social services.
Housing is no better, In government built resettlement estates, where over one million people live, five to a room 12 feet by 12 feet is normal. Despite the lack of electricity and water, many of the 400,000 people living in huts or shacks prefer their hovels to government housing. CHINESE Seized from China at gunpoint by British imperialism in 1842, there is no question that Hong Kong is Chinese. Yet after a recent 4 day visit to Hong Kong, Anthony Royle, an Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office stated that, "There is no question of Hong Kong being taken over". With half the population under 21, food prices and rent rising, capitalists now working on a 3 - 4 year return of their capital and Hong Kong goods more and more excluded from markets or subject to quotas (especially the important textile industry), the future for the Hong Kong working class is one of increased exploitation. 1967 showed that there is a tremendous potential for anti-colonial struggle. The British bourgeoisie is sitting on a time-bomb by continuing to hold onto Hong Kong. But the flood of super-profits makes the capitalist class incapable of understanding what lies in store for them.
The pamphlet Hong Kong: Last Colonial Stronghold can be obtained from: ASSOCIatIOn for Radical East Asian Studies, 6 Endsleigh St., London W. C. 1., Price 20p + 5p postage. hand, or miners having better safety conditions with fewer jobs on the other. But the ruling class would prefer the latter.
Whether Miller can fulfil his programme - more safety, better pensions, election of officials, etc. depends on whether he is able to mobilise the rank and file to fight the remaining 20 Boylites on the UMW Executive, the National Bank of Washington, and all the pressures flowing from the threads of this kind which link UMW to the bourgeoisie. Here again, democracy in the union is bound up with the financial independence of the unions from the ruling class. Despite the apparent liberalism of the state's intervention, it is always on the side of the employers. Whether Miller's use of the state was a necessary evil or whether it will become a habit through which he reflects the real interests of the state, can only be tested in practice by taking rank and file initiatives.
The RED FLAG FOR LENIN AND TROTSKY!
On The ant Facit Why The RED FLAG Appears TO KEGENERATE REVOLUTIONARY (British Section of the Fourth International) 182 Pentonville Road, London N.l.
Name:
Address: only through the involvement of the mass of the working class under the leadership of a Revolutionary Party.
In conclusion we must say that though we have become accustomed to this type of sensationalism from sections of the British bourgeois press, it is distressing to find these base libels reiterated throughout the Irish Media The Political Committee, Revolutionary Marxist Group, Dec. 10 1972.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP RED FORUM A series of introductory discussions for comrades in London on the politics of the Fourt International. Starting Tuesday, 16 January. General Picton pub, Caledonian Road (five minutes walk from Kings Cross tube SPECIALLY REPRODUCED for the £10,000 Fund Drive Facsimile of The Red Flag, first paper of the Trotskyist Opposition in Britain. Limited number only available at bargain price of 10p (pius 5p p.&p., post free orders of 5 or more). Rush orders to: 'Red Flag' Offer, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP I would like more information about the IMG.