CO129-591-3 Education Department- revised grant code 24-10-1945 - 11-12-1945 — Page 92

Central Executive Branch,

Civil Affairs,

Post Office Building,

Hong Kong,

24th October, 1945.

Pilo

Ref: 9-B/42.

C.W.M. Cox, Esq., C.M.G.

Education Adviser,

Colonial Office,

Palace Chambers,

Bridgo Street,

My dear Cox,

LONDON, S.W.1.

I have been so busy during the past three weeks that I have been unable to implement my first Situation Report to you.

Before going on to that subject, however, I should like to make certain that the new Grant Code for Hong Kong has not reached the Colonial Office through official channels. I certainly looked for it in every possible Department while I was in London but could find no trace of it. Two of the Heads of the grant schools have fortunately preserved copies of it and the Rev. Frank Short, Hoadmaster of Ying Wah School, who was a member of the drafting committee, which drew up the Code, is fortunately still in the Colony. He has asked me if you would be so kind as to get in touch with Dr. A.M. Chirguin of the London Missionary Society, 42 Broadway, London, with a view to obtaining staff for the two Ying Wah Schools.

With regard to staff for the grant aided schools, I had already put up to the Eastern Department, through Miss Ruston, the suggestion that in the present unusual circumstances, the Colonial Office should guarantee the passages of the staff required by the grant schools for immediate replacements. At the same time, I sent a cable through the War Office to Sedgwick of the Planning Unit, asking him to get in touch with Bishop Hall and the Rev. Father MacMahon for the immediate recruitment of six teachers each for the Protestant and Catholic schools; and also that my suggestion that Government should pay their passages should be taken up. The two Ying Wah schools do not come into either of these categories as they are run by the London Missionary Society. For this reason, I have passed on to you the Rov. Short's message.

With regard to passages, I find that in Paragraph 22 of the new Grant Code, the following rule is laid down:

"The expenditure may include provision for the cost of "second class passages for European teachers on first appointmont, "on taking approved leave, and on retirement. Similar passages