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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