7.
British prestige.
Imperial prestige.
Colonial resources limited.
Acentres
6 forestige by recreating confidence in the quality
of
le
10. The Committee feels so strongly on this point that it would ask for the fullest consideration of the issue. The University was destroyed as part of an enemy attack on British cultured prestige in the Far East. It believes that the question of the refounding of the University is inextricably involved in the greater issue of the maintenance of British Ferstige as a whole in the Far East. Is the University's oandie-light to enlighten the struggles for a renascent East Asia, or are we to leave light and effort to more confident and vigourous powers, or have we decided that forces in the Far Last have so developed that the evolution of politics side by side with which we can live in amity and security is now mechanically determined? The Committee believes that in tha region of politics, economics and in culture generally, the British people have valuable contributions to make and that Chinese contact with a really representative University in Hong Kong where alone in the Far East such a University could develop, would have a value for the Chinese at least as great as any institution that friends of China have hitherto established in that country. Commerce in ideas and points of view, the personal relations achieved by way of interchange of teachers and students, faith in the foundation of our way of life and a power to see the good in another way: these are the materials out of which will be forged by time the bonds of enduring friendliness,
11. If the University now died or languished for lack of Imperial sid the conclusion to be drawn would surely be not only that Great Britain but that the Empire was exhausted by the late long struggle and content to leave the future, at leust in this region, to be moulded by the thoughts and efforts of others. In a minor way, therefore, the future of Hong Kong is a challenge also to the Dominions and the loss of British prestige would touch them also.
12. It is manifestly impossible for the Goverment of Hong Kong to maintain on the frontiers of Asia & University able to Leet the inevitable demand of such a situation. The Colony consists of little beyond the mainly Chinese city of Victoria. It has suffered great material loss from bombing and fires. The rehabilitation of its people, its harbours, the factories and communications, necessary, if it is to regain its place in one of the great of commerce, will tax its
resources. If in addition, it 'can he re-establish its own education system, it is as much as it can be reasonably expected to do in the way of restoring/British government. It would be utterly unreasonable to expect it to face the cost of developing at this time, a great British University for the benefit of China. If it continues the measure of support it hitherto has been able to give, no more should be expected.
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