CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950 — Page 105

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Mr.Cox.

You asked to be referred to any Note or minute there might be on the papers summarising the course of events which led to the setting aside of the 1946 Committee's recommendation that the Hong Kong University should either be reconstituted on a wider, "Lugard" basis or be abandoned altogether. I can find no such summary, but what happened was this.

There was full support in this office for the proposal to go ahead on the Lugard basis, and we enlisted Foreign Office support also for the approach to the Treasury contained in (18)/1947, seeking a grant by His Majesty's Government to this end (see also Foreign Office letter at (21)/1947). But an annual financial crisis (that year, you will recall, it was convertibility) was said by the Treasury ((37)/1947) to preclude any such grant. As the Colony could not be expected to bear the whole of the expenditure itself it was reluctantly decided that the question must remain in abeyance for the time being but should be reconsidered when financial conditions permitted. Since then however political conditions in China have also become an obstacle, so that it seems that, while not definitely abandoned, the Lugard basis is in more or less permanent abeyance.

You may like to look at Mr.Creech Jones' minute (undated but about 15th August 1947) which says "We should reserve the matter for a later approach when times are better, but meantime the present institution should be kept alive and the University Grant Committee asked to give what, in the light of their commitments, they can afford. "

28.9.49.