LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
America and the Festival
Suz.—If Mr. Dupont sincerely wants to understand why we are having a Festival of Britain next year, our propaganda for it is failing badly in not answering his questions. He seems to be imagining that the Festival is something that we thought up after the campaign' in Korea started. He appears to be unaware that 1951 is the centenary of the first inter- national exhibition, an exhibition which was held in this country and which is still referred to as "The Great Exhibition."
When we thought we had won the war against Fascism, and could start reconstructing and building a new Britain, it seemed a good idea to celebrate this centenary by showing the world what we were doing. We could not know, in 1945, that by the time 1951 came Americans would be " paying for a war in Korea " or that American " industries would be building additions, so that material of war could be manu- factured." In 1945 we were thinking of health-centres and better schools, new concert halls to replace those which had been bombed, the development of wonderful new textiles and plastic materials and the encouragement of the arts. We thought it would be appropriate to show our progress since 1851. Indeed, there is a lot of progress of which we can be proud—and are still proud of, although the way the wort has gone since 1945 makes a " festival " appear an anachronism. Whