Hong Kong University
Brief for the Secretary of State
13
63
No. 46 on 54147/47.
No. 3 on 54147
The occasion for the request that the Secretary of State should receive this deputation is that
(a) The Governor has reported that unless some substantial provision can be made for an Endowment Fund (which, he says, can not be achieved unless H.M.G. is prepared to make a further contribution of million to be matched by a similar amount to be contributed jointly by the Hong Kong Covernment and the Hong Kong Jockey Club) it will be necessary for the University to drastically curtail its activities; and
(b) At a departmental meeting with the Hong Kong Unofficial Members of Executive Council who are now here, they expressed extreme dissatisfaction on being told that the Colonial Office sees no prospect of the Treasury being willing to make such a contribution.
The Unofficial Members represented that quite apart from the intrinsic undesirability of the educational facilities in Hong Kong having to be curtailed in this way (and for this reason) a decision by H.M.G. not to make a further contribution would have a deplorable effect as it would be interpreted as an indication that H.M.G. have no faith in the future of Hong Kong as a British Colony.
(The
The Unofficial Members may also say (as they have said to me) that they consider that Hong Kong was "led up the garden path" by the decision taken in 1947 that the University should be reopened on its pre-war basis, with the implication that H.M.G. would ensure that it had adequate financial provision to prevent it falling into its pre-war state of perpetual crisis. (The answer to this is that when, in 1947, it became necessary to face up to the question whether, in the then prevailing financial circumstances, the University should be wound up, it was made clear to the Hong Kong Government that there was very little prospect of further financial assistance from the Treasury but that the Governor with it is understood the concurrence of the Members of the Council expressed the view "that it would be a great mistake to wind up the University. The University should be carried on on its pre-war basis until such time as it was possible to expand it". It is however not suggested that this should be said unless the delegation does in fact make this allegation))
Mr. Sidebotham and I have considered how the Delegation should be handled. One course would be to allow them first to state their case and for the Secretary of State to listen to them before informing them of the solution of the problem which we have now concerted with the Governor. We understand however that the Delegation is coming armed with large quantities of facts and figures so that this procedure would we feel lead to protracted meeting which is really unnecessary. We accordingly feel that the best course would be for the Secretary of State to inform them at once of the proposed solution of their problem, and we suggest that the Secretary of State's remarks might take the following form.
The Secretary of State might say that he has read the Governor's Savingram in which he has reported that he sees no alternative to a drastic curtailment of the activities of the University unless adequate provision can now be made for the Endowment Fund, and that there is no hope of achieving this unless H.M.G. are preapred to make a further grant to the University of million; and that the Secretary of State has alac been informed by the Department of the very great disappointment felt by the Delegation when they had learned that the Colonial Office sees little or no prospect of such a sum being provided by H.M.G., having regard to the enormous financial burden with which this country is now faced.
The Secretary of State might go on to say that it was a very great disappointment indeed to both the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office
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