CO129-538-1 Hong Kong University 31-12-1931 - 6-8-1932 — Page 205

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At first sight all the essentials of the latter appear to be

We find references adequately safeguarded or preserved intact.

to the creation of an endowment fund, to the choice of railways

for

as the best field investment, and to the establishment of a

Board of Trustees which is to handle the income of the endow-

ment in accordance with the general views set forth in the

Willingdon Report. The definite allocation of £265,000 to the

University of Hong Kong and of £200,000 to the Universities

China Committee in London is something new, but by no means out

of harmony with the principles of the Report, which indeed speci-

fically included the University of Hong Kong

and also the pro-

motion of Chinese studies in Great M Britain among those

institutions and activities which deserved recognition and BSEBS

support.

But a more careful scrutiny of the agreement

reveals departures of a very serious kind from the principles

accepted by the Advisory Committee and its delegation and by

His Majesty's Government in 1926. There is to be a Board of

Trustees, but its powers and functions are not clearly defined

and in any case it is relegated to a position altogether infer-

ior to that of an entirely new body called a Purchasing Commis-

sion. The exact relationship between the Board and the Commis-

sion is left very much in doubt. It wo ld almost appear that

the Board was not taken seriously by those who were engaged in

drawing up the agreement embodied in the Exchange of Notes.

We

have indeed strong reasons for believing that the British Govern-

ment were indifferent as to whether a Board of Trustees were

created or not, and that it came into existence at the instance

of Dr C.T.Wang.

There is no mention of any part of the accumu-

lated funds being made immediately available for educational

the purposes, far less the £350,000 per annum (irrespective of ex- pected income from endowments) which forms the subject of a

special recommendation in the Report. On the contrary, the whole of the existing accumulations, and half of all future