CO129-594-2 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 1-7-1946 - 19-8-1946 — Page 131

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were perity Gudowed

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The Coloman's Government connor of fort, not can

I appropriate be asked, to do more than

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medical

The

Government the University received £260,000 out of the Boxtr Indemnity 'Fund nd pantinl -ndowment of three, chairs from the Rockefeller Foundation. These two together comprised making lmost the whole of its capital endowment. Authorities of the turritories from which nearly two-thirds of its students c mc contributed no gr. nts for its support: It is clearly wrong to attempt to achieve an Imperial purpose nd. love the full financial responsibility to one small Clony! If the University is to serve r's an instrument for mutual understanding between the. British.and Chinese peoZESIJ

the major part of the financial responsibility must fall on Imperial funds. The Colonial PSVENUES, Especially in this period of the rehabilitation of Hong Kong, are even less appropriate now than before the war as the source of support for a University which

A would only indirectly serve some of its needs. university fulfilling the broad purpose envisage by the

ommonwealth Gommittcs would be serving the interests of the and not merely the United Kingdom the Committed hope therefore that consideration in due course may be given to the possibility of enlisting financial help from the Dominions as well as from Great Britain.

(b) Isolation.

श 21745

The University suffered from isolation in various ways. (i) Chinese nationalist feeling reached full tide at the time of the "Second Revolution", i.e. the collapse of the reactionary "war-lords" and the establishment of the new central regime in Nanking under the auspices of the Kuomintang. It was, in essence, an inevitable movement of surgence against the accumulated humiliations and restrictions which had marked China's international

The establishment of the relations in the preceding cra. Nanking regime was in itself the first step towards more normal conditins, and the process received an immediate and momentous encouragement in His Majesty's Government's declaration, in December, 1926, of confidence in and sympathy with the new regime and the national aspirations it expressed. Since then the shackles in anomalies associated with the Spook the "unqual treaties" have been gradually cleared

-f away. We

mm10 Would not venture to prophesy how Chinese feeling towards us and other countries may develop during the remainder of this fateful contury, but at least it can be said that the stage is set fair for collaboration on terms of equality and reciprocity, and it follows that an opportunity now exists which never existed in anything like the same measure in the past, of which it behoves the Chinese and ourselves to take full advantage, as equal and essentially like-minded members of the family of nations. No one could guarantee that the Chinese sentiment towards a revived University in Hong Kong would remain uniformly friendly and cooperative and undisturbed by any fitful feeling of jealousy or the influence of extraneous events. But there is, so far as we can discern, no special reason for pessimism on this score. It would, naturally, depend largely on the broad conception of the project, the manner in which it was launched, and the way in which it fitted into the general pattern of our relations with China.

the Garver t (ii) Situated in a Cantonese speaking area, it was at a disadvantage in attracting Mandarin speaking students from

/other

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