"GETTING TOGETHER"

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3139, 18 July 1917, Page 5

"GETTING TOGETHER"

POINTS FOR BRITONS AND AMERICANS "IAN HAY'S TOUR IN THE STATES Englishmen and Americans talk the fiame language—we Americans think we do, anyhow—but every Englishman in the United States and every American in England has daily proof that' they do not yet understand one-another. "Ihtl Hay" (Captain lan Hay Beith, of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) has been spendiug tho past six months in "God's country," endeavouring (o explain and interpret Britain to Americans. In tho course of that highly commendable (and necessary) campaign of education, the author of the delightful "First Hundred Thousand" has discovered that England has something to learn about Americans too.

In "Getting Together," a little booklet recently published in the United States, Captain Beith has written-a most incisivo and instructive compendium on how Britons and Americans can learn to know one another better. It is worth move than all the hands-across-the-sea gush and blood 7 is-thicker-than-water "tosh" ever littered. It deals with concrete realities, eschewing pious abstractions. AVritten before the Americans decided to stake "everything we are, everything we have," for the overthrow or Hohenzollernism, it was never so timely as at this hour. Britons and Americans are now shoulder to shoulder m arms; in mutual understanding the alliance is still far from complote. Hero are extracts from Captain Beitii s commandments on Anglo-American 'getting together": Let the Briton remember— 1. Remember you are talking to a friend. 2. Remember you are talking to a man who regards his nation as the greatest nation in the world. He will probably tell yon this. 3; Remember you are talking to a man whose conhfry has made an- enormous contribution to your cause in. men. material, and money, besides putting up with a good deal of inconvenience and irksome supervision at your hands. Remember, too, that your own country has made little or no acknowledgment of its indebtedness in this matter. 4. Remember you are talking to-a man who -believes in "publicity," and who believes further that if you; do not advertise the fact you cannot -iKßsibly be m possession of "the g00d6." 5. Remember this man is hot bo impervious to criticism as you are. Don t over-criticise his apparent attitude to the war. Don't ask him whether he is too proud to fight, or he may offer you convincing proof to' the contrary. , 6. Remember you aro talking to.a man whoso business has been • considerably interfered with by the .stringency of the Allied blockade. So don't invite him to wax enthusiastic over the vigilance of the Royal Navy or the promptness of the censor "in putting tho mails through. Let the American remember: 1. Remember you are talking to ft friend. ~ ,

2. Remember you are talking to a man who regards his nation as the greatest in the world. He will not tell you this, because he takes it for granted that you know already. 3. Remember you are talking to a man. who is a member of a traditionally reticent and nuexpansivo race; who says about one-third of what he feels; who is obsessed by a mania for understating his country's "case, exaggerating its weaknesses'and belittling its efforts; who is secretly shy, so covers up his shyness with a cloak of aggressiveness is offensive to those who are not prepared for it. 1. Remember you are talking to a man who is fighting for his life. To-day his face is turned toward Central Europe, and his back to the United States. Do not expect him to display an. Intimate or sympathetic understanding of America's true attitude to the war. He is conducting tho war according to his lights, and is prepared to abide by the consequences of what he does. So ho is apt to bo resentful of criticism. 5. Enemy propaganda to the contrary, remember that this mau is not a hypocrite. Ho is occasionally stupid; he is at times obstinate; he is frequently highhanded; and often he would rather be misunderstood than explain. But ho is neither tyrannical nor corrupt. He went into this war because ho felt it his duty to do so and not l>ecaui=e ho coveted any Teutonic vineyard. G. Remember that your nation has done a great deal for this man's nation during tho war. Toll Mm all about }t; it will intorcst him, becauso he did not know.-rFrom a review by Frederic William Wilo in the "Daily Ma.il."