The Vice-Chancellor
Oriel College
Oxford
June 10, 1944
My dear Barlow
I enclose a Memorandum on the special difficulties of the Clarendon Press arising from the combined effects of taxation and the claims of urgent Government work on the printing department. The only similar institution is the Cambridge Press, which has not been so preoccupied with urgent Government printing; so the case is, we believe, unique.
Shortly, it is this. Where a charity and a business are indistinguishably combined, if by any means the charitable expenditure is stopped, E.P.T. at 100% will take all the profits. That stage has been reached for some time at the Press, owing to pressure of Government work in the printing department. From paragraph IV (ii) it appears that no considerable sum is being retained as a result of this work to provide for the arrears that are accumulating or the expansion which post-war education requires.
The argument is not based on the forced conversion of back stocks into cash at a time of maximum taxation: that is especially hard on an institution which depends on stocks built up over generations, but commercial concerns also suffer more or less from it. The essential difference is that the Oxford and Cambridge Presses have some obligation to replace these stocks uncommercially, i.e. they are doing work which in other countries is done directly or indirectly from public funds. If the less popular academic subjects are left without books because the books do not pay, universities everywhere must suffer.
The Memorandum is intended to raise the problem in principle with detailed examples. But it does not attempt to calculate the amount of relief: further facts and figures will be needed if the case for consideration is made out.
A very important practical point arises from it. The Press can do a good deal of Government printing in war-time without unreasonable disadvantage to its own work or finances, but present conditions mean so much dislocation in its other departments that they could not suddenly resume their normal function of finding work for the printing department if the Government suddenly withdrew. What is needed is a reduction as gradual as possible from the present peak of Government work, beginning as soon as possible. Otherwise, the Delegates of the Press will be left with the liability for a large skilled staff and plant in conditions which must cause more dislocation and financial loss, at a time when the Press ought to be strongest if it is to do its part in the restoration of university work.
Learned publishing has had no special consideration in the war shortage of labour and materials. And bad effects have been disguised until lately because there were great stocks to use up, and many university studies have temporarily fallen off. But recovery will be correspondingly slow, and, whatever is done, there are not now, and cannot be for some years ahead, nearly enough books for higher education here or in the Dominions, even if Europe could look after itself.
In our conversation you suggested two points to which I will now address myself.
(1) You asked for some elementary information about the arrangements of the Press. The principle on which the Press proceeds is to spend on learned, unremunerative books what it makes on remunerative books. It makes a profit in most years, but this all goes into the business either for the purpose of producing learned books or for the necessary extensions and upkeep of buildings and plant.
The chief officers are the Secretary, the Publisher (Milford), the Printer, and the Controller of the Paper Mill. All of them are salaried officials who make no private profits, and I may add that loyalty to the University induces them to do their jobs at salaries much less than they could command in commercial publishing, printing, or paper-making. The Delegates, who correspond to directors, and do a great deal of work, are unpaid.
I hope these are the sort of facts you wanted to know.
But I don't really think that the bringing in of such an adviser would have results which would compensate for the expense of bringing him in and the loss of time his investigation would cause to those who had to shepherd him. The Delegates, who keep a very close watch on the activities of the Press, are convinced that the management is extremely good, and indeed the success of the business (its liability for E.P.T. in the year 1943-44 will be more than £85,000) is pretty good proof of that.
We very occasionally have complaints from booksellers; but I suppose all publishers do. The complaints that reached you no doubt concerned the London selling business at Neasden. In fact, the largest excess profits now come from this department, though it has had to face special difficulties. It had to be evacuated from Warwick Square, partly to Neasden, partly to Oxford; and in war-time it is impossible to provide at Neasden the accommodation that is really necessary. Export of books (and we are the largest exporters) has been more harshly treated than other deserving export trades, and is subject to very elaborate financial control affecting even single copies. The claims of Government printing have entirely upset our supply arrangements, so that we have more books out of print or out of stock than any other publisher. Besides, the Delegates undertook, before the war began, the Oxford Pamphlets, which have been found to be of very great use to several Government departments; of these some five million copies have been sold. The main strain of this falls upon Neasden, and the distribution of these tiny units - formerly 3d., now 6d. - is, though important to the national interest, most wasteful of effort. Even H. M. Stationery Office often orders single copies from us, with all formalities, despite our protests at the waste of clerical effort involved. All these difficulties put a great strain on the staff, from which the best ages have been taken away; and delays in supplying book-sellers are often inevitable.
I don't suppose you would have the time to visit Neasden, but if you cared to nominate one of your people, I should be delighted to take him there and let him see for himself how well our staff is tackling its difficulties - difficulties which arise largely from the very popularity of our books and pamphlets. It wouldn't take an hour there, and it is a very easy and open place in which to get an idea of what is going on.
Yours sincerely
Sir David Ross