35.
Mr.Scott said that the Foreign Office
them
request for payment was made in accordance with the Foreign Office policy of regarding such payments as advances to be recovered whenever possible. He appreciated that there was practically no likelihood of recovering from the students or from families but said that it had been suggested in our letter of 18th March (No,24) that some of the University money might be brent towards the subsistence of Hong Kong students at Chinese Universities.
Mr.Morse said that he had no knowledge then of the extent to which allowances were being made and he had in mind when he spoke of assistance from University funds, the possible provision of further aid to Chinese Universities providing accommodation for ex-Hong Kong students. In fact the grant
of £1,000 each made to two Universities had been extended to three others making a payment of £5,000 in all and £75 had been paid to the Alumni Association. Mr.Morse declared that he would not meet any item which he could not fully justify to his clients and that he was certain that he could not so justify payment of the amount demanded by the Foreign Office at (64).
It was stressed for the Colonial Office that the expenses mentioned in Foreign Office letter (64) had been incurred on account of and approved by Foreign Office without reference to the C.0. and that the latter Department had no liability for the students or the University and could accept no such liability as a third party. Previously, during times of emergency extraordinary expenditure could be justified but at this stage it would be difficult to justify such expenditure.
Mr.Scott was inclined to agree with the contention regarding emergency expenditure but asked if the C.0. could not mark the end of the emergency stage by authorizing contributions from Hong Kong University funds towards the establishment of a medical faculty at Kukong (71) and the enlargement of the students' social service centre at Pingshek (75). It was the opinion of the majority, however,
that