Letter by George Robertson to CJD 1919.05.23

[23 May 1919]

PRIVATE

Dear Dennis,

I want you to send the enclosed letter to two or three hundred leading papers of Australia and New Zealand. A. & R. will pay for cable, of course, and send you the letters typed on paper headed "Toolangi", stamped and addressed ready for posting. You will only have to sign them - your autograph signature being essential.

Cablegram. You may alter this in any way you think fit - but don't try to save a few shillings by cutting it down. Rather lengthen it, if by so doing you can make it clearer. It is longer than is necessary for Mr Hughes, who has Sir Robert Garran to interpret it; but we must make it quite clear to newspaper readers out here.

Covering letter for newspapers. Enclosed is a draft for approval or amendment.

You may ask why we don't send the cable ourselves. Well, in the first place, greater publicity will be obtained if you send it, and, in the second, while A. & R. publishers "don't care a damn for nobody", A. & R. booksellers do. If, as I hope and believe, W. M. Hughes kicks up a shindy about it - being in that humour at present - A. & R. booksellers might get into trouble with American publishers, who are their good friends at present and treat them much better than British publishers do.

On the day the cable is sent, the letters for the New Zealand papers should be mailed. Three days later they should be posted to W. A. and Queensland, on the following day to N.S.W., S.A. and Tasmania, and on the day after that to Victoria. This would prevent many of the editors from seeing it in the Argus before their letter came to hand.

Correspondence with Mr Braddon. I enclose copies of correspondence with the Hon. H. Y. Braddon. He is a good fellow, and an able; but he is busy with what seem (and probably are) bigger things and can do nothing. You'll notice how Dr Putnam stalls him off.

This American copyright question is an old grievance of mine, dating from i896, when we published The Man from Snowy River. I tried to get Mr Deakin to take it up, but it was no good - there were no votes hanging to it. A short reciprocal Act making it necessary for American authors to set up, print, and bind here would settle the question in six months. The injustice of his own manufacturing clause will never be made apparent to the noble Yank until we confront him with one of ours. When a dozen of his "best-sellers" have been published by the N.S.W. Bookstall Coy., without "due" acknowledgement, he will lobby at Washington as keenly to get that clause deleted as he once did to get it put in.

Note:
Dennis's letter to Australian newspapers is available at:
CJD to newspapers: 1919.06. This letter was written to enlist Dennis's help to change the American copyright laws which allowed American publishers to obtain copyright in Australia by offering for sale an American-printed-and-bound book in either England or Canada within 14 days of original publication in the USA. For Australian publishers to obtain an American copyright, on the other hand, they had to typeset, print and bind a book in the USA within 30 days of lodging a copy of the Australian edition at the United States Copyright Office. This situation allowed American publishers the opportunity to pirate editions of popular Australian books. Hughes did not take up Dennis's suggestion.

"A. & R." is Angus and Robertson, the publishers of Dennis's work. "W. M. Hughes" and "Mr Hughes" refer to Billy Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister of the time. "Mr Braddon" was the commissioner of Australia in New York. "Mr Putnam" was Dr George Haven Putnam of G.P. Putnam's Sons, an authority of copyright in the United States.