121.5493/11–2649: Telegram
The Consul General at Peiping (Clubb) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 26—7:03 a. m.]
2098. Following is text letter November 25 re exit permit American Military Attaché Soule:
“With reference to my letter of November 7, 1949, regarding the refusal of the Nanking authorities to grant an exit permit to Brigadier General Robert H. Soule, American Military Attaché, because of an unsettled management-labor dispute in the American Embassy Club in that city, under instructions of my Government I invite your attention to the circumstance that the matter is still unsettled.
[Page 851]“It is to be noted in this general connection that, despite extended discussions from November 7 through November 14 both directly with the employee side and at the Nanking Aliens Affairs Office and the Foreign Affairs Section of the Nanking Bureau of Public Safety, as of November 14 the Nanking General Labor Union had failed to intervene in the management-labor dispute despite requests from both sides and the Aliens Affairs Office had declined to act on the formal request of November 4 that the Bureau of Labor proceed with mediation of the dispute. Contrariwise, by insisting that direct negotiations with the employees be resumed, the Aliens Affairs Office had avoided taking any responsibility for the expeditious settlement of the case, and the Chief of the Foreign Affairs Section of the Bureau of Public Safety had demonstrated an evident intent that General Soule should be advanced [sic].
“It is noteworthy that the section chief rejected as unacceptable two different letters offered by the management side—in response to her own suggestion—showing full delegation by General Soule of any club responsibility he might bear to American Foreign Service Officer Leonard L. Bacon, chairman of the Board of the club, and that the section chief declared that the management side was responsible for payment of the employees’ wages for the duration of the dispute; but when the management side observed that it considered that the Bureau of Labor would be the organ responsible for determining whether wages as well as severance allowances were payable and asked for a written order, the section chief refused to supply such order. Further, when the management side cited the case of mediation at Peiping of the labor-management dispute involving certain former USIS employees, the section chief stated that North China cases were not to be taken as precedents for the East China Military District. This, be it noted, seems to be in contradiction to the fact that the ruling of the Peiping Bureau of Labor embodied in the aforementioned Peiping mediation agreement of October 5, 1949, was itself based in part on the provisional measures for the administration of disputes regarding resumption of work and resumption of enterprises as promulgated by the Shanghai Military Control Commission, as published in the People’s Daily News of September 6 and supported by a New China News Agency editorial of the same date.
“There would also seem to arise a question of the propriety of the assumption by the Foreign Affairs Section of the Bureau of Public Safety of jurisdiction of labor-management disputes (which would presumably ordinarily fall within the province of the Bureau of Labor) without its being willing to assume final responsibility for settlement of such disputes. The negotiations appear [to] have reached a stalemate at that stage. It is apparent that the Nanking authorities are failing to facilitate the settlement of the dispute in question, which the management side has repeatedly suggested be referred to the presumed responsible organs, the General Labor Union and the Bureau of Labor. It is evident likewise that, as indicated in my reference letter of November 7, the local authorities in contravention of existing international law and amity are preventing the American Military Attaché from leaving China using as an excuse, a problem, the solution of which they have failed thus far to facilitate. In the circumstances, in accord with the instructions of my Government, I must again request that the matter be given your early attention, to the end [Page 852] that General Soule be given his exit permit and permitted to depart by the first available means.”
Sent Department 2098; repeated Nanking 1180; Shanghai 1221.