2
Chinese in Hong Kong and in all parts of China.
In 1930 there was keen competition in Yunnanfu, when I myself happened to be in the city, for the scholarships to Hong Kong University which were then given jointly by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong Government. The success- ful candidates paraded the streets with placards bearing their names and a record of their achievements, and a party was given in their honour.
II. Paragraph 4 (e).
tt
"Failure of Staff to achieve close relations with Chinese.
(in China ).
Some members of the Staff failed to travel in China but most of them paid routine visits, and before the war the follow- ing members toured China and knew it well, paying visits to educational institutions on various occasions:- Professors Forster, Gordon King, Nixon, Cecil Robertson, Middleton-Smith and Ride; Messrs Fenwick, France and Clarabut and several of the short-term younger men.
Visits were made to Kwangsi and continued into Hunan by members of the Staff together with students at the invitation of the Governor, Chairman Wong, who provided transport and accommodation right through the province. A Chalet, commemorat- ing this visit, with an inscription that it was presented by the Education and Chinese Societies of the Hong Kong University to Kwangsi, stands on the river south of Kweilin. Staff and students were received and entertained with the same generous hospitality and friendship in Hunan. Similar visits were paid to Kiangsi and on many occasions to Canton and Wuchow.
Whilst a knowledge of the Chinese language is desirable and was always the aim of some members of the University Staff, ignorance of it has not been a serious bar to fairly close assoc- iation with the Chinese in China particularly in the Universities where there are few language difficulties as all the senior men, at least, in these institutions speak English.
In some Chinese Government circles, possibly among those, in particular, who have never visited Hong Kong nor seen any- thing of the work and working of the Hong Kong University, the University may have been regarded as an alien institution. But Dr Hu Shih an L.L.D. of Hong Kong and has shown considerable interest in its work, and members of the Staff who, over a period of twenty to thirty years, spent one or two vacations each year in educational circles everywhere in China have no reason to think that Hong Kong was so regarded even though it was, perhaps, only partially integrated with Chinese life, a disability under which it must, in the nature of things, to some extent, continue to labour, while it enjoys certain balancing advantages.
Chinese educationists visiting Hong Kong were always at home in our University and they enjoyed there frank and free discussion of the problems of both countries in the atmosphere of fellowship which characterises the relations of educationists, no less than of scientists, whatever their nationality.
May I say It has become the fashion to regard all Europeans in Crown Colonies as go-getters and self-seekers, and it has not been sufficiently realised that for many years now the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office and certain Europeans in China and Great Britain have not been alone in their admiration and concern for the modern movement in China. Individuals in Hong Kong,
members of the University Staff and even Government servants, have followed this movement in all its