Something for the troops

The overrunning of further large areas of China by so-called “Communists” has been causing increasing worry to the British capitalist class, particularly to those with economic interests in the Far East. The Labour Government, acting in precisely the same way as a Conservative Government would have done, has taken steps to deal with the situation, one of which has been to send troop reinforcements to Hong-Kong.

We do not know what oratory the troops were treated to before they embarked for the other side of the world, nor, apart from a natural reluctance to leave home, what they themselves thought of the business. However, whether they were regaled with high-sounding speeches or not, the Hong-Kong Government decided to give them a message all its own.

“Why are we here?” asks the message (the “we” refers to the troops), and proceeds to give an answer taking up 4,000 words. It need not have lasted anything like so long—it says it all in one paragraph.

“There are two main reasons why you have been called upon to defend Hong-Kong in the present disturbed times. The first is that we have obligations which cannot honourably be overlooked or renounced. The second, and this is perhaps of immediate concern to the people of Britain, is because it is very much to our economic interest to do so. … The change which is beginning now in Asia is so immense that it is difficult to appreciate what it will mean to us commercially.” (Manchester Guardian, 16/8/49.)

This sort of talk, of course, does not appeal to the Manchester Guardian at all. “Soldiers,” it says with truth, “do not respond to the kind of appeal in the second part of this ‘message.’ ” Warming to its theme of trying to undo the damage caused by the over-honesty of the Hong-Kong Government, though with not much success, it continues: —

“Actually our reason for defending it is not chiefly economic. We cannot abandon Hong-Kong because to do so would mean a great increase in the swelling Communist pressure on South-east Asia. The defence of Hong-Kong at this stagers part of the move to form a line behind which there can be built up a free world of national States in South Asia.”

Whether the Guardian prefers to argue that the importance of Hong-Kong is strategic as well as economic does not really matter. It is most probably right. What either statement shows conclusively is that British workers have been sent to Hong-Kong to defend the interests of British capitalism, whether expressed locally in Hong-Kong, or, more generally, throughout the whole of the Far East.
S. H.