COPY.
UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG,
HONG KONG.
22nd September, 1948.
The Honourable D.M. MacDougall, C.M.G., Officer Administering the Government, Colonial Secretariat,
HONG KONG.
My dear MacDougall,
I understand that no reply is made to the Government's savingram about the University's need of a grant from Colonial Welfare and Development Funds. Meantime I see that, in addition to the £1 million grant made for Malaya University project, large sums are allocated to Nigeria, East Africa and West Africa, and to the West Indies. Earlier smaller grants were made to the University of Malta. We, still, are omitted, with the result that you can measure, that there is a very strong feeling among my unofficial members of the Councils that we are the victims of adverse discrimin- ation.
At the meeting of the Court, in about a fortnight, a more or less public occasion, voice will be given to this resentment, unless we take measure to get members to withold comments, as I think we should, until a reply is received from the Colonial Office. There is no possibility of quiet acquiescence in a rejection by the Colonial Office of our claims. The University is now proceeding on the inference that though the first reply was not promising, it was so manifestly inequitable to the Colony that it should not be regarded as final.
1
Meantime, nothing we attempt takes longer than to get work out of an architect. All architects are overwhelmed with new work and large scale repairs. However, we do hope in a reasonably short time to get sketch designs and cube estimates for two urgently needed/ works: (1) the alterations and additions to the Tung Wah East Hospital to turn it into an effective teaching hospital. As you know it is the best hospital building in the Colony, but having been built as a charity hospital it lacks much that is needed in a modestly conceived teaching hospital:
(2) a block of flats for the accommodation of senior teachers in the University. The housing shortage in Hong Kong has compelled the University to provide accommodation not only for senior teachers from overseas but now for men recruited in China. We have already, with Government's help, nearly doubed our pre-war accommodation by converting houses into flats. (The house that I should occupy, for example, has been turned into four flats), but we have reached our limit and are faced by a need within a year of finding accommodation for between 8 and 12 new men. It is no help to tell us that men should shift for themselves. On the salaries we are able to pay, they cannot face the demands of landlords for premia and rent. If we are to get staff we must supply houses and therefore we propose to build on University ground about 12 flats as soon as we can get funds. Our first guess at the cost of these projects is:-
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