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CHINA REPORT
material of the utmost importance to students of Sinology. But although it is a quarter of a century since Sir Aurel Stein trans- ported them to London, the material is still not accessible to the public. Parts of the collection have indeed appeared in publica- tions issued in Japan and elsewhere, but these have only served to stimulate among scholars a greater interest which the British Museum, with its present funds, is probably unable to satisfy.
៩៩
"The cataloguing of manuscripts, particularly such early ones, all of which must be laboriously identified, takes much time and energy. Although the matter is now in the very capable hands of Dr. Lionel Giles, it is feared that single-handed it will take him quite some years to complete a systematic catalogue of such a large collection. If, as I understand it, the manuscripts will be accessible to the public only after the publication of the catalogue, it is evident that the preparation of such a catalogue is of even greater urgency than under ordinary circumstances.
The Universities' China Committee will be doing a great service to Sinologists if some funds could be appropriated to enable the British Museum to complete the catalogue in the immediate future. The National Library of Peiping will be glad to loan the services of a trained and competent cataloguer to assist in this undertaking if it should be desirable. A further service which the Committee might render is the publication of selected manuscripts from the Tun Huang collection in the British Museum. It is evident that if others have found it desirable to publish some of the manuscripts, with the generous consent of the British Museum, the large scale publication of all the more important manuscripts will be a most welcome event to the world of letters, especially to those interested in Sinology and Buddhism. Chinese scholars will particularly appreciate the availability of the old texts, which most of them cannot hope personally to study in London."
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These are suggestions which the delegation has no hesitation in warmly commending to the attention of the Committee.
Another method whereby the Committee might fulfil part of its obligation to encourage and facilitate the teaching of Chinese at the universities of the United Kingdom would be to offer an annual prize or perhaps a number of prizes-for the best essays or mono- graphs on set subjects connected with the Chinese language and literature. The competition might be open to undergraduates (possibly also to graduates of not more than three years' standing) of all the British universities. It is understood that the study of Indian problems
RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE DELEGATION
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has been fostered to no small extent in English schools and colleges by the offer of prizes of this kind, and we think that interest in China might be similarly stimulated by the offer of medals or other prizes to be competed for by young English students.
A further valuable suggestion which has been made is that some small beginnings might be made of a system of subsidising the transla- tion of approved books from English into Chinese and Chinese into English. Many books in both languages which would be of immense educational and cultural value are at present left untranslated because publishers will rarely accept the risk of producing books which, owing to their limited appeal, are unlikely to be commercially profitable. The Chairman of the delegation recently discussed some aspects of this question with the editorial authorities of the largest publishing house in China-the Commercial Press of Shanghai-and it is possible that by arrangement with this firm the Universities' China Committee might be able, without unduly straining its finances, to expedite the translation and publication of many valuable books, English and Chinese, which would otherwise remain accessible to the readers of only one of the two languages. The Committee might also, in very exceptional cases, consider the question of subsidising the publication of original works which in its opinion would perform a useful function in encouraging what is described in the First Schedule to the Act of Parliament as closer intellectual co-operation and cultural relations between the two countries.
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It may be added that the question of the financing of translation was dealt with in the Willingdon Report (see pp. 149-150), and it may be hoped that the recommendations made under this head will not escape the attention of the Board of Trustees when they are in a position to allocate funds.
Turning to the financial aspect of the recommendations made by us in this sub-section, we suggest that besides the sum of £500 to be granted, with or without conditions, to the School of Oriental Studies in London University towards the maintenance of the lecture- ship or chair of Chinese Art and Archæology, a further sum of £500 per annum be set aside for the promotion of Chinese studies in Great Britain, the grant of money or other prizes for essays on Chinese subjects by British undergraduates or others, the cataloguing and publication of the Tun Huang manuscripts and other documents in the British Museum, the translation of selected books and the occasional subsidising of original works of recognised value, and for any other purpose connected with this branch of our subject that may commend itself from time to time to the Universities' China Committee.
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