where it has been necessary actively to resist efforts on the part of the Chinese Government to interfere in matters connected with Hongkong, and Your Lordship adds that you deprecate any action which could lead to a revival of such efforts. In so far as any claim to interference in connection with the University itself is concerned, I have been at pains to make it abundantly clear that the University will be wholly and entirely under the control of its Council and that subscribers will have no voice whatever in its management. The point was raised and fully and clearly replied to by me. It was emphasized by a further incident. Sir J. Jordan wrote to me officially informing me that the Chinese Government desired to appoint Examiners or Inspectors to visit a Chinese School in Hongkong which bears the name of the "South China Academy" and was founded some years ago by subscriptions of Chinese resident in Canton and elsewhere. He informed me privately that the Wai Wu Pu would regard the University project with more favour if I could see my way to make this concession. In reply, I informed him that I was wholly unable to accede to the proposal, and I privately added that though anxious to obtain the public avowal of the Chinese Government that the Hongkong University was recognised by them as a benefit to China, I could not make any bargain over the matter, by granting such a concession as was asked for.
In regard to the more general question, I would venture to remind Your Lordship that this Government received from the Chinese Provincial Authorities a sum of Taels 30,000 in respect of the typhoon relief fund of 1906 and that the Hongkong Government gave a sum of $30,000 towards the Flood relief fund of Canton in 1908. These reciprocal donations towards high objects which command the sympathy of all races equally - and in the case of the Hongkong University the object is admitted by the Chinese to be for the benefit of their own people whether resident here or not - would, I submit, tend to cement friendship (as stated by the Viceroy)