These are the British

by Drew Middleton

The comics, invariably described in left-wing publications as "American Horror Comics," have been another medium for the spread of American culture in Britain. Like the movies, they have their critics, and, like some movies, they are used by the Communists to demonstrate what fearful people the Americans are.

The reader will notice that British Communism, although of almost negligible importance as a political party, is active in promoting differences between the two nations. The Communists know very well that the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is the strongest link in the Western chain; if they can break it, the rest will be easy.

I have been at pains to point out the issues over which governments and peoples on both sides of the alliance differ and those aspects of our national behavior which occasionally worry and concern the British. It should be emphasized that the areas of ignorance in the British attitude toward the United States are of minor importance compared to the ignorance of the average Frenchman or the average Indian. British misconceptions about the United States can be corrected and Communist attempts to exploit these misconceptions defeated because the British public does know something about the United States. This knowledge may be slight, but it is enough to build on.

Over the years there has been a change in attitude on the part of young people which I find disturbing. When I first came to England in the late thirties I encountered a good deal of curiosity about the political and social aspects of the American system. Young people wanted to know about American opportunities for education, about technical schools, about the absence of a class system. Today such interest as is displayed centers mainly upon the material factors in the United States.

Perhaps what I encountered nearly twenty years ago was the lingering afterglow of that period in our history when we stood as a promise and a hope to the peoples of the world. Certainly many of the egalitarian aspects of American society admired in pre-war Britain have been slowly introduced into British society. A cynic might even suggest that they know us better now. At any rate, I meet fewer young people who are sure they would like to live in America and be Americans.

Ignorance of the United States lies at the root of many of the criticisms of our country one hears in Britain. This is being overcome to some extent by the work of the USIS, but the task is a serious one. Beyond such obvious difficulties as the shortage of newsprint which limits the amount that responsible newspapers can print about the United States, there is another important obstacle to better relations. This is the fact, that although Americans travel to Britain each year in tens of thousands, the prospect of the average Briton seeing our country is remote. The British treasury doles out dollars with a sharp eye on the gold and dollar reserves, and a large percentage of the transatlantic travelers are businessmen selling British exports to the United States. This is something, but it is not enough.

The industrial working class is the most numerous and politically important in Britain. It is also the least informed about the United States. Scholarships for Oxford and Cambridge students at Harvard or Princeton and visiting professorships for English dons do not, as a rule, help this class. The ideal would be an exchange system under which hundreds of working-class men and women from Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, and the back streets of London were given the opportunity to see America plain. The English Speaking Union in the United States and the United Kingdom is attempting to bring this about.

Only through such contact, I believe, could the picture of the United States built up by some Labor Party politicians be erased. There remains a dangerous lack of understanding not only of our political system but of what mass production and greater productivity in the United States have done for the average workingman here. Newspaper articles, television series, books help, but it is a thing that must be felt as well as seen. It can be felt only in the United States.

The attention paid to differences and difficulties should not obscure the value that Britons place on their relationship with Americans. Materially, Britain's interest in maintaining the relationship is much the greater; undoubtedly they need us more than we need them. But here we must remember the national character of Britain. The British have been an independent people for a thousand years. Even when the fortunes of the nation have been at their lowest ebb, the people have been outspoken in defense of what they considered their rights. The earliest Continentals who traveled to England lamented the blunt independence of the yeomen and the absence of subservience among the noisy city crowds.

Some sociologists have concluded that all this has changed and that the industrial revolution and other social changes have transformed the British from the rowdiest and most belligerent of nations into law-abiding conformists. The national boiling-point, they report, is high.