2 Lood Ellin
17.400.
6
D. comments.
Acke $12.
This cloes not look very hopeful. Have you any
Commenti m
the fruit park?
13/7.
x
It was not intended áj a Substitute, but
haben.
chefcuntcly
u a
I have held this for discussion with Sir
Geoffry Northcote.
Sir Geoffry's antipathy to the suggestion of conferring a Rhodes scholarship on Hong Kong University had evidently hardened since his talk with Mr. Gent. He felt that the offer of such a scholar- ship, benefiting at most one Chinese per annum, would be considered so poor a substitute for the substantial help to the University for which he had hoped, and to the possibility of which, I gather, he had referred
in dealing with representatives of Chung King, that
the gift might be despised in China and harm rather
than 600 be done. As this appears to be his con-
sidered opinion, it may be as well if the attitude of the Rhodes Trustees proves to be as sticky towards the Scholarship proposal as Lord Elton's letter fore- shadows. With regard to the last paragraph in 8 I mentioned that I thought it quite possible that the Trustees, while not allocating a Rhodes Scholarship to Hong Kong, would be prepared to offer temporarily one or more post-graduate scholarship grants for Hong Kong graduates to study in this country provided war conditions pe rmitted. Sir Geoffry's objection to the Rhodes scholarship proposal naturally applied a fortiori to this alternative.
•
IT
I then suggested the possibility of inviting the Trustees to endow, even if only temporarily, or experimentally, a Chair at the Universi ty The idea was warmly received by the Governor, who thought that a Chair for five years, particularly if it could be stated to be for five years "in the first instance would be a welcome gesture as well as a source of strength and distinction to the University. I said that I had no idea whether the Trustees would con- sider such a suggestion favourably, but that I thought that it would be carefully examined, if the case were convincingly expounded on imperial grounds and the Chair allocated to a subject like ly to be con- sidered appropriate by the Trustees, such as Colonial History, and put up to the Trustees as a short-term experiment rather than as a long-range commitment. Sir Geoffry thought Colonial History very suitable, and hoped we should pursue the idea, but that before doing so we would telegraph to Hong Kong to ascertain whether such a development would be acceptable.
We might pursue this further. Lord Elton asked Mr. MacDonald last winter whether we could commend to him some project likely to appeal to the Trustees but not involving either heavy capital expen- diture or permanent commitments. The surplus revenues now at the disposal of the Trustees are de- rived from the temporary cessation of Rhodes scholar- ships during the war. Projects for scholarships to