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CHINA REPORT

In our tentative budget for a normal year we have allocated £500 to the sub-committee for its expenses. These expenses would include the salary of the Secretary. Provision should, we think, be made for occasional visits of the Secretary to England. Such visits-like those of the Secretary of the Universities China Committee to China— need not be frequent or at regular intervals, and should be made only when in the opinion of the Committee or of the sub-committee as the case may be it is to the interest of one or other or both that personal contact should be maintained or re-established. In our proposed budget we have assigned a sum of £500 per annum to the travelling, administrative and miscellaneous expenses of the Secretariat of the Universities' China Committee, and it is out of this fund that the cost of the proposed occasional visits to China and England should be defrayed. We have allocated this sum to the Secretariat of the Com- mittee because we consider that it should be under the Committee's exclusive control and that no part of it should be at the disposal of the sub-committee for travelling or any other expenses except with the approval and under the authority of the Committee at home. If, however, it is found by experience that the £500 per annum payable to the sub-committee for its regular expenses, including its secretary's salary, is insufficient for its needs, the other sum of £sco might be drawn upon for the purpose of making good the sub-committee's deficit.

One of several suggestions made to us was to the effect that the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture might be asked to undertake the duties with which we propose to entrust our corresponding sub-committee. It appears to us that this arrange- ment might prove embarrassing or unworkable in practice, and we therefore do not endorse it; but as we have been assured by members of the China Foundation that they would gladly co-operate with us in every possible way, we strongly recommend that our sub-committee should be directed to avail themselves of this offer and should not hesitate to apply to the Foundation for advice and help when occasion arises. If, as suggested above, some of the members of the sub- committee are selected from persons who are themselves trustees or officers of the Foundation, co-operation should be greatly facilitated.

Just before we left China on our homeward journey a suggestion was received from the Secretary of the Universities' China Committee to the effect that either the Chinese Government Reconstruction Council or the Academia Sinica (Nanking) might be appointed corresponding committee to the Committee at home. This proposal apparently

RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE DELEGATION

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emanated from M. Henri Bonnet, Director of the Institute of Intel- lectual Co-operation, who thought that the Academia Sinica would form a satisfactory corresponding committee both for the Universities' China Committee and for his own Institute, and that whether the Reconstruction Council was selected as our corresponding committee or not it should be kept informed of the

of our educational progress activities in China. While adhering to our own view that our corresponding sub-committee should have its headquarters at Peiping and be composed mainly of residents in or near that city, we agree that it should avail itself of every opportunity of consulting and co-oper- ating with both the Academia Sinica and the Reconstruction Council.

The relations between the sub-committee and the Board of Trustees will have to be carefully thought out. It was proposed by an influential member of the banking community in China that the sub-committee should be jointly appointed by the Board of Trustees and the Universities' China Committee, but such an arrangement would present obvious difficulties. It seems clear that the Universities' China Committee should have in China an advisory body which will be in direct subordination to itself. Complications would inevitably arise if the sub-committee had to take its instructions from two bodies, one in China and one in England.

A reference to our observations in Section II. of this Report will show why we feel unable to recommend that the corresponding committee should be the Board of Trustees itself, in spite of the fact that an arrangement of this kind might seem at first sight to be both convenient and economical, and also in spite of the injunction laid upon us in the second of our terms of reference to consult with the Board of Trustees with a view to ensuring effective co-operation between the Board and the Committee. We would gladly have recommended that the Board should be the Committee's corresponding committee in China had we felt justified in doing so, if only because such an arrangement would have tended to strengthen the hands of the Board, to increase its influence and prestige, and to emphasise its position as an educational body. Existing conditions seem to necessi- tate the appointment of a body other than the Board of Trustees to represent and co-operate with the Universities' China Committee, but we think that every effort should be made to create and maintain cordial relations between the Board and the Committee and also between the Board and the proposed sub-committee.

We do not think it at all likely that the Board of Trustees as at present constituted and functioning will raise objections to the appoint- ment of a sub-committee not subject to its control. The fact that

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