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As to the Committee's report he felt that there would be little prospect of obtaining Treasury support if an alternative smaller and less cxpensive scheme were put forward and he thought it woull be for the Hong Kong Government to raise the question of the continued existence of the University in those circumstances.
19.
Sir Mark Young agreed that from the point of view of the Committee the right course was to appeal to His Majesty's Government for financial aid for the larger scheme and that an alternative and cheaper scheme should not be offered. He repeated, however, that he thought it would be disastrous to wind up the University and that the loss to British prestige would be immense.
20. Sir Humphrey Prils qux-Brune added that in his view close intercourse with China in educational matters would be hazardous unless the University in Hong Kong were such as to regain the respect of the Chinese.
21. The project doputing Members of the Committee to go to China for the purpose of confirming that the Chinese would welcome a reconstituted University of Hong Kong was discussed- briefly, but it was generally thought that the best time for such a visit (providing it had the approval of the Foreign Office) would be after the Committee's report had been considered by His Majesty's Government.
22. Mr. Cox then referred to two of the causes of the failure of the University in the past which the Committee had not hitherto studied. One concerned the difficulty of language and the other the higher cost of living in Hong Kong.
With regard to the question of language it was explained that the progress of Kwok Yu - the simplified colloquial Mandarin in all parts of China justified the hope that a common spoken language might soon be sufficiently wide sprend to make this a much less serious obstacle in the future. It was stated that Kwok Yu had been introduced into the curriculum of the schools in Hong Kong.
With regard to the high cost of living it was thought that the disparity between the cost of living in Hong Kong and in China might become less in the future. Nevertheless a generous provision of bursaries giving fecs and tuition and providing aided accommodation in Halls would have to be a central feature of the new scheme. This had not been taken into account in preparing the rough estimates given in the appendix to the note circulated as HKUAC 31 and it was agreed that a further estimate should be prepared taking account of such bursaries.
23. In reply to a question Sir Mark Young agreed that the abandonment of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering would not affect the prestige of the University and therefore of Hong Kong. He agreed with the proposal to establish instead a School of Architecture.
24. After Sir Mark Young had left, the Committee considered briefly the best means of drafting its report. It was agreed that this document should be as brief as possible and that detailed and erudite information should be confined to appendices.
It was thought that the historical section in the note sent to Sir Mark Young should be transferred to such an appendix and that the report itself should start off with a bold statement of the Committee's recommendations. Mr. Sloss agreed to be responsible
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