Monday 22 April 2019

Entrepreneurship in blood: Stanley O. Gregory and the business of Kelly & Walsh

Over seventy years ago under the gloomy days in Shanghai due to the Japanese invasion, Stanley O. Gregory, manager of the publishers and booksellers Kelly & Walsh Ltd. Co. (KW), was interned in the Lunghwa camp with some other 500 prisoners of war. 

Life in a POW camp was harsh. The 40-year-old Englishman, notwithstanding the hardship, had entrepreneurship in his blood and wrote a piece of 1600-word business memorandum (see below) in the last month of his internment in August 1945. Strong man. In the insightful memorandum he discussed the current situations of book importation of English and American books before the war and forecast the prospect after the war by giving six points of recommendations. 

The article was sent to the trade journal The Publishers' Weekly via KW's long trading partner, Bill Hall, of H. M. Snyder and Co., and published at the end of 1945 when Gregory had left to join his family in Sydney. 

Gregory's photographs of China taken in the 1930s and his papers are deposited in the National Library of Australia and have received scholarly interest recently in 2016 and 2018.

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This memorandum is intended for the consideration of publishers and book distributors in England and America, and is concerned with the countries occupied by Japan, with all of China, and, of course, Japan, but not Burma. Together they include all the islands and continental countries usually included under the term “The Far East,” for the area east of Singapore is more than a geographical expression. It does form a natural self-contained collection of landmass and islands, separated by mountain barrier and sea from India, by sea from America, and by sea and desert from the inhabited parts of Australia. The Far East is a unit, an important unit in world economy, and the unity of this area will need to be recognized and allowed for in after-war reconstruction and business economy.
In this area, before the war, the language of commerce was almost entirely English, and English was taught as a second language in schools and universities from Japan to the Straits. This was less so, naturally, in French Indo-China (always rather jealously closed to non-French trade and customs) and in the Dutch East Indies (where, however, English was a very good second to Dutch). In the Straits, Siam and Hong Kong, the instruction was in the British tradition, while in the Philippine Islands, it was in the American. In China, almost all of the important universities were staffed and run by trained British and Americans, appointed through missionary societies, who also were responsible for many big schools of various types throughout the country. In Japan, eminent professors and trained teachers from England and America were to be found in the universities and important schools. Thus the people of these countries were acquiring the tradition of learning English as a second language and were using it to converse in with each other, with people of other countries, and, where local dialects as in China prevented intercourse, even of necessity between nationals of the same country. Add that the European resident, merchant or traveller in the Far East speaks English and you have a picture of this part of the world in which has been developing an interest in and a feeling for books in English, and thereby, what is more important, the civilization and culture that they represent.
And to meet the demand there has been an increasing circulation of English books [hoito: emphasis mine], either English or American editions, or editions authorized for local issue, or unauthorized, pirated copies. The publisher or bookdealer abroad can scarcely appreciate the tremendous trade in pirated books, produced mainly in Shanghai, a trade that has irritated educational publishers since the beginning of the century, but that only of recent years has grown to such a size that it was displacing regular editions of all types of books not only in China, but in Hong Kong, the Philippine Islands, and elsewhere. Reproduction was photographic, publishers’ imprint was omitted (to evade Chinese Trade Mark law), a cheaper paper and binding used, and the price was so ridiculously less than that of the original that no price adjustment by the copyright owner was possible whereby genuine copies could be sold against the pirates. This was most obvious with technical, engineering, medical, legal and other normally highly-priced text and reference books. A medical book at say US$7.50 or 36/- would be sold in a pirate edition as the equivalent of US$2.—or 10/-. Several years back the Oxford Press cut the price of the “Concise Oxford Dictionary,” for the China market, to less than half, to enable competition with the pirated issue, but even so the pirated issue was still priced almost a third cheaper.
Now the justification of those who pirated books for educational use in schools and universities was that the Chinese student could not afford the higher-priced originals. This was (and doubtless still is) the attitude of the Chinese government, to whom the needs of the Chinese student are of more concern than the rights of foreign authors. In China, to study is a most honorable ambition, and there is an age-old tradition of respect towards study and learning such as does not exist in England or America, where more practical or martial pursuits have been more highly honored. And the Chinese government is well aware of the importance and urgency of spreading modern knowledge among its 400 million people. And if the many Chinese students cannot pay for foreign editions of necessary books, the Chinese government has no intention of discouraging them from buying what they can afford, cheap local reprints. This is an economic position that must be accepted.
