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restricted or withheld until, say, five years after
graduation. With the same end in view it has been
urged that by some means or other more students from China proper should be induced to take the course; and, what is even more difficult, to return to China after
graduation.
43. As regards local over-crowding of the profession, we would remark that judged by European standards the ratio of practitioners to population is still quite small. The important factor is of course the adherence of a large part of the population to Chinese herbalism. Such adherence is diminishing and surely must diminish further with the increased supply of modern-trained doctors. We cannot believe that
anyone will deplore such a process.
444+0 We feel, however, that the high standard attained by the product of Hong Kong University would do more for the prestige of the Colony if larger numbers reached the Chinese educational centres, and while, to a great extent, the recruitment of medical students and their ultimate destinations should be left to the
ordinary law of supply and demand, we think that some encouragement should be given by scholarships to students from central and north China who would, we presume, return to their birth-places. Given this encouragement for a start we are assured that parents and institutions in China will in time realize that we can give value for
money.
45. We have already suggested that the whole Colony derives benefits from the academic atmosphere of the
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