186
HONG KONG UNIVERSITY ADVISORY COMMITTLE
Confidential
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE FOURTH MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE HELD IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM AT THE COLONIAL OFFICE, DOVER HOUSE ON MONDAY, MARCH 11TH 1946 AT 2.30 p.m.
Present:.
Mr. C. Cox (in the Chair)
Mr. Walter Adams
Mr. E. Burney
Mrs. L. Forster
Professor W. J. Hinton
Dr. Kauntze
Sir George Moss
Professor 1. M. Penson
Sir Humphrey Prideau-Bruns Mr. D. J. Sloss
Mr. N. L.
Smith
Miss A. M. Ruston
Brigadier D. M. MacDougall, Chief Civil Affairs Officer of the Military Administration in Hong Kong was present during the earlier part of the meeting.
Apologies for absence were received from Dr. Channon,
Sir Herbert Eason, Mr. A. Morse, Dr. Priestley and Dr. Venn.
1.
2.
The draft minutes of the last meeting we re approved.
Mr. Sloss reported that a telegram had been sent to Hong Kong asking for plans of the site of the University if they oould be found.
Mr. Sloss also reported that Professor Redmond had been unable to get a passage from Ireland but would appear at the next meeting of the Committee to discuss the case for or against the retention of the Faculty of Engineering.
4.
The Chairman invited Brigadier MacDougall to speak about opinion in long Kong on the re-opening of the University
Brigadier MacDougall said that he wished to plead for the earliest possible re-opening and that in this he expressed the views also of the Commander in Chief and the Governor,
Sir Mark Young. It was partly a matter of prestige and partly to arrest the drift of Hong Kong students to universities in China. Even if it meant a certain improvisation, he thought that an attempt should be made to open the University in the Autumn of this year. Many of th. Chiness universities in what had been Occupied China were already open.
Mr. Cox suggested that as sccondary schools in Hong Kong had been closed during the occupation, the number of suitable entrants for the University would be small.
Brigadier MacDougall agreed but said that there were a number of Hong Kong students who had attended schools in Free China.
*
Mr. Sloss thought that it was probable that very few of these could be ready for university studies.
/Sir George Moss