52
JTAK-DA
53
.12UON THEMKREVOD
Junofficial opinion/
.OM
(one a Chinese member of Legislative Council) and the motion
was then carried by 39 votes to 2, Professor Brown abstaining.
TIM The four other Professors present (several are absent from the Colony) all voted for the immediate appointment.
6.
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None of the other signatories of the Report spoke to the motion and in summing up I was careful to represent myself as Pro-Chancellor and not as Chairman of the Committee in question.
7. It would not, however, be right if I failed to inform
you of the very grave situation that now confronts the University. ABİT BA Mr. Morse, who signed the Report, is the Chiefï[t
Accountant of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and one of the busiest men in. the Colony. At great personal inconvenience he accepted the Honorary Treasurership of the University over a year ago and later a place on the 1937 Committee. VI
1q 9. Mr. Masson, who also signed the Report, is head of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, the firm which endowed the Taikoo Chair and which has from the outset been one of the chief supporters of the University. He is an Oxford graduate and one of the ablest
Toy fɔi :-
of the Colony's younger generation,
+han 10%- If the Report is side-tracked these two will almost certainly resign from the Court and the Council of the University. What would be the reactions of the Bank itself in the matter af the "University's heavy overdraft I am unable to foretell but I cannot
but fear that these resignations would be followed by those bf all or most of the European unofficial members of these bodies.
it 11.
The third signatory, Hon. Sir Shou-son Chow, is not in the Colony at present. -The Chinese community has Tor years, as you are aware, been rather less than lukewarm where the University is concerned. Sir Shou-Bon's resignation from Court and Council might be followed by others of his race, which would leave matters
...
in this respect no better (as was to be hoped) even if no worse.
12. But the true gravity of the situation will, if the gloomy
forebodings of the preceding paragraphs have any substance, be
revealed when the subsidy from the taxpayers of the Colony comes
for consideration two months hence. The second paragraph of the
Committee's Report drops a sufficiently broad hint on this subject,
but I did not personally expect that things would move so fast
as to bring this into prominence for at least a year from now.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee that it may well be
necessary, if I am any judge of public opinion, to use the official
majority in this respect, a course which I think you will agree is
to be deplored.
13. I have tried to remain impersonal in this matter as I have
frequently indicated. In view of Sir Andrew Caldecott's impending
transfer the Committee was somewhat rushed and we were sensible
of defects in our Report. I cannot however fail to be conscious
that the Colony as a whole approves the Report and, rightly or
wrongly, considers that much of the opposition evinced is based on
grounds of self-interest.
140 I think I may add that, apart from two or three malcontents,
the teaching staff of the University agrees at least that the
enquiry in question was urgently necessary, although I cannot fore-
tell what the reactions of the Senate will be to the individual
recommendations of the Report which they have been instructed to
consider.
15.
I will not cloud the issue by raising at this stage the
question of who would be called on to pay the expenses of the
proposed visiting expert or experts. However trifling this question
may appear, it is clearly liable to be made the occasion for
ignoble dissension either in the University Court or in the Finance
Committee of legislative Council as the case may be.
I have the honour to be,
sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
N.L. Smit
باند
Officer Administering the Government.