Chongqing to Dushiqiao

Friday, 29 December

In the morning Li Zhongzhen (李仲振) came to my home. He told me what happened on his trip from Kunming to here.

I went to the Robinson Company to buy records on behalf of Sun Fo.

Sun Fo told me that the KMT armies would have conflict with those of the CCP at the Shaanxi-Gansu border. He felt that we were now facing a strong enemy; it was depressing that such misfortunate incidents should happen. After lunch I followed him to the Round House.

At 2.00 I started my journey back to Dushiqiao. I arrived there at 4.00. Various committees and Jiao Yitang (焦易堂)[1] and Wang Yongbin (王用賓) welcomed Sun Fo at the station.

I had dinner at Sun Fo’s place. He talked to me at length about the current political situation. He also said friends could be divided into several categories. Some of them could be friends but not colleagues. Some could be colleagues but not friends. Those who could be friends and colleagues at the same time were rare. I said to be friends was most important because being colleagues was just for a short duration but being friends was eternal. As for making friends it was no good to have too high expectations, otherwise that would lead to disappointment. He thought so. He was quite unhappy with Yang Jie.

Gong Weizhang told me that the salaries of workers in the Legislative Yuan were so mean. One only received 12 dollars but provision needed 14 dollars. What they earned was not enough for their own spending, let alone raising their families. Now all the workers petitioned Secretary Zeng asking for an increase in salary but until now they have not received a reply. Therefore they wanted to petition the President of the Legislative Yuan tomorrow all together. If they did not get satisfactory answers they would resign collectively. I told Xie Baoqiao and Zeng Qiwei to pay attention to the matter and urged them to raise their salaries a little bit because their salaries were really too low. Zeng Qiwei seemed to be displeased. At 10.00 p.m. Zeng Qiwei, went to my place with Wu Ziquan (吳梓權) and Dong Wenbin (董文彬), saying that two workers of the printing room from his jurisdiction were forced by Gong Weizhang to a certain place to have a meeting, and he was afraid it was a strike. During this period of time when the resistance war was on, gathering without higher approval and strike action were illegal acts. These actions could even lead to allegations of collaboration. They intended to bring policemen to arrest them. It was inappropriate for me to stop it so I immediately asked Yukun to go with them to know what actually happened so that Gong Weizhang would not be wronged. At eleven Yukun returned, saying that there were sixteen workers having a conference in the home of Gong Weizhang. They had a discussion about an increase in salary but they did not advocate striking. Gong Weizhang was the Chair. After Zeng Qiwei and others listened to the discussion outside, they immediately rushed into the room and put Gong Weizhang under custody and asked the other workers to disperse. When they were asked who asked them to be here they did not dare to say. Now Zeng Qiwei put Gong Weizhang in the guard room and planned to send him to the headquarters of the gendarmerie tomorrow to examine whether he had other evil intentions or not. I thought Gong Weizhang certainly made a mistake with his action, but it was a bit too much to put him in custody in the headquarters of the gendarmerie. Gong Weizhang had been following me for eight years. I felt bad for him so I was sleepless for the whole night.

[1] Jiao Yitang(1880-1950) was a Chinese politician.