America Explained
Who are the Americans By William Dwight •Whertey, (Eyze
and. Spottiswoode. 7s. 6d.) - -
Tars book should have a very large sale. It is a fortunate chance that Major Whitney has produced an 'informative, accurate and readable short introduction to America and Americans just at the moment when it has become vital that every Eng:Ashman who pretends-to any interest in public affairs should understand the people to whom we have become junior partners. Who are the Americans? and Professor Brogan's recent little book deprive Englishmen of their lait excuse for neglecting American affairs. It is particularly to-be hoped that this book will be widely read" by Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament, who are often scrappily informed about American institutions, attitudes and party-politics, by Civil Seri/ants, who are usually both poorly informed and prejudiced, by newspapermen and other publicists, who are content to report America worse than they do any other great country, and by University and school teachers and students, who still proceed on the assumption that the U.S.A. ceased to matter after it had established its independence, or at least after
we had paid the ' Alabama ' damages. , - The book is divided into four parts : I, Who Are the Ameri- cans ?, II, America Described, III, Government in America, and IV, American Attitude Towards Europe.
The weakest section of Part I, to mention- defects rather than merits, since the defects are so much less obvious and fewer than the merits, is Chapter VIII, Commerce. Major Whitney is right to emphasise how small are America's import requirements and export surpluses in comparison with those of the United Kingdom, and how little Athericans 'in general regard international trade. It is, however, somewhat surprising that he should -omit all mention of Secretary Hull's Reciprocal Trade Treaty Policy, and of Secretary of Agriculture (now Vice-President) Wallace's long, skilful and sincere attempt to make America choose between its previous standard of- living and 'type of- economy, 'which must depend in future on international commercial re-arrangements of a liberal character, . and its-;-ptevious policy, which is today incompatible-with the-structure of American industry' and agricul- ture. One cannot understand recent America without recognis- ing that foreign commerce, whether. Americans generally value it or not, was largely responsible for the boom of .1925-29, and its collapse for the depression of 1929-34, since it provided the mar- ginal items ir1 the books of many industries and Most agriculture, and that anxiety about its future is colduring the view of world-
affairs of many AmonicAn,s. - • .4
The weakest part-of Part III is also economic—its treatment of the New. Deal, and therefore of President Roosevelt. The analysis of the social and .economic system which existed before 1929, and nearly collapsed in' the succeeding four years, and which is painfully re-adjusting itself now to totally new conditions, is far too sketchy, as is the summary of New Deal objectives and measures: Moreover, in his treatment. of these issues, and in that of them alone, Major Whitney shows traceS of prejudice, as if he shared some of that almost personal bitterness which fear income-tax-paying Americans,. of conservative, views and back-
ground, have been able to avoid regarding the New Deal and • its author. . -
The chief merit of the,book, ajiart from its admirable choice of material and its skill in compressing the essentials into. an astonishingly short and readable 'compass, lies in its American approach and its persuasive pressing home of the point that the U.S.A. is a very, very ,un-English country, which Englishmen will only understand, like- and work with. cordially when they learn that it is a foreign continent and not a lost Dominion
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