A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
OU can't organise friendship. Either it happens or it doesn't." So wrote one of the 5,000 American servicemen to whom the Daily Mirror circulated a searching questionnaire about their relations with the British. (41 per cent. diagnosed our attitude towards them as friendly, 47 per cent. as indifferent and 12 per cent. as hostile.) This American was replying to a question which asked if he thought that the authorities could do more to promote good relations; and in order to see his point we do not even need to look back to childhood days, when nothing would persuade us to modify our detestation of the small guest (" Such a nice little boy. I'm sure you'll be great friends ") whom our parents, against our better judgement, insisted on inviting to tea. You can, as Kai Lung might have put it, lead the horse of goodwill down the path of propinquity to the trough of affection; but you cannot make it drink.
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