so
From time to time attempts were made to present a more attractive front towards China. There was a considerable development of Chinese studies, the establishment of a very excellent Chinese library, and later the appointment of an outstanding Chinese scholar as Professor of Chinese, so that from about 1930 onwards, there was the rather curious phenomenon of Hong Kong tending to be one of the centres of Chinese classical studies. All the time, too, the Medical School had been developing, and this did definitely achieve a high reputation in the Far East. But other faculties were starved. It was very late in the day before anything was done towards an adequate provision for the training of teachers; until the last years the faculty of science never provided anything more than facilities for prekiminary studies in medicine and engineering. The view was developed too as suggested in Sir Andrew Caldecott's letter, that it was no essential part of the function of the Hong Kong Government to provide cheap medical education to the Chinese of Malaya. The responsibility there lay with the Straits Government. There grew the feeling that possibly a mistake had been made; that as an institution intended to serve the needs of Hong Kong the University was pretentious and over-ambitious, and that the essential needs of the Colony could adequately be served by a small medical school, a school of engineering and a training school for teachers. Mr. Sloss concluded that the initial object of the University had ceased to be effective.
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14. Professor Hinton said it was true that in the disorders of the revolution contact with the Chinese was rather lost, but he did not think there was at first any hostile feeling. The Provincial Governments who paid for these scholarships found other uses for their money. National feeling did not come in until 1923, but from that time the situation had been as Mr. Sloss described it, and would he thought be exactly Same if we attempted to commend Britain to China through Hong Kong University and there were a violent agitation in China for the return of the Leased Territories, or of Hong Kong itself. Had we paid for those scholarships ourselves instead of relying on payment by the Provincial Governments, we could have kept our contact, could have found the number of students, and could have produced our effect on them. We had tried instead to get the Chinese people themselves to pay for spreading British ideas in China. He submitted that Britain must expect to pay for her own propagando.
15. Mr. Sloss said that in 1939-40 he had a number of interviews with the Generalissimo whose attitude was remarkably friendly, and who summed up several talks by saying: "Our peoples have achievod friendly relations during this past century and more, but those relations have been based in the main on the haggling of merchants. Is it not time for us to try to establish friendly relations based on regard each for the other's culture and civilization?" Mr. Sloss went on to say that he found precisely the same point of view in his dealings with other Chinose and his impression was that it was held by a considerable section of the younger official class in the Central Government in China, which was now, according to his information, disposed to turn rather towards us and away from the perhaps excessive domination of American thought and influence.
10.
doorge Mass said that China in her modern nationalistic nood gave preference to the alumni of her own universities in making Governmental, professional, technical and
business appointments on the mainland. He thought from that, that the initial problem was political and that diplomacy must clear the ground before financial or technical questions
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