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6.
Unfortunately the University was started on
financial basis which was entirely inadequate, and its short
but eventful life has been one long dreary struggle to avoid
bankruptcy. The fact was that those who were responsible for launahing the University had no knowledge of what the
running cost of the institution would be. The assured
annual income of the University at the start was £9,000,
it has now got an income from all sources of about £50,000.
One of the conditions of granting a charter to the Univer-
sity of Reading was that it should have an assured annual
income from endowment only of £80,000. The University of
Hongkong under present conditions can just pay its way,
improvements and developments are impossible. But a
University can not stand still. ▲ rather ominous indication
that we are starting to go back is the great difficulty
which we are now experiencing in recruiting new men for
vacancies. I know that Hongkong has got a bad name at
the moment, but I do not think that this altogether accounts
for our difficulties. The University has always been too
much of a technical school. It has done effectively, on
the whole, the work which it has attempted to do, but that
work has not been directed towards the special and peculiar
needs of China. Indeed the curriculum might be regarded as
equally appropriate to Birmingham as to Hongkong. I want to
change all this; I want not only to develop a new Chinese'
Department in the Arts Faculty but also to turn towards
China the study in other branches of the Arts Faculty of
political science, jurisprudence and philosophy. I want
to develop the Medical School. We have taken $750,000 from the Rockefeller Trustees and it is certainly up to us to put
in something extra on our own account. All this means
additi onal buildings and an increased income. But is is impassible to raise money in Hongkong just now and quite
impossible for the Government at this moment to increase
its financial commitments.