But is [hoito: it] is no less important from the Western point of view that our tradition should be widely diffused in China. By its size, if by nothing else, China will be the strength behind whatever civilization rules in the Far East. The Chinese boast that they have absorbed all their conquerors, and this is a country whose spirit is alien to the spirit of the totalitarian nations. It behooves us therefore to encourage the spreading of our Western ideas and ideals of a Christian democracy. We cannot wish to restrict the diffusion of Western writings. It is essential that British and American books circulate widely in China, but at a Chinese price.
At present the Chinese copyright law is of little value to the owner of a foreign copyright. The Chinese government has not been encouraging to overtures from abroad for copyright protection, for the reason already mentioned — the high price of original editions in terms of Chinese purchasing. There is no reason to suppose however that the pirates could not be eliminated, copyright protected, and larger profitable sales realized with special China editions produced for the low price China market. The Chinese government would agree to copyright protection provided this need is met. The alternative before British and American publishers is the choice between authorized and unauthorized cheap editions. With authorized reprints, they can be assured of copyright protection, for here ethics and economics march together.
It is to be hoped that publishers will now be considering a future policy for the Far East, which will involve for China two aspects. Generally from the Far East there will be requests from libraries, universities, institutions and others for gifts of books. So much damage has been done, so many libraries despoiled, so many institutions destroyed, that ordinary income or even special grants cannot suffice to replace the loss, or to add publications issued since the outbreak of the war. China has suffered particularly from the removal of universities from one part to another and from destruction by loot and fire, and so far as China is concerned, a generous gift policy might be bound in with the provision of adequate copyright laws. Publishers should therefore be represented on any bodies formed for assisting China in this way.
Cheap editions for China implies production in China, generally speaking, and suggests that publishers both in England and in America will find it valuable and necessary to pay more attention in the future to the Far East. This is one section of the world which suffers from entirely too little direct representation. There are big booksellers, such as Maruzen (in Japan), Kelly & Walsh (in China & the Straits), the Commercial Press (in China), or the Philippine Education Co. (in the Philippine Islands), all of whom are also printers and publishers on their own account, but who do not have the organization to represent publishers in travelling or in visiting educational authorities, universities and so on, or in financing or arranging for general distribution of local editions. China is here primarily in mind, but the Far East must be thought of as a whole and there should be adequate publisher’s representation to cover all the countries east of Singapore. Such representation could often be joint, but so far as China is concerned, must include authority not only to sell but also to produce, where needed, cheap local editions.
The cheap edition includes mainly books for educational purposes, for schools and universities, and of these only of course those selected and used in such institutions. Cheap editions can only be issued where a profitable demand is assured. This leaves a very large field for the normal sale of regular editions, and this sale will be considerable. There is every reason to believe that the Far East will want more British and American books after the war than before. There’ll be the temporary big replacement demand, but in addition there has been a steadily increasing English reading public, due to the use of English as a commercial medium, and as a second language by increasing numbers of educated people. British and American ideas and ideals will be more important to these millions of people and there will definitely be closer contacts with the West. Though the number of resident foreigners may be less, there will be a tremendous increase in demand for British and American books by the peoples of these countries.

Publishers in England and America should therefore be considering these points:- (1) The wide demand that the ending of the war will bring from the Far East for English and American books: (2) the requests for gifts of books on behalf of libraries despoiled by the war; (3) the pirate book menace from China, which can only finally be met by (4) a satisfactory copyright agreement with China, implying (5) authorized production in China of cheap editions for the China market, mainly for use in schools and universities; and, (6) permanent representation in the Far East to deal with vastly increasing business.

Source: The Publishers' Weekly, Volume 148 Issue 26 Date December 29, 1945, pp. 2771-73. 

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