CO129-593-6 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee papers 1-1-1939 - 31-12-1946 — Page 107

107

2

Item 5. Telegram to Sloss from Admiral Harcourt

in charge of the Military Administration of Hong Kong). This telegram came in a day or two ago and will have been circulated to the Committee. Copies of it are not yet available for me to send you, but what it says roughly is that it is most important to start up the University again this October, that Sloss is pleased to get ahead at once with ordering equipment and recruiting staff, that they want to get ahead with repairing the buildings locally, and that as soon as these measures have been set in train at this end Sloss is needed out there without delay.

This is not a little disconcerting, in view of the second of the conclusions that we came to at our first meeting, namely that on the incomplete but sufficient evidence available to us it was clear that it would not be feasible to start up the University again during 1946 except as a shoddy makeshift which should be avoided. Clearly this has to be re-examined. I hope that in the next day of two Sloss or Miss Ruston, who are both reflecting on the matter, will have a chance of discussing it either with Gent, in view of his long past connection and continuing personal interest in all this, or the present head of the Eastern Department or both, and will write to you further. What follows in this note are my own first and admittedly tentative reactions, after

quick discussion with Sloss and Miss Ruson.

Sloss' view is that the propulsion behind the Admiral comes primarily from Dr. Gordon King, the Dean of the Medical Faculty whose escape from internment Sloss has told us about and more than one of whose letters have been circulated to the Committee, to whom Miss Ruston and I would add our friend Ro.ell, who is as keen to get on with renewing the supply of fully educated and trained teachers as Gordon King is about the doctors. Rowell also, in my absence on tour, played a large part in drawing up the Report of the Office Advisory Committee in 1943 which has been circulated as H.K.U.A.C. 2 in which the immediate starting up of priority university activities was envisaged, at a time when Sloss was still in internment and the question had not yet arisen of not starting up the University as such again until a decision had been taken on the larger issue of returning to the Lugard ideal. There is presumably a good deal of local Chinese support too by now - there is much pressure also in Singapore and Malaya generally for the starting up again of higher educational facilities in Malaya

for obvious and natural reasons.

h

As I see it the difficulties about acceding to the Admiral's request right away are broadly these:-

(a) Sloss' own position. He says he has decided not to go back, and certainly not to go back in order to preside over the starting up of the limited University that he knew so well before the war. This would not be insuperable to getting something going in October, as they could no doubt get on under Gordon King or somebody as pro Vice-Chancellor, pending a clearing of the issucs. (I needn't say I very much hope Sloss will be persuaded not to take any irrevocable long range decision about his own future until a r: ther later stage).

(b) Supply of qualified students. It seemed to us last time that there would not be enough, owing to the suspension of the secondary schools during the

/War