CO129-491 - Public Offices - 1925 — Page 331

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It is inevitable that at the start certain grants would be required for the necessary changes and additions to the plant of the institutions, but the annual maintenence should not be very great. Hongkong University would, how- ever, need larger grants especially if efficient technical courses are to be carried on there, for which the students would be prepared in the provincial colleges already mentioned. Scholarships for the home universities woul demand somewhat more.

Thus, if half a million dollars were apportioned to the institutions at work in China, another half-million to IIongkong University, and some $125,000 were used in scholarships, there would remain from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 to be devoted each year to purposes such as might be agreed upon by the Committee in which both Chinese and British opinion would find ex. pression. The suggestion to raise loans as outlined above might be adopted, or it might be decided to restrict schemes to the Annual Customs revenues, In any case there would be huge possibilities for carrying out plans of benefits to China that could not fail to produce the happiest results in the relations between the countries.

For instance, there is a widely felt desire at present that some really effective schemes for preventing the perpetual disasters due to drought or flood might be devised or carried through. Experiments have been tried which have proved of great worth in parts of Central China, The value of land has been increased 300 or 400%, and a Com- paratively small tax on the improved land has shown that it 19 possible to recover the large capital outlay within a short space of time, thus providing the means for the next reclamation scheme. China is needing the use of capital for such purposes in many quarters. The con- dition of the people, and consequently the state of all kinds of trade, would be immensely raised by a wise outlay of sums too large to be found locally in the present unsettled and impoverished state of the land. A part of the increased revenue thus made possible might be devoted to education on pure- ly Chinese lines. No keener sense of benefits received could be brought about than by the successful use of Indemnity moneys for such schemes of reclamation.

But, whether it be the completion of the Hankow-Canton Railway, the construction of roads, or the prevention of almost annual disasters, the Committee in whose charge these funds would be placed, would, or should, be free to decide when once the wishes of those most interested are made

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known, and China should be left free to organise and develop her own gigantic system of popular education without our running the risk of either squandering money or wounding national pride.

In conclusion may I state that I am urging those responsible for the disposal of those funds to consider the expenditure of this Indemnity partly. hobjects other than education, not because I believe in education the less, but because I am persuaded that there is grave risk at the present time of sadly wanting money if Great Britain is to follow slavishly the line marked out by other Powers, and devotes all these millions to the one purpose, By such a course as 1 venture to recommend in this letter I believe that the protion of education will be the more real and lasting, and that at the same time our own country will best evince her undoubted friendliness to China, and evoke an answering goodwill in years to come.

I am, Sir,

Yours truly,

(Signed) S. LAVINGTON HART,

Principal, Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College.

Tien, China,, December 19th, 1924.