To all newspaper offices, trade unions, workers’ organizations, workers’ clubs, and fellow workers across the nation, relayed via the newspaper offices, trade unions, workers’ organizations, and workers’ clubs of Changsha, as well as to fellow workers and people of all circles nationwide:

Respectfully, we, the masons and carpenters, on account of the excessively high cost of living, the soaring price of foreign currency, the daily decline in the value of money, compounded by the defects of the economic organization of society, find the ranks of the unemployed swelling by the day. The sufferings endured by us masons and carpenters and our families are beyond the power of the pen to fully describe. We have virtually no foothold left in society. Driven by necessity, we assembled several thousand masons and carpenters in a mass meeting at the Lu Ban Temple in Luoxingtian to press for a wage increase. After extensive discussion, an extremely fair wage scale was resolved upon: Class A workers at 4 jiao, Class B workers at 3 jiao. Following submission to the General Trade Union for the record, the General Trade Union deliberated and decided to reduce it to 3 jiao 4 fen for Class A workers and 1 jiao 6 fen for Class B workers, and forwarded this to the Changsha County government office for the record. This was by no means a unilateral wage increase on our part. It was proclaimed and put into effect on the first day of the sixth month of the old lunar calendar. A considerable number of employers and partners have already settled wage accounts according to this increase. Then, suddenly, on September 17 of the solar calendar, the Changsha County authorities summoned our association to send representatives to a conference with various public organizations to discuss wages. Our association immediately dispatched three representatives to the meeting to state the sufferings of us masons and carpenters and the reasons for the wage increase. Unexpectedly, the so-called minority of capitalists present at the meeting, under the false name of public organizations, advocated only a conversion based on the currency value of the ninth year, which would give Class A workers only around 1 jiao 7 or 8 fen, attempting to forcibly impose this decision. Our representatives immediately declared to all present that they could not allow a private vote by our few representatives to ratify this, and that a reply would be given after reporting back to our association. The following day, our association convened a membership meeting. The result of the discussion was to persist in submitting a statement to the Changsha County authorities, clarifying the reasons why no further reduction could be accepted. We consider that in society today, the houses we toiling workers live in and the daily commodities we use have all increased in price compared to the ninth year without exception. Why is it that only when we impoverished workers increase our wages by a few fen in silver currency, so-called public organizations emerge to suppress it? We find that we construction workers, in this world, not only fail to receive fair treatment from society, but are instead oppressed by a minority of capitalists within public organizations. We, several thousand strong, each have parents, wives, and children to support. In these times of a poor social economy, coupled with such meager living expenses, we truly cannot survive. If the authorities insist on adhering solely to the unilateral resolution of a minority of capitalists within public organizations, then our living expenses will be too little. Our right to survival will be lost. Under such heavy oppression, when driven to the last extremity, we will have no choice but to resort to the final measure: all workers will cease work and simply wait for death. Should a work stoppage occur, we then hope that our elders and compatriots of all circles nationwide will uphold justice, and that all trade unions, workers’ organizations, and fellow workers across the country will grant us, these several thousand suffering workers, substantive assistance. In sending this telegram, our urgency knows no bounds.

Respectfully submitted jointly by all the masons and carpenters of the Hunan Construction Association.