in the foreground of all our previous visits. After much questioning on our part we were finally informed that the trade unions had been "temporarily closed." Upon our insisting upon a detailed explanation they finally told us that the trade unions had been suppressed on account of extravagant wage demands which they said went as high as 500 per cent increase, and on account of a conflict between the trade union leaders and the Women's Emancipation League. The murder of Chen Chang-Shu, trade union secretary, they explained was caused by his threat to kill the magistrate. We endeavored during long conversation to obtain from them any word of regret at the situation existing there; they seemed rather exultant than otherwise, and in answer to a dirct question as to whether they did not consider the situation extremely harmful to the revolution, they only answered: "Since the death of Chen there has been order and quiet in the city."
We closed the interview with the refusal to accept their proffered hospitality. On another boat, meanwhile, there had quietly arrived a delegation of Trade Unionists, seven in number, who gave us in full the real story of events. It is very interesting to note the personnel of this first delegation of Kanchow trade unionists who came to us. The seven members were the Executive Committee of the Bank Clerks' Union. To us this was a sort of symbol of the complete unification of all the proletarian elements at Kanchow which had been established under the lea leadership of the dead Chen. Where else in the world can one imagine the Bank Clerks' Union playing a leading role in a civil war, where the propertyless are united on one side against the bloc of all other classes opposing them?
They told us about how a few weeks before, Chiang Kai Shek had dispatched to Kanchow a new garrison, composed of troops newly-recruited from deserters of the Northern armies, the Second Division, headed by a Kuomintang Commissar, named Li-pin. On the evening of March 6th, Li-pin had appeared with a company of soldiers at a trade union meeting being addressed by Chen and placed him under arrest in the name of Marshal Chiang Kai Shek. When the workers, fearing danger, wished to accompany
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