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UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
TEMPORARY OFFICE AT LONDON
COMMAND SCHOOL OF EDUCATION,
313 WOODSTOCK ROAD,
OXFORD.
26th November, 1946.
Dear Miss Ruston,
Cox has told me of the proposal in the Scarborough Report for a British Institute in Peking. This is an old project that most of us would like to see effected. Some of us were conscious when we made proposals for the reconstituting of the University of Hong Kong, not that this proposal would appear in the Scarborough Report but that, having often been made, it was likely to be made again, because there is so much to be said for it. But I have never felt that it conflicted with our proposals for Hong Kong, but that, the impact, in terms of benefit to Briti sh standing in the Far East, was propulsive.
China is vast in area and population. Peking is more than 1200 miles from Hong Kong. In the nature of things the influence of a British Institute planted there (an admirable place in an aesthetic and perhaps from an historical judgment, though Nanking might be judged more appropriate by people concerned with political considerations) would have little influence in the South for it should be remembered that speech and ethnic differences divide China into easily distinguishable sectors. A British Institute in Peking or Nanking would be valuable; but so would a similar Institute in Hong Kong, having its appeal to the enormous population of the country south of the Yangtse. Two such institutes would not compete.
the one would supplement the other, and it should not be forgotten that the University of Hong Kong under its two last Professors Hsu Hhi -Shan and Chen Yen Kho ( Prof. at Oxford) has made a valuable beginning of
/studies