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concerning the views of representative Chinese on matters of importance to the Chinese community of Hong Kong. These meetings have been most successful and are likely to form
a permanent part of the machinery of this Government. (c) The Tung Wah Hospital Advisory Board is the principal
charitable institution of the Colony. Its activities cover all forms of charity both in the Colony and, when
necessary, in China itself. It is known among Chinese all the world over and is implicitly trusted. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs is chairman of this Board also. Beyond a general control of its administrative work, his principal
duty is to secure the rigorous exclusion from the activities
of the Board of any trace of politics. The purely charitable and entirely trustworthy nature of its work constitutes the foundation of its excellent reputation and its great influence both in Hong Kong and abroad; and this reputation and influence have occasioned many insidious attempts, since 1911, to misuse the hospital for political purposes. These attacks were constantly repeated and very great care has been necessary in repelling them, for it
was an easy matter to apply the slogan of "China for the Chinese" to an institution which depended almost entirely on Chinese voluntary subscriptions and was administered
by an honorary committee of Hong Kong Chinese. I believe, however, that the worst of the storm has been safely
weathered and that it would now be a matter of some
difficulty to engineer local resentment against the Government control exercised over this Board through the
Secretary for Chinese Affairs. The list of the members of the Tung Wah Hospital Advisory Board appears on Page 61
the Hong Kong Civil Service List for 1927.
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(a)