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 109

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politically to terminate the university so soon after it had been re-opened. In that case the upshot would have been just what gloss is anxious to avoid, namely events taking control and leading to the re-emergence of the struggling pre-war university which is neither one thing nor the other, too big and too expensive for the Colony and too small and second-rate for China, and incidentally it would then constitute one more call on our limited £4,500,000 Colonial university allocation under the C.D. . Act.

This whole short range issue varits further thought and discussion in the light of the Admiral's telegram, Berhaps the solution to part of the problem analysed above might be the employment of temporary staff, but you are still left I think with the difficulty under (f).

Perhaps the best thing would be to suggest that Sloss should go out there in a month or six-weeks' time, when our discussions are a little further on. Such a visit might be combined with the suggested visit to China referred to under Item below.

6 below. But I have not yet got clear in my mind just what his mission would be in Hong Kong in relation to the short range problem when he got there, and if staff, equipment étc. are to be secured for October it can't be left over until after a visit, and the act of recruiting them seems to prejudge the issue he would be going out to discuss. So I have an open mind on this. gloss or Miss Ruston may write to you further about this item between now and the meeting.

A

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Item 6. The incitar "affficui tiết In Iving erréet to our first resolution at our first meeting, namely the re-establishment of the University as a first-class Institution on the lines envisaged by its founders but adapted to 1946. There was general agreement last time that having at our first meeting recorded our desire to see the University established as a first-class institution, we should at the second meeting examine systematically the main difficulties or complications in the way of carrying this out, before going on to consider what range of activities such a University ought to embrace. I hope that, in spite of distraction that is bound to be caused by the unexpected intrusion of Item 5, at least half the time at this meeting will still be available for examining these difficulties. I suggest they might be faced under four main head

heads:-

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(a) Political. Here Sir Humphrey Prideaux Brune, coming this time as a Foreign Office representative rather than a silent observer, will have a view to give. The impression I have personally formed is that the F.0. in all this Hong Kong business' has acquired a reputation for a certain timidity of outlook, and Moss has suggested in conversation that Prideaux Brune in particular, though a man with real cultural interests and sympathies, is of the cautious, dry and possibly unimaginative type. He has been a Consul and Consul-General and at the British Embassy in China and Moss told me that before now he has acted temporarily as Ambassador there though I have not confirmed this and have not an up-to-date "Who's Who" by me. But I understand that he was personally in sympathy with the Colonial Office view embodied in the note to the Far Eastern Committee of the far Cabinet (circulated to the Committee as H.K.U.A.c.3) what line Brunę will take I don't know.

The other person mainly concerned will be Sir George Moss, also a former Consul and Consul-General, who unlike Prideaux Brune has no longer any connection with

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