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Business Interest in University.
Gratifying evidence of the increasing estimation in which the work of the University is held is furnished by the encouraging change in the attitude of business people to its graduates. There was a time when there was apparently no room in business and manufacturing firms in the Colony for the Hong Kong University graduate; but I am glad to say there are clear signs of the gradual disappear- ance of any prejudice against him. Outstanding business concerns like Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, the Asiatic Petroleum Company, and the China Light & Power Company, have indicated their willingness to encourage selected graduates to qualify for employment with them and to provide them with facilities to show their worth in actual practice. Messrs. John Swire & Sons, Limited, London, have also recently approved a scheme whereby two selected graduates of the University will be provided with free passages to England each year for further study and to gain practical experience. This is assistance in the highest sense of the term: in some aspects of the University problem, more valuable than even direct pecuniary assistance. For unless openings to employment are available for our graduates, experience elsewhere teaches that an University education may be a curse rather than a blessing.
Graduates & Government Service.
The question of the employment of graduates in Government service was also under serious consideration during last year, and we are encouraged to hope that the time is not far distant when even more vacancies in Govornment service than at present will be open, under approved conditions, to selected graduates of the Hong Kong University. It is matter for gratification that 11 of our graduates hold posts in the Medical Department of Govern- ment.
As you know this University is a residential one; that is, residence in a University hotel is, in general, an essential condition of admission to the University; and exemptions from residence are only granted in special circumstances by the Senate. Any increase in hostel accommodation has, therefore, a most direct bearing on University life. It is therefore with great satisfaction that I call attention to an important addition to the residential facilities provided for undergraduates which was made by the opening on the 16th December, 1929, of Ricci Hall under the management and control of Jesuit Fathers
of the English Assistency. The hostel, which is a fine building situated on Pokfulum Road within easy reach of the main University buildings, provides accommodation for thirty-five students. The resident staff will consist of a Warden, a qualified doctor and a qualified engineer. The hostel has a library of its own and special facilities are being offered for extramural tutorial work.
Woman's Hostel Scheme.
Last year the Vice-Chancellor mentioned the appointment of a Committes, under the Chairman- ship of Col. Skinner, R. E., to raise funds for a woman's hostel, and expressed the hope that the Committee would be successful. Something has been done towards realisation but progress has been slower than was anticipated, and up to date a sum of only $14,000 has been collectel. The estimate 1 cost of the scheme is about $120,000 so that the balance to be realised is still considerable.
There were thirty-eight women students on the roll in 1929, and residential accommodation could only be arranged for fourteen students in premises rented for the purpose by the Church Missionary Society. The remainder resided with their parents or guardians.
A pleasing feature of the movement for the collection of funds for this hostel is that the lady undergraduates themselves are actively participating in the campaign by organising concerts and enter- tainments in aid of the cause. I am informed that two of these ladies, while in the Straits Settlements during the last long vacation, formed a working committee composed chiefly of graduates of this University who are now working in the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States to carry on propaganda work and to collect funds; with the gratifying result that over $3,000 have actually been paid in through their efforts and promises of further contributions have been obtained. This, you will agree, is an admirable illustration of the spirit of self-help and service to the University.
A Munificent Donation.
And now I come to a matter which has afforded the utmost satisfaction to the University authorities. During the period under review the University received a donation of $120,000 from Mr. Fung Ping Shan for the provision of a building for a Chinese Library in the University. He has given $100,000 for the building and equipment and $20,000
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as a contribution to the endowment fund to meet the maintenance charges of the Library. In provid- ing a sum for the recurring expenditure on the maintenance of the Library Mr. Fung Ping Shan has set a most commendable precedent. It is not often remembered that when donations are made for a building for a particular object, the University has as a matter of course to be financially responsible for its maintenance; and in many cases this is an item of some magnitude. A site on the University estate has been selected for the proposed Library and it is expected that its erection will be commenc- ed shortly. I desire, on behalf of the University, to voice its grateful acknowledgment of the muni- ficence of Mr. Fung Ping Shan; and I can imagine no more appropriate record of it than the handsome building in contemplation.
I will finish my account of the building activities within the University by referring to the conversion, during last year, of the building at the western entrance of the University into a laboratory for the Biological Department, accommodation for which was urgently needed.
Gloomy Financial Aspect.
It is natural that the academic aspect of an University should stand out most clearly in the public mind. But of equal, though more prosaic, importance is the financial aspect. An University cannot, any more than a business concern, outrun the constable without dire results. And the Budget for 1930, which has passed the University Court, does not make exhilarating reading. For it shows expenditure at $666,345.00 and revenue at $603,500.00; or a deficit of a little over $60,000; and recent currency movements may increase this figure to $80,000. Now I wish at once to emphasise the fact that this prospective deficit is not due to extravagance or to any avoidable cause; it is in the main the result of the fall in the exchange value of the dollar, which most of us outside the University have equal reason to deplore. The salaries of the permanent University teaching and administrative staffs are on a sterling basis; and in translating sterling salaries into dollars a loss of over $50,000 alone is entailed on University funds under existing currency conditions.
Inadequacy of Salaries.
Furthermore, the subject of the adequacy or otherwise of these salaries has provided grave cause for anxiety; for, without adequate
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recompense, teaching and administrative standards cannot be maintained. Besides, the labourer is worthy of his hire, and none more than he who is engaged in the honourable, invaluable and exacting work of education. His Excellency, as Chancellor of the University, appointed a Committee to go into the matter during last year; and the Committee has reported in no uncertain terms as to the utter in- adequacy of these salaries. But if effect is to be given to its recommendations an additional annual expenditure of $140,000 will be required with the dollar at 1/8, and of $176,000 with the dollar at 1/6. Add this amount to the existing budget deficit of $80,000 and you will get an aggregate of $256,000 in excess of revenue.
It is obvious that without assistance from out- side the University cannot face this increased ex- penditure.
Government Aid Urged.
The University Court has asked the Colonial Government to enlarge its annual grant of $50,000 to one of $250,000 per annum. If the dollar had remained at 1.8. this increase would have enabled the University to balance its Budget comfortably and to make the long overdue and much needed additions to salaries. With the dollar at 1.6, unless the resources of the University are still further in- creased by a grant out of the Boxer Indemnity or from other sources, it will be impossible, until ex- change improves, to give full effect to the recom- mendations of the Salaries Committee.
Now the request even for an additional grant from Government of £200,000 is a large demand to make; it requires justification. I propose to justify it, mainly, by the experience of the British Govern- ment with regard to its contributions for University purposes. I think I am entitled to say, categorically, that without these contributions, supplemented by grants from Local Authorities, no University in the United Kingdom could keep its doors open; so it be- comes most pertinent to ascertain what proportion these contributions and grants bear to the total in- come of certain typical Universities in the United Kingdom. In the case of most of them, these con- tributions and grants are in excess of fifty per cent of their respective total incomes; while to cite some individual instances, Bristol University receives 70 per cent from these sources; Exeter University College, 78 per cent; Leeds University, 59 per cent; Nottingham University College, 67 per cent; Sheffield
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