48 Dr. D. J. Sloss
forthonal
Mr. Newsam
10-10-47 36
As Mr. Ivor Thomas did not have an opportunity of seeing Dr. Sloss, you will no doubt wish to show Mr. Rees-Williams Sir Thomas Lloyd's minute of the 25th September.
Dr. Sloss is now leaving for Hong Kong about the 20th October. He will be here for a further meeting on the Salaries Commission Report to-morrow (Wednesday) afternoon, and if
Mr. Rees-Williams wishes to see him I could make an appointment then.
I will let you have to-day or to-morrow
a note covering the University and the Salaries Commission. They are both of course very live subjects at the moment.
Mr.
Seel
.10.47.
Sir Thomas Lloyd
I have discussed with Dr. Sloss, as suggested by the Governor in his telegram of the 9th October (46) and have also spoken to Kr. Adams, the Secretary of the Inter-University Education Council about the prospect of a grant for the Hong Kong University from the C.D. & W. allocation of £61⁄2 million for higher education in the Colonies.
Dr. Sloss has already put in a bid for
a grant of £250,000 to the University from the above allocation, and I thought that this might be used to meet the restoration cost, for which the Governor has asked for a grant from U.K. funds. Mr. Adams, however, told me that it was by no means certain that his Council, some of whose members sat on the Hong Kong University Committee, would favour a grant unless the recommendation of that Committee for an enlarged University is adopted. There is a further practical difficulty that C.D. & W. money is not available for restoration work.
Following the above discussions, I went over to the Treasury yesterday afternoon to sound Mr. Pitblado and Mr. Serpell about the prospects of getting a capital grant of £250,000 from United Kingdom funds, as the Governor has asked. I thought that it was a hopeless quest, and that the Treasury would take the line that their previous view that a grant could not be made from U.K. funds in present circumstances for the enlarged University would apply also to any request for assistance from U.K. funds to re-establish the University on its 1941 level. To my surprise, however, Mr. Pitblado and Mr. Serpell both seemed to be ready to entertain the idea of some assistance from U.K. funds. One suggestion was that a loan might be made to the
Hong Kong