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conscquence, the provision of really competent teaching of English in the schools of China. The University hopes for help from the Colonial Development and welfare Fund towards the initial cost of building and equipping a modestly conceived Institute of Teaching and from the British Council toward its staffing.
ART. From its establishment in 1912 the University has striven against pressure directed to confining it to utilitarian functions. The claims of the professional departments have been insist. nt, and in the main justified also. Nevertheless it has always been remembered that, for example, the University has the only considerable library in the Colony and within the narrow limits of its resources, funds have been allocated with this fact in mind now. Mr. Henry Young, a Chinese gentleman domiciled in Hong Kong offere to ivo to the University a magnificent collection of Chinos bronzes, pictures and ceramics. Copies of a letter that I wrote to Mr. Adams have been circulated to members of the Council. The major condition of the offer is that a place should be built where the objects may be safeguarded, preserved and properly shown. The present position is that on export from the British Muscum has gone to make a preliminary report which is awaited in Hong Kong with the keenest Anticipation. If the expert judgment supports our opinion of the genuincss of the se things, there should be no difficulty in getting funds for the building. The value of the collection is at present incalculable.
FINANCES. It has already been reported to the Council that H.M. Treasury has mudo a grant of £250,000 to the University. The manner in which the grant is to be used is ut present under discussion with the Colonial Office. The University proposes to use the money in drawings of capital and interest in equal annual amounts over fifteen years.
The like sum was given to the University by the Government of Hong Kong for the repair of war damage.
The actual cost of reconstruction will probably cxcrcd this amount. The Government has also increased its annual grant from the $350,000 (£22,000) paid in 1939 to $1 million (895,000). Fes have already once been increased and from October a second increase is to bc modo to lift them to twice the 1940 lovel. If costs continuc at their present level a further increase cannot lone bo defcrred.
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The grant made by H.M.Treasury has been interpreted as recongnition of what the Colony has done since 1912 to help itself in the provision of higher education. The Government of the Colony and the University have cxpressed the hope that evidence of self-help should predispose the Colonial Universitics Grants Committee to sympathetic consideration of the University's modest development projects.
I should like to ond where I began, To hold in arrest the modest programmc of development towards which the University already has begun to move would be regarded in Hong Kong as a political blunder. We ought not to allow anybody to doubt our ability or our intention to hold the Colony until our self-imposed obligations are fulfilled.
(Dgd.) D.J.Sloss.
20.7.49.