Long Time No See

China had given a foreigner $25 million worth of property and now she wanted it back. Would she get it? In August 1944, a group of grave-faced ministers of state pondered the question with Merchant-Adventurer Bill Hunt, head of William Hunt & Co., boldest American firm in the Far East.

More than seven years before, their Government had turned over its China Merchants Steam Navigation Co.'s property to six-foot, aoo-lb. Bill Hunt, thus put it out of Japanese reach. And now, please, they wanted it back; they offered a handsome price. Bill Hunt's sunburned fists hit the desk, gave the ministers a bad moment. Then he shouted: "I loaned you the protection of my citizenship; I didn't sell it. I want $10* for the properties --with your autographs on the bill."

So ended the big scene of Bill Hunt's Chinese melodrama. Last week, when Marty Gold, executive vice president of Hunt & Co., turned up in Shanghai with ownership of the firm in his pocket, the final curtain was on its way down.

Oldtime traders found it hard to believe that Hunt had sold out. In 20 years of eager-beaver business, first as vice consul, then as U.S. shipping board agent, finally as head of Hunt & Co., Bill Hunt had put his monogram on a sizable hunk of the Celestial Kingdom. Through Hunt & Co. he had exclusive distribution rights to 250 key products manufactured by 70-odd U.S. firms, had sold motors, electric trolleys, machine tools, steel buildings with a careful hand. Tirelessly the Hunt fingers had probed every phase of Chinese commercial life, often turned up in a competitor's eye. So supersecret were his operations that new employes got a stiff liquor-holding test.

Bigger Fields, Greener Lands? Bill Hunt spent little time waiting around for Government business. If no plums came his way, he shook the tree, and none too gently. Shaking brought down these prizes:

P: At one time, through a dicker with China National Tea Corp., Hunt & Co. controlled all the tea in China.

P: The Hunt Engineering Corp. got the pick of Chinese power projects.

P: Most of the paper for the Chinese banknote issue (estimated at a thousand * $10 Chinese is about 1/20th of a cent U.S. billion dollars) was ordered through his firm.

In the light of all this, China-wise businessmen found it hard to explain why Hunt was bowing out now. Some put it down to increasing exchange difficulties, the threat of China's new and retroactive company law (TIME, Nov. 26). Others thought the reputed $3 million sale price reason enough. Best explanation probably came from Hunt himself: somewhere he saw bigger fields and greener lands.

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