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PARTISAN REVIEW
turally towards America and urge the superiority of the American
language and even the American accent. This attitude is changing, how·
ever, as it begins to be grasped that the U. S. A. is potentially imperialist
and politically a long way behind Britain. A favourite saying nowadays
is that whereas Chamberlain appeased Germany, Churchill appeases
America. It is, indeed, obvious enough that the British ruling class is
being propped up by American arms, and may thereby get a new lease
on life it would not otherwise have had. People now blame the U. S. A.
for every reactionary move, more even than is justified. For instance,
even quite well-informed people believed the Darlan job to have been
"put over" by the Americans without our knowledge, though in fact the
British Government must have been privy to it.
There is also widespread anti-American feeling among the working
class, thanks to the presence of the American soldiers, and, I believe,
very bitter anti-British feeling among the soldiers themselves. I have
to speak here on second-hand evidence, because it is almost impossible
to make contact with an American soldier. They are to be seen every·
where in the streets, but they don't go to the ordinary pubs, and even
in
the hotels and cocktail bars which they do frequent they keep by them·
selves and hardly answer
if
spoken to. American civilians who are
in
contact with them say that apart from the normal grumbling about the
food, the climate, etc., they complain of being inhospitably treated and
of having to pay for their amusements, and are disgusted by the dingi·
ness, the old-fashionedness and the general poverty of life in England.
Certainly it cannot be pleasant to he suddenly transferred from the
comforts of American civilization to some smoky and rainy Midland
town, battered by three years of war and short of every kind of con·
sumption goods. I doubt, however, whether the average American would
find England tolerable even in peacetime. The cultural differences are
very deep, perhaps irreconcilable, and the Americans obviously have the
profoundest contempt for England, rather like the contempt which the
ordinary lowbrow Englishman has for the Latin races. All who are
in
contact with the American troops report them as saying that this is
"their" war, they have done all the fighting in it, the British are no good
at anything except running away, etc. The lack of contact between the
Americans and the locals is startling. It is now more than eight months
since the first American troops arrived, and I have not yet seen a British
soldier and an American soldier together. Officers very occasionally,
soldiers never. The early good impression which the American troops
made on the women seems to have worn off. One never sees them except
with tarts or near-tarts, and the same thing is reported from most parts
of the country. Relations are said to he better in Scotland, however,
where the people are certainly more hospitable than in England. Also,
people seem to prefer the Negroes to the white Americans.
