CO129-610-3 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University 15-2-1949 - 7-2-1950 — Page 25

(11)

25

At the Inter-University Council meeting on the 29thr. Sloss, who represents Hong Kong University on the Council, was present and spoke to his note of 22nd August which had been previously circulated and to the usefulness of which the Chairman, Sir James Irvine, paid tribute. A copy is attached at (11). Among the points he emphasised were (a) the continuing fear at Hong Kong that the case for a C.D.W. grant to the University might be going by default owing to the C.D.W. higher education allocation becoming fully committed in the meantime; (b) the need for the delegation to come at Christmas; and (c) the need for it to b. really authoritative in its personnel. I spoke shortly on the lines agreed with ir. Paskin on the telephone, stating the broad assumptions on which our general policy was based, namely the permanence of the present regime in China and the non-abandonment of Hong Kong; I mentioned that the downgrading of higher education there now by the abandonment of the University as such was politically unthinkable; I supported Mr. Sloss' plea that the delegation should go at Christmas as planned and that its personnel should be such as to carry weight; and I said that while the nature of the curtain that has fallen or would be likely to fall between Hong Kong and Communist China must at this stage be guesswork in its effect on the flow of students from China to the University, we should welcome the chance of briefing the delegation as fully as possible on the general background to their visit before they left, when the position might be in some respects rather clearer.

une of the members of the Council delegation will be Professor Eastham, who is at present Pro-Vice- Chancellor of Sheffield, and there is just a chance that Sir Raymond Priestley, Vice-Chancellor of Dirmingham, will be the other; if he can be released he would be ideal, as Vice-Chairman of the 1946 Committee on Hong Kong University and a member of the Colonial University Grants Advisory Committee, who has of course travelled very widely and undertook for us the mission to Malaya that led to the Carr-Saunders Commission. If he is not available, I hope some other Vice-Chancellor may be persuaded by the Council to go.

The upshot of the meeting is therefore satisfact- ory and we shall hear in due course from ir. Adams how the delegation will be composed.

Carl Cox

3rd October, 1949.

hm. Wallace

This is

m. Cox

f Mutil

I we

shed. be

good, his persuasions.

the delegation,

? there

is no

wx

hear about the

when

they

grateful to composition of Gring,

are

urgent action &

We may

leisure the loose ends listed

consider at leisure

in

my

min. of 119.

(6) & (e) are

disposed