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paid than Government clerks. Lack of funds led 
to quite inferior staffs in the aided schools. In 1910 
two large Chinese Societies withdrew from the Free 
School the annual grant of $1,500 which each had 
given it, because the Government had abolished the 
Queen's Scholarships and had levied a corporation 
tax on the funds of the Societies, while the Munici- 
pality had imposed a tax for educational purposes. 
To make up this deficit, the school raised its fees, 
a measure followed by the two large missionary 
schools in Penang, St. Xavier’s Institution and the 
Anglo-Chinese School. But financial difficulties in- 
creased with the War and in 1920 its Committee 
handed the Free School over to Government. 
To meet the higher cost of maintenance owing to 
the War, the Government increased the grants-in- 
aid given under the Code by 25 per cent. But an 
Educational Conference held in 1918 resolved “ that 
the Government be requested to give such financial 
help to the aided schools as will enable them to pay 
to their teachers as high salaries as are paid to 
teachers in Government schools and to make provi- 
sion for adequate retiring allowances.” Moreover 
all the missionary bodies represented individually 
their financial distress to Government and in 191& 
a Committee was appointed to consider the problem. 
The 1919 Committee condemned the old system as 
limiting the amount of a grant and so of a school’s 
expenditure by the number of pupils earning a 
grant; as restricting a low grade school to a low 
grant and so depriving it of the financial means 
for improvement in staff and equipment; as giving 
Government only indirect control over the expendi- 
ture of its grants, and as a system, which to be 
equitable would require continual, possibly annual, 
