LAVENDER & PLUMBING

Back in London after three months of negotiation in Washington, Lord Keynes last week lamented: "What a depth of misunderstanding governs the relationships between even the friendliest and most like-minded nations." His lordship was right. Anglo-American fellowship had slumped from its record wartime high. Americans and Britons were getting their feelings hurt again because each people tended to forget that the other viewed it through a haze of preconceptions. TIME here offers a list of the notions (many of them exaggerated or downright false) which influence relations between the two countries.

Britons make the following assumptions about Americans:

1) That they are two-faced in criticizing Britain's treatment of India while they demand Pacific bases and mistreat Negroes.

2) That the U.S. Government, with all its peculiarities, is better than lawless Americans deserve.

3) That Americans are hard drivers who know how to mass-produce efficiently.

4) That Americans think of their foreign trade, from bananas to Old Masters, merely as an addition to their abundance.

5) That America may either go isolationist again or try a thinly disguised imperialism.

6) That Americans still do not fully realize their world responsibilities.

7) That Americans think Britain should be grateful to them for saving it from the Axis.

8) That the American passion for getting a thing done fast often means it is done badly.

9) That faddism and commercial publicity put Americans at the mercy of everyone from plumbers to psychoanalysts.

10) That American women know how to dress, but also how to wear the family pants.

11) That the only American culture is movies.

12) That Americans overstate because they are so unsure of themselves.

13) That America has more of a class system than it realizes, especially in economic inequalities.

14) That Americans concentrate unfairly on the seamy side of English history.

15) That Americans hate privacy but are marvelously hospitable.

16) That Americans chase the almighty dollar.

17) That Americans are not conscious of their own noise.

18) That Americans want schools to give as many people as possible roughly the same education.

19) That Americans were good partners in war.

20) That Anglo-American cooperation cannot by itself insure the peace, but is an essential first step.

Americans make the following assumptions about Britons:

1) That they are hypocrites in talking about democracy while they operate an Empire in which democracy has little reality.

2) That the British people are basically decent, but that the British Government is perfidious, and no kidding.

3) That lack of enterprise is responsible for the low productivity that hobbles British industry.

4) That the British slogan "Export or Die" is a way of making other countries pay for Britain's inadequate natural resources.

5) That Britain, going downhill since Victoria, is now internationalist only in self-defense.

6) That Britons do not quite realize the extent of their national decline.

7) That Britons think America should be grateful to them for keeping a world to be saved.

8) That the British are far too leisurely and are often content to muddle through.

9) That the British are so obsessed by reverence for the past that the necessity of change gets only lip service.

10) That British women dress as dully as they cook, and let their menfolk dominate them.

11) That the only British perfume is lavender.

12) That Britons understate because they are so complacent.

13) That Britain has more of a class system than it admits, even under a Labor Government.

14) That Britons, knew little and until lately cared less about U.S. history.

15) That British hospitality is fine when you get it--but damn hard to get.

16) That Britons cling too tightly to the precious pence.

17) That Britons are not conscious of criticism from others.

18) That Britons look on schools as a selective rather than as an equalizing force.

19) That Britons were good partners in war.

20) That if peacetime understanding with the British cannot be reached, world cooperation will be impossible.

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