186
i
University Funds.
•
The University accounts show a total of £413,000 in long term investments. The greater part of this is made up of two gifts to the University the first of £260,000 by the British Boxer Fund Trustees, the second of (I think) £40,000 by the Rockefeller Trustees. Almost the whole of the remainder is made up of subscriptions of local firms and Chinese towards a University endowment and for special prizes. The interest on the Rockefeller fund is earmarked for three medical professorships, - in Medicine, Surgery and Gynaecology, but it is sufficient to meet only about one third of the salaries of the three professors, the remainder having to be found from the general income of the University. The income of the Boxer Fund grant is used to meet University expenditure - it is not earmarked. But both of these grants were in the way of permanent endowment and I am doubtful whether any part of these capital sums could be drawn on without special legal authority; nor do I think that the residue of the endowment, roughly £100,000 could be drawn on for the payment of salaries. considerable part was a gift from Messrs. Butterfield and Swire for expenditure in the Engineering Department.
One
I regret that I cannot deal with this matter with greater precision. So far a search for statements of accounts among the debris of University buildings has been unsuccessful.
Payments proposed to be made by way of salaries for the period January 1st 1942 to July 15th 1945.
1. 'I' have received sufficient claims for salaries for this period to make an estimate of our liability if full salaries are paid. The total for salaries of European members of the staff will be about £89,750. In addition the University will have to find a sum of about 10% of this amount to meet payments due to the Staff (Sterling) Provident Fund. In addition there are payments due to the Chinese members of the staff. The statement I have sent for has not yet reached me but I think the total will be, with provision for payments to the Dollar Provident Fund, about £18,000 for the whole period. Our obligations then are
b
•
For European salaries
"
#
Dollar salaries and) and)
Provident Fund
£ 90,000 9,000
18,000
£117,000
Provident Fund
2. We may set against this payment for war services amounting perhaps to £12,500, a rather larger total than previously had been estimated.
To meet this we are asking for the grants which would have come to the University from the Government of Hong Kong had the sum provided in 1940-41 been continued. No grant for the financial year 1941-42 was paid though a sum of $350,000 was provided in the budget for that year. We are therefore asking for the total of grants, at this rate per annum, for four years 42 months i.e. approximately H. K. $1,531,250 or £95,703.
3. The amount standing to our credit in the Hong Kong Bank is materially less than the accumulated interest of these years of our internment. Sums have been advanced to wives and dependants and for insurance payments, a total of £9,500 up to October, 1945. These, however, will be recovered from
salarias