4.
27
empowered to appoint professors, lecturers and other aca-
It is clear from the ac
demic officers of the University.
tion which the Council did take in the matter that that body
could not possibly have authorized any such reply as that
which according to Dr. Wang Chung-hui was sent to Edinburgh.
Paragraph 4 of Statute 8 of the University Ordânance which
places the right of appointment in the hands of the Council,
contains a proviso to the effect that no appointment shall
be made by the Council without due consideration of the
claims of any candidate who may be recommended by the
Senate. There is evidence that the Senate was at the
time a little inclined to go beyond its statutory powers
in the matter of appointments, but there is nothing in the
file to suggest that the Senate ever communicated to
Edinburgh such a reply as is now assigned to the University
by Dr. Wang Chung-hui. If such a reply was ever communi-
cated to Edinburgh it looks as if this must have been done
by the London Committee. All I can say as regards that
is that I have before me the statement of the qualifications
etc., required in the new professor and the letter from the
Pro-Vice Chancellor to Sir Charles Addis the Chairman of
the London Committee.
Not a word is said in either of
these documenta about the exclusion of Chinese.
I must,
however, confess that the story of the incident, so far
as it can be told from the resolutions passed in the Senate
and in the Council, does suggest that the London Committee
was under the impression that a Chinese professor would not
be acceptable and that the London Committee who advertised
the post, was approached on D». C.Y. Wang's behalf, How
the Committee got that impression, if it did get it, I can
But the whole incident was most regrettable.
not say.
Dr. C.Y.Wang had excellent specialist qualifications;
Parker had none. Moreover Section 18 of the University Or-
dinance enacts that:-
"No distinction of race or nationality shall be