CO129-567-12 Hong Kong University 24-1-1938 - 24-1-1938 — Page 223

248

•

immediate publication.

2 -

Inspection by the General Medical Council

has obviously been very useful.

In Engineering there has been, I think, great waste. Teaching for degrees in Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engin- eering was undertaken, the idea being that graduates would find work in China. In fact, many of our Civil Engineering graduates are so employed, but for mechanical and electrical engineering there have been few candidates and there is very little employment. China wants, for engine rooms and electrical generating stations, hosts of good mechanics and technically well trained subordinates, but there is very little demand for graduates in those branches of engineering. In Rangoon we discovered that we could find employment for 5 to 8 Civil Engineering graduates a year, but for not more than one graduate in mechanical and electrical engineering in two or three years; and therefore we found it cheaper to send mechanical and electrical men to England for training. I am convinced after my enquiries in the last two months that the condition here is not widely different. South China from the engineers' point of view is in the pioneer, not the industrial stage, and we cannot, with our very limited resources, afford to ignore this. With extended industrial development the position will be greatly altered, but that is not yet. I therefore find myself completely in agreement with the Committee's recommendation, though I think the cure is, perhaps, not quite what they prescribe.

•

I have discovered, as the Committee did not, a thoroughly unsatisfactory state in our ordinary science departments In Mathematics, almost nothing is done beyond matters preliminary to Engineering, in Chemistry and Physics almost nothing is done beyond pre-medical work. Not one of these Departments does or pretends to do any advanced teaching nor can any one of them show the beginnings of research. Indeed, in no circum-

tances that I can envisage is there the slightest hope of any one of these Departments doing any research, though men in them are clamorous of "study leave". To the clamour I turn a deaf ear.

I'm all in favour of generous study leave provision, but only for men who have proved their good faith.

English is well done in a conservative way, Chinese is really only beginning but we have a good keen staff and there