CO129-507-1 Proposal to dispose of Boxer Indemnity funds- claim by Hong Kong university 21-12-1927 - 24-7-1928 — Page 152

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present anarchy in China may well continue for many years to

come. Indeed it is difficult at the moment to see what can

end it, save utter war-weariness and complete exhaustion.

But against this possible solution one has to set the fact

that China is a vast country and that the number of political

"Generals" seems almost unlimited. Meanwhile, unless

something is done, the University of Hong Kong, the only

British University in the Far East, and the one institution of higher learning where the sons and daughters of self-

respecting Chinese can be educated in peace and security and

upon sane and sound principles, will be either crippled or

moribund. No institution can stand still, least of all a

University. I need not remind you of the extreme difficulty which you are now experiencing in the recruitment of cadets and of educational officers for the Hong Kong Civil Service. The Hong Kong University will have for some time yet to recruit the greater part of its staff in England. But this

recruitment, which has never been easy, is rapidly becoming impossible. Why should young men of promise come out to a University in the Far East, which is merely struggling to maintain an uncertain and unsatisfactory existence? If His Majesty's Government will but decide that the University of Hong Kong is an institution with which, in the interests of British influence and British trade in the Far East, the British Empire cannot afford to dispense, and will take this opportunity of helping the institution as such, the whole outlook of the University would change.

10.

Payment to the University of the suggested contribution from the Indemnity money, which has already been collected and is now lying idle in the Hong Kong and

Shanghai