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endowment. The authorities of the territories from which nearly two-thirds of its students came contributed no grants for its support. It is clearly wrong to attempt to achieve an Imperial purpose and leave the full financial responsibility to one small Colony. If the University is to serve as an instrument for mutual understanding between the British and Chinese peoples, the major part of the financial responsibility should properly fall on Imperial funds. The Colonial Government cannot afford, nor can it appro- priately be asked to do more than hitherto has been done. A university fulfilling the broad purpose we envisage would be serving the interests of the Commonwealth and not merely the United Kingdom. We hope there- fore that consideration may in due course be given to the possibility of enlisting financial help from the Dominions as well as from Great Britain.
(b) Isolation.
21. The University suffered from isolation in various ways.
(i) Chinese nationalist feeling reached full tide at the time of the Second Revolution ", i.e. the collapse of the reactionary
"war-lords and the establishment of the new central regime in Nanking under the auspices of the Kuomintang. It was, in essence, an inevitable movement of resurgence against the accumulated humiliations and restrictions which had marked China's international relations in the preceding era.
The establishment of the Nanking regime was in itself the first step towards more normal conditions, and the process received an immediate and momentous encouragement in His Majesty's Government's declaration, in December, 1926, of confidence in and sympathy with the new regime and the national aspirations it expressed. Since then the anomalies associated with the unequal treaties have been gradually cleared away.
We would not venture to prophesy how Chinese feeling towards us and other countries may develop during the remainder of this fateful century, but at least it can be said that the stage is set for collaboration on terms of equality and reciprocity, and it follows that an opportunity now exists which never existed in anything like the same measure in the past, of which it behoves the Chinese and ourselves to take full advantage, as equal and essentially like-minded members of the family of nations. No one could guarantee that the Chinese sentiment towards a revived Univer- sity in Hong Kong would remain uniformly friendly and cooperative and undisturbed by any fitful feeling of jealousy or by the influence of extraneous events. But there is, so far as we can discern, no special reason for pessimism on this score. It would, naturally, depend largely on the broad conception of the project, the manner in which it was launched, and the way in which it fitted into the general pattern of our relations with China.
(ii) Situated in a Cantonese speaking area, the University was at a disadvantage in attracting Mandarin speaking students from other parts of China and its graduates were at a disadvantage on language grounds in seeking employment in China. This disability will be greatly reduced by the recent decision of the Hong Kong Government to encourage in its schools the study of the national language (Kwo Yü) 'which the Govern- ment of China is successfully disseminating.
(iii) Moreover, like institutions of higher education in other Colonies, the University suffered from intellectual isolation. Its poverty prevented it from adopting an adequate system of home leave or sabbatical leave for its staff; it could not afford, financially or in terms of staff, to facilitate frequent study leave in China, visiting lectureships, summer schools, and those other forms of intellectual intercourse which would have kept it
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continuously refreshed by vigorous contact with both British and Chinese academic developments. The proper financing of the University would remove many of these difficulties. Other developments also will con- tribute to their removal, such as the recommendations of the Asquith Com- mission for staff secondment, annual visits, improved conditions of service for staff, etc., with which the Inter-University Council for Higher Educa- tion in the Colonies is concerned. The impending reorganization of the Universities Bureau of the British Empire will also assist in reducing this isolation and will facilitate interchange of staff and ideas with the Empire universities.
(c) Competition.
22. When the University was founded in 1911 there were few universities in China. The past thirty years have seen the growth of numerous Chinese universities, a few of which have achieved standards which make them rank as equals with those of the United Kingdom. This development has meant not only the diversion of many students who might otherwise have proceeded to Hong Kong, but also that Hong Kong University was rapidly out- distanced in equipment and resources. We consider that far from prevent- ing a reconstituted University from achieving its aim, this factor could in the future greatly assist it in doing so. There is now a manifold and energetic academic life in China with which a British university could make contact. The opportunities for exchange, for common study, for cooperation in research, create now the conditions in which " the maintenance of good understanding" on a university level is fruitfully possible. It is, however, an absolute requirement that the University of Hong Kong should in quality and standards be able to meet its sister universities in China at least as an equal.
POLICY GOVERNING THE UNIVERSITY'S RESUSCITATION
23. We recommend, therefore, that a University should continue to exist in Hong Kong primarily as a centre for Sino-British contact in the sphere of learning and for the maintenance of good understanding with the neighbouring country of China. We have the following six comments or recommendations to add on further general aspects of the policy which should govern the resuscitation of the University on these lines. Detailed and technical points are dealt with in Part III.
(a) Permanencé
24. In the first place, plans must be for a permanent University. Even if, in the immediate emergency, temporary arrangements have to be adopted for buildings, for equipment, even for staffing, these must be regarded merely as first-aid measures and must not be allowed to prejudice, or to serve as an excuse for postponing, permanent plans. Quite apart from the fact that the cheap and the temporary always prove a false economy in university development, a university in Hong Kong could not recruit staff or in other ways attain the standards necessary to represent British scholarship and could not become a centre of learning unless it had the self-confidence provided by the intention and assurance of permanence. The chief purpose it is designed to serve, namely the maintenance of good understanding, is a permanent one, whatever changes may occur in the ephemeral political scene. It should be constructed and planned to survive any change that might take place in the status of Hong Kong; even if a radical change occurred, the University's-functions would become- mere, not less important as a living source of British influence and as an estab lished centre of Sino-British-contact. Two practical consequences follow
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A 5