LETTER FROM LONDON
Hesseltine, William B.
Letter From London By WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE London THE British are relying on the sterling bloc to pull them through, and are howling mightily over the thought that the United States wants to go...
...The "we can take it" psychology is, in a sense, the expression of apathy born of frustration...
...Over and over again British manufacturers, presidents of corporations, spokesmen for business, are talking about the necessity of developing "Standard Design" for the markets...
...I found, for instance, that English houses are wired for 220 volts and that my gadget would be burned out as soon as attached...
...But it is more than the older attitude...
...They are proud of the way they "took" the bombing...
...I just don't believe England can survive under a situation in which they will have to compete with American manufacturing methods and with American salesmanship...
...The "Open Door" policy, which the Americans are insisting on, meets no response from either the Laborites or the Conservatives...
...Both of them condemn the American tariff system, and use it as an excuse for maintaining their own isolationist position...
...Now "Standard Design" means simply that they do not want to compete with the American system of style changes and "new models...
...The English have adopted isolationism as a policy...
...PERHAPS there is something else under all of this...
...Letter From London By WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE London THE British are relying on the sterling bloc to pull them through, and are howling mightily over the thought that the United States wants to go on a basis of free trade...
...Instead of showing a zest for competition, and a willingness to abide by the consequences, the British have a "we can take it" psychology...
...Even the staid and Tory London Times had adopted a new and friendly policy towards the Labor Government—to the intense disgust of the Colonel-Blimp-Conservatives...
...I found that the house was equipped with 110-volt power...
...THE new Labor Government is having its difficulties already...
...I was a guest, as hundreds of articulate Americans before me have been, and I carried along my shaver...
...I am in complete agreement with him...
...They were a backward people, said the man who had been a member of Parliament for 20 years...
...Yet, at the same time, members of both groups will admit that the British are terribly backward in the use of new devices...
...Today, they are talking about Imperial preference, the sterling bloc, and the necessity of maintaining their own isolated empire...
...They are insisting to each other that they can "take", another hard Winter without Lend-Lease...
...But the Labor...
...They are enormously proud of their ability to "take it...
...I could write a sad story on the subject of traveling with an electric razor...
...And, since they cannot market them in free trade areas, or in direct competition with the American models, they are trying to hold on to the "Empire Preference" and the sterling bloc systems...
...The Labor Government inherited the program of the Churchill government on demobilization, and was steadily proceeding to release men under the Beveridge Plan until the end of the Japanese War...
...Moreover, they are actuated in this desire to maintain their little private corner of the world's trade by the fear of competition...
...SOMEHOW, I am unable to distinguish any difference in attitude on such matters between the Laborites and the Conservatives...
...But even the friendly press is beginning to raise questions about how soon the new Government is going to have some answers to the immediate problems of housing and demobilization...
...Government was unprepared for the emergency, and has, to this moment, shown no capacity for adopting a speedier scheme for releasing men and women from the services...
...And when a former Member of Parliament that very afternoon made envious remarks about American electrical gadgets, I asked him why in all that's holy the British ran such a system...
...Frankly, as I look around, I am of the opinion that deliberate frustration has about played out as a policy...
...Both of them talk about Empire Preferences in the same way...
...There is a testiness in the atmosphere, which, though it's neither articulate nor well defined, seems to indicate that the people are not going to "take it" very much longer...
...A century ago, when the British were the dominant industrial power of the world, they stood firmly and staunchly for free trade...
...This is an outgrowth of the old "bull-dog determination" which once characterized the nation...
...The end of the war made the old plan too slow, while the needs .of industry became suddenly pressing...
...The press is complaining about this, and it is complaining as well about the delays in making any progress because the Government's spokesmen seem to be unwilling to take the people into their confidence...
...Both of them strike an attitude of horror at the American suggestion that the Americans be admitted to the sterling area...
...His answer was that the British just didn't seem to have the spirit of progress...
...Moreover, there are no double sockets...
...I had to get new plugs—and then I began to realize there were three different sizes of floor plugs...
...It is, in part, resignation...
...I had to buy, after much searching, a resistance coil...
...I came with an electric shaver, and promptly began to learn things I had never dreamed of about international relations...
...No one out in the Empire, I am fully convinced, would freely select the British system of electricity in preference to American gadgets...
...The press has, almost generally, been sympathetic with the Government...
...It is, in part, a blind faith that somehow, if they will just hold out long enough, things will get better...
...My American fittings didn't fit any sockets in England...
...The friendly press is raising more questions than the Conservative Party—and they are demanding definite statements about how fast the soldiers can be "demobbed...
...Perhaps, too, in neither country has all the frustration been the result of inefficiency...
...Like the Americans, the British have been subjected to a continued round of governmental regulation, of bureaucratic interference, of rationing, and of red tape...
...I am inclined to believe that "we can take it" might be the slogan which the bureaucrats want the people to adopt, rather than.the one which the people are willing to accept...
...From all this, I conclude that the "we can take it" psychology Is about to lose its effectiveness as a device for controlling the masses of the people...
...Then I found that I had been in no danger of burning my razor out by plugging it into a socket...
...AND then, the other day, I went to visit one of these English country houses which have been famed from the beginning of time...
...They point with pride to the way they "took" the privations of the war...
...Housewives were complaining about queues, and the queues were the result of the labor shortage...
...It means that the British are interested in continuing to market these obsolete pull-chain water closets...
...In fact, before I had finished the simple task of fitting my shaver to the British electrical system, I had learned an awful lot about cartels—which keep American gadgets out of Albion, and preserve the home market as a monopoly for the local manufacturers— and about the whole subject of Empire Preference...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 43
