We who have received honorary degrees today thank the Chinese University for what is truly an honour. We value these degrees no less than if we had had to earn them by passing examinations and spending years at the University. Taking examinations would not have been a pleasure, but time spent as a student would have been. We have lost something and gained something by getting our degrees the easy way. Fellow graduates, you need not be too envious. For all of us, a university degree is a declaration that we are valued: a great reward indeed. For me, it is particularly pleasing to be so valued by what is now my own university.

　　Today's congregation is special because a new Vice Chancellor is being installed. The Chinese University has been peculiarly fortunate in its Vice Chancellors, who have served it exceedingly well. This fine tradition will be well sustained by Lawrence Lau. It is a further privilege to be part of that event.

　　Some of us have lived our whole lives in Universities, and, as we say in economics, that reveals a preference. The pursuit of knowledge proved so appealing that we could not give it up. Maybe nowadays we do not expect to know everything that is worth knowing, and to understand what anyone understands; though we can still try. You who graduate today have had a taste of it, and many of you will have more. I hope you will all go on learning, both easy subjects and hard ones. But now, I am afraid, you will become busy, and risk being too busy to keep learning and exploring. A word of advice. Don't. Do not be too busy. That is hard. You may make more money that way, but it is not a good life.

　　Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer, who created the first satisfactory dictionary of English had to leave the University of Oxford after one year: when his father died he could not afford to stay. Oxford was not a very distinguished university in the eighteenth century, but Samuel Johnson greatly regretted that his time there had been so short, and that he had no degree. Years later, Oxford made him an honorary doctor, and from that day to this, he has been known as Dr Johnson, a title he held in the highest esteem. In his dictionary, which is not without jokes, Dr Johnson had defined a lexicographer as a "harmless drudge". He was indeed a busy man; but not too busy. He had plenty of time for the marvellous conversations Dr Boswell recorded. The breadth and depth of his interests are a model for all. Drudgery may help one to a doctorate, but I hope a doctorate may be held to declare at least that one is harmless.

　　G.H. Hardy, a Cambridge mathematician of the highest quality, wrote "A Mathematician's Apology". In it he claimed to have the great merit of harmlessness, since as a particularly pure mathematicians, his achievements were beauty and knowledge without application. He did not, by the way, think it possible in general to be better than harmless. My first two degrees were in mathematics, specializing in pure mathematics; but I took the risk of doing harm, for my third degree, and my career is, as you have heard, in economics.

　　In that subject, there is plenty of scope for doing harm, though I claim that amateur economists, a numerous band, do more harm than professionals. My first paper was written with Nicholas Kaldor, one of the Hungarians - there have been several - who became a British Lord. He had a reputation: he went around the world advising governments on taxes. Normally after he had persuaded them to adopt at least some of his recommendations, something of a revolution would follow. Of course, it is quite pleasing to have an effect on the world. It is for you to decide, now you begin to go out in the larger world, just what effect you will seek: it will probably not be what you intend. When I suggest that taxes should be increased, as they should in Hong Kong, I find that it does not increase one's popularity. It comes as a relief, therefore, that after a lifetime in economics, one can be sufficiently valuable to warrant a degree. My fellow graduates have more clearly deserved it.

　　Thank you, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.