SOME NOTES ON AMERICA

By W. J. HINTON

The Spectator's American correspondent drew attention last week to a pamphlet entitled Notes for Your Guidance prepared for British airmen now in training in the United States which he described as the most effective piece of literature which has reached America from Great Britain during the war. It was published anonymously, but the author is in fact Mr. W. J. Hinton, Director of Studies at the Institute of . Bankers, and now working at the Ministry of Information. The document is too long to print as a whole here, but the following selected passages are representative.

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YOU are going to America as guests. Therefore you will receive almost unbounded hospitality, the American standard of hospitality being as high as any in the world. Remember that there is just as high a standard expected of the guest as of the host. You will be expected to feel, and show, appreciation. Do so. You will not be expected to tell your hosts and hostesses what is wrong, in your opinion, with them and their country. Don't do it ; don't be misled by the fact

that everyone will ask you how you like America. They mean how do you like it—not what do you dislike ; just as your English hostess doesn't really want to know about any little unpleasantnesses which marred your stay when she says, " I do hope you have been comfortable. We loved having you." But these are the elements of good manners, and I apologise for mentioning them.

The necessity only arises because Englishmen in America, and Americans in England, are sometimes misled by the similarity of

the two languages into thinking that the IWO peoples and the two countries are practically the same ; that visitors are at home, and therefore free to speak their minds. It is far better to remind

yourselves that the United States is " abroad." Think of Americans as one kind of foreigner, with no duty to behave like Englishmen, rather than as a kind of Englishman, who ought to be glad to learn from us and help us. There is a sense in which no American, whatever his racial origin, is as foreign to us as any European ; but that can be left to take care of itself. Expect Americans to be different from us. After all, their forefathers and predecessors in the continent fought to be independent of us. Let them be so in your mind as they are in fact.

You are going to the United States to learn. The first essential of learning is an open mind, and you had better dismiss from your minds most of the ideas you have picked up from the pictures—perhaps it is too much to hope that the general im- pression will fade—until you have seen the real thing. But you won't be able to see the real thing if you don't look for it with a fresh eye, willing and anxious to learn. So don't think you know all about America already. You don't—nobody does ; not even the Americans. Sensitise your minds, open them, expose them to impressions. Listen more than you talk. Don't criticise, explicitly or implicitly, in your conversations. Don't make up your minds about America until you have finished your job and got back here and thought it all over. If you do that, you can't offend, and I have no doubt what your verdict will be.

Before you start there are some things which you may find it helpful to think about, and these are all an extension of the idea that you are to learn about this great, friendly, yet different nation, the United States. The United States is to be compared in size and population not with these islands but with the whole of Western Europe without Russia. There are six or seven great regions larger than most European States, each with its own climate, products and occupations, each comparable with one or other of our Dominions or some part of those Dominions.

This is the continent which is coming to our help ; the U.S.A. (of course with the British Colonies, Dominions, and India) forms an immense power, of which the British Isles are the bridge-head in Europe. You will readily understand that generalisations about people who live in so vast and varied an area are bound to be somewhat dangerous. As a matter of fact, the astonishing thing is that the American people are as uniform as they are.

That uniformity is due to the schools, the Press, and the political institutions, as well as to the fact that any man may

move freely over the whole area, and very many do. Americans are still partly nomadic, a relic of the days when there was always empty land to the West, and the numerous children of

early marriages moved West as soon as they grew up. After succeeding they came East at frequent intervals to tell the old folk where they got off. Today an old Ford car and the price o some gasoline is a passport to the whole United States, and th aeroplane has made the country shrink to the effective size tha France was before men learned to fly. American uniformity not due to purity of race. The American people are the neares approach to what we have never seen—a European. There as no real Europeans, only Frenchmen, Germans, Swedes, and s on. But America has been enriched by immigration from all th chief strains in Europe, and though there are pools of un assimilated Italians or Central Europeans here and there, an some two million Jews in New York, the mixing goes on, an a stable population of fairly fixed proportions of rather vane types of men is in sight. Make no mistake about it that diversit of origin has the most profound consequences. No more tha half the people of the States owe their origin to British source in any important degree.

You are not likely to have much business to do with Americans, but if you do, remember that games are a good guide to national character. Americans do business as they play games, with great attack and vigour, noise, zest, and enjoyment—and to win. The money is not sought for its own sake particularly, and Americans are not any more avaricious than other people in business. In fact, they are at least as generous as ourselves. But the dollar is a scalp, a medal, the symbol of achievement and success, and is pursued as such. More than that, Americans like the activities and excitements of business for their own sake, as well as for the distinction that success in them brings. England is a country where men of leisure often take to business, while America is a country where men of business take to leisure only occasionally and reluctantly. Nor are the successful business men very willing to see their sons relax their efforts and turn to other activities, social, political and cultural. In this respect, perhaps, the differences between the two countries are lessening ; but in America culture and social activities are still mainly left to the women. What Americans leave to no one is generosity and philanthropy. They do that themselves. Their charities cover the earth, and no cry of distress goes up anywhere which does not bring a prompt response in dollars. And when the Americans give, they give with both hands, as. we in England have every reason to know.

There is one topic on which you will be expected to express some opinion, and it may sometimes prove a little ticklish. It is the extent and speed of American aid. You are likely to be asked outright whether you think that the United States should have come in long ago, whether or not they should now convoy, or send capital ships, or do something which at the time of the question they have not done. Here you must be very careful to remember that the extent of American aid is a matter for the Americans themselves to decide, as Lord Halifax has said on many occasions. You can safely repeat his words. Having said so much, you should express our deep appreciation of American help given so far, the extent of which you should realise (see America Helps Britain). You should also realise that the Government of the United States has to carry with it the various sections of the country whose interests are affected and great masses of people who are not even remotely of British origin.

Beware of even thinking that the United States owes help to Britain as a duty. She and her way of life are threatened, as we and our way are threatened. She is determined to defend herself, first through help to us and, if necessary, directly ; but she is defending herself. The first duty of her Government is to defend the people of the United States in whatever they think the most effective way, and in the way that the American people will approve and follow. Having made that clear, there is every reason why you should frankly state that American help is absolutely necessary to us, and that we depend for victory upon American supplies reaching us in addition to our own output. Make it clear that no American aid, however great, will cause the least slackening of our own efforts. We are close enough to the enemy to realise that we must go all out—and we are doing so, under great difficulties.

Apart from these quite obvious precautions, you have only to respond to the generous and kindly interest of your American hosts. I will give you a motto which you will find on every railway-crossing in the States. It is: " Stop, look, listen "—and, I would add : " Smile."