CO129-610-2 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 9-1-1948 - 18-1-1949 — Page 44

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(b)

(c)

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We

be ruled out simply because students from outside Hong Kong might be attracted. What we said was quite different. pointed out that the population of Hong Kong is very limited, and that substantial expansion of the University could therefore only be based on a set policy of attracting students from China as one of the University' main objectives; Any such objective would be outside the scope of C.D. & W. assistance, and such assistance could therefore only be

justified on the grounds that it could profitably be used in improving the University within (roughly) existing limits, Since, however, both the Hong Kong Government grant and the free grant from H.M. G. were already available for this purpose, any request

for C.D. & W. assistance over and above these sums would require a great deal of

justification. It teshilla true that any application for C.D. & W. assistance will have to be justified on the grounds of the Colony's own needs, though it would of course be idiotic to suppose that C.D. & W. assistance would be withheld in the event of students from China happening to be attracted.

The statement in para. 5 of the Savingram

may or may not be true, but in any case it does not materially affect the issue. Our point was that there would be a diminution of students from Malaya, and the Hong Kong Government admit the fact if not the scale of this diminution.

ន

Para. 6 of the savingram impresses me even

less than para. 4. Here again, I can hardly believe that the word "pretext" is seriously used. If I understand this paragraph aright, we are being asked to believe that the Hong Kong public is so rapacious and ungrateful in its attitude that it will contemn and even resent H.M.G. free grant of £250,000 unless that grant is automatically doubled by an equivalent grant from C.D. & W. sources. If this is indeed the attitude of the Hong Kong public, I consider that H.M.G. has very good reason to doubt the wisdom of the original grant. In fact we have never said anything to Hong Kong which would give the faintest credence to the monstrous suggestion that we were using H.M.G.'s grant as a pretext for. withholding C.D. & W. assistance. We merely said that C.D. & W. assistance, over and above the free grant, would require a great deal of justification seeing that it would have to be used for the improvement of the University on its existing scale. Once again, we are brought back to the fundamental point from which Hong Kong seem to be frantically trying to divert our attention - namely, that C.D. & W. assistance can only be granted if its necessity is clearly substantiated on the basis of the Colony's own needs.

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