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11.
As an institution for "the maintenance of good understanding", a university does not pre judice or conflict with other forms of relationship between the two countries
In most instances, as for governmental, commercial, cultural. example the work of the British Council, it reinforces them. The Committee is obviously not competent to suggest or to evaluate other methods of contributing to "the maintenance of good understanding", but, in its opinion the development of a first-class university at Hong Kong is the most effective in the ints llectual field. A scheme of scholarships for Chinese Students to United Kingdom universities would, if intended for undergraduates, expose them to too completely an alien atmosphere before they could fully understand or profit from it. The creation of a new university under British inspiration within
The institution of China itself is politically impossible.
special chairs and departments within existing Chinese universities would not provide the same flexibility and balanced representation as a full university. Exchange professor ships, visiting lecture ships, and similar arrangements were more partial in their effect and would not achieve the continuous intimacy of a university. However valuable some of such developments might be as complementary to a university at Hong Kong they were not substitutes for it.
REASONS FOR PAST FAILURE TO SERVE THIS PURPOSE.
12. Since this chief purpose had been proclaimed as one of the original aims of the existing Hong Kong University, the Committee inquired to what extent it had served it and whether its experience lisclosed reasons for its inability to do so more completely. The university has contributed usefully to
nglo-Chinese relations; in the period 1928-38, approximately 30 per cent. of its students cams from China; the standard of its professional training, particularly of doctors, teachers of
Neverthe- English, and engineers, was highly respected in China. less the Committee, on the evidence before it, concluded that it had not succeeded in its broad purpose for three main reasons - its poverty, its isolation and competition from Chinese universities. The Committee in analysing these features of the past, tried to assess how for they would prevent the fulfilment of the broad purpose in the future.
(a) Poverty
13.
it
Without doubt the inadequate financing of the
It University was the chief cause of its weakness. Experienced a succession of financial crises, could not plan boldly for its long-term and balanced development, and With a staff over-burdened was consistently understaffed. with tcaching duties and with insufficient resources, could not become a centrs of research, worthi ly representing university standarls and attracting students
In its poverty, and scholars to it as a centre of learning. it could not provide a system of scholarships to enable stulents from China to come to Hong Kong or to meet the higher costs of living inevitably involved in its being part of a different economy. Apart from an endowment contribution in its earliest days from Canton and, for a short time, scholarships from certain Provinces of China, nearly the full burden of financial support fell on local government resources. At the instance of the British
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