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could be intelligently posed. The co-operation of China was essential and Sir George thought the Committee should recommend that steps be taken to sound the Chinese Government for its views as soon as possible and promises of good-will obtained from other neighbouring territories.
17.
Dr. Channon said that Mr. Sloss had made a very important statement when he said that the University of Hong Kong had in effect become a university for Overseas Chinese. If Hong Kong were drawing Chinese students from overseas in a positive sense like a magnet, that would be a profound argument. On the other hand, he would like to raise the question whether the number of students going to Hong Kong from overseas was not the result of difficulties abroad rather than the positive quality of Hong Kong. He had in mind Malaya. A very large number of medical students went to Hong Kong from Malaya. Before the war there were as many students from Malaya admitted to Hong Kong University as to the Medical School at Singapore. The reasons for this he thought were that the cost of education in Hong Kong was very much lower than in Singapore; entries to the Medical School in Singapore were restricted and thirdly that in Hong Kong students got a degree while in Malaya they only got a diploma. He would like to put his view before the Committee that he thought it of profound importance that there should be a University of Malay within the shortest possible time. In Malaya you had another Hong Kong in Singapore, with a similar background, and behind a country about the size of England and Wales with a population of about five million people. The educational material was available for rapid university development as he saw it. While in the fullest sympathy with the wider aim of a University of Hong Kong, he felt it was even more important that a British territory of five million people in Malaya should not be without a university because Hong Kong was drawing students from it.
18. Dr. Venn asked whether the number of applicants for admission to Hong Kong University in pre-war days exceeded the number of vacancies.
19. Mr. Sloss confirmed that this was so.
20. Mrs. Foster asked Mr. Sloss what was the proportion of Overseas Chinese students who came to Hong Kong University.
21.
Mr. Sloss said the real reason why Overseas Chinese students came to Hong Kong was their lack of Chinese. The homing instinct of the Overseas Chinese was enormous, and if they had enough knowledge of the Chinese language to get any benefit whatever out of Chinese universities they went to them, but those who had not enough Mandarin to follow the lectures went to Hong Kong.
22.
Dr. Priestley expressed the view that the Committee's consideration should be in three stages. First, a general discussion on the long-term policy; secondly discussion on the short-term requirements; lastly, a final decision about long- term policy. He was strongly of opiniɔn that one of the mistakes that had been made in the past had been the grant of the status of university to institutions which did not rest on broadly based faculties of arts and science. It was all wrong to call an institution a university because it had a good medical school. He thought that the Committee ought to consider this question first, because if they decided that the University should serve the needs of the Colony only, they might need to think of it in terms of separate medical school, teachers' training college, etc.
/23.
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