CO129-524-2 Hong Kong University- financial position- Chinese studies- future of the Chinese school and the Annual... 27-1-1930 - 12-8-1930 — Page 111

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University of Hong Kong, and by myself, as Chancellor

of the University, at the Annual Congregation on the

13th of this month. You will notice that Sir Henry

Gollan drew attention to the fact that a donation of

$60,000 was made last year by Mr. Tang Chi-ngong for

the provision of a building for the School of Chinese

Studies, and that it has not yet been utilized, owing

to the uncertainty as to whether the funds requisite

for maintaining the school as a permanent institution

will be forthcoming or not. A further sum of

$200,000 was collected last year by the local Chinese

community for the endowment of this school; but the

interest on this sum only amounts to about $14,000 a year, while the ultimate annual cost of the School is estimated to be $60,000 a year. At present the

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balance is being provided by the Hong Kong Government from year to year as a provisional and temporary measure; but the Finance Committee of the University holds a very strong opinion that it would not be businesslike to proceed with the building scheme on this precarious basis, to say nothing of the injustice that would be done if the school had to be closed before any student had completed the prescribed four years of the course.

3. My own view, as I told the Congregation, is that nothing could do more to enhance the security, the welfare and the dignity of this Colony, and to strengthen British prestige in China, than that the University of Hong Kong should become, during the course of the twentieth century, a famous seat of Chinese learning, to which men throughout the eighteen

provinces