CO129-594-1 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 29-3-1946 - 3-7-1946 — Page 209

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help, except in the provision of a site, was trifling. Clearly the University was established with no

understanding of what modern University work is bound to cost. A few endowments were accumulated. The Rockefeller Trustees gave a partial endowment of chairs and Surgery, Medicine and Gynaeology; Messrs. John Swire and Company or Engineering

equipment, and a sum of £265,000 was assigned to the University from the British share of the Chinese Boxer Indemnity Funds to be a permanent endowment for general purposes. Local funds were invested for high interest in local and Shanghai mortgages. Recent happenings in Shanghai have permanently reduced the possessions of the University. Scholarships pro- vided out of the funds of various Chinese Provincial Government gradually declined until only one remained (Statement of the University's finances is in appendix).

9.

The

In 1937 the Governor, as Chancellor of the University, set up a Committee of the University Court with Mr. N.L. Smith as Chairman, to survey the affairs of the University. It was obvious that as an instrument of British Policy towards China the University was achieving little and as an institution of Hong Kong education it was too costly. The Committee made useful proposals of economies but strongly supported the view that the University must maintain more than a merely local reference. present Committee is, in fact,a consequence of the 1937 Committee. Mr. A. Morse, a member of the Committee became Treasurer of the University and made major reforms in University finance which convinced the Government of the reasonableness of raising its annual grant to the University from Hong Kong dollars 100,000 to 350,000 (1.e. from £6250 to £21,875). In 1939 Sir Geoffrey Northcote, the Governor, set up another Committee of the University Court to consider what could be done within the limits of the funds available, to widen and extend the University's activities, not only for the benefit of Hong Kong, but in the interests of friendly relation with China. This Committee's Report of which a summary is in H.K.U.A.C. No.22) was accepted by the Governor and sent with his strong support to the Secretary of State. The Committee had realised that even the very modest pro- posals for development that it ventured to make would cost far more than was a fair charge on Colonial resources and that if the political function of the University was regarded as of importance, it was essential that His Majesty's Government should help both by way of an initial grant for development and of annual grants for maintenance.

10.

The Vice-Chancellor was deputed to visit London in the University vacation of 1939. The Colonial office was disposed to support the schemes of development and aided very materially in gaining the good will of the Foreign Office.

The outbreak of war put an end to conversations, but the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a letter to the Governor of Hong Kong dated November 9th, 1939, gave his approval to the scheme of development, suggested that a beginning should be made towards its achieving, and quoted the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Halifax, as sharing his view that "the University was a valuable instrument for propagating British ideals and spreading British influence in China, and that it should be given all the support and assistance possible in increasing its influence in those respects".

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