CO129-507-1 Proposal to dispose of Boxer Indemnity funds- claim by Hong Kong university 21-12-1927 - 24-7-1928 — Page 45

Copy.

(F 3499/6/10).

Hong Kong University.

4

Last week a meeting was held at the Colonial

Office to consider the claims of the Hong Kong University

to a share in the Boxer Indemnity and the representatives of

the University inform me that a letter from Sir A. Chamberlain

to Mr. Amery was read in which the former quoted a story

which I had told him to the effect that in 1913 the Governor

of Nanking said that he would not send Chinese students as

Government scholars to Hong Kong because they might be pushed

off the pavement by Europeans. The quotation is correct,

but the Governor's remark may be misunderstood, for I was told

that in the same letter Sir A.Chamberlain asked how many

Chinese students there were in the University and seemed to

think that they were in danger of being illtreated by the

non-Chinese students.

In 1913, as now, the University of Hong Kong was

essentially a University for Chinese, other students hardly

amounting to 10% and there was no danger of Chinese students

meeting with anything but kind and sympathetic treatment

from all Europeans in the University itself or in the

extensive grounds and playing fields or in its neighbourhood.

But all that time (and for many years later) Europeans did

not behave well to Chinese in Shanghai, Hong Kong etc. and

refused to mix with them socially as equals. They were

treated as coloured persons are (or at least were 30 years

ago) treated in the Southern States of America. Except at

Government House and in the residences of people connected

with Education, no Chinese, even wealthy men who had been

educated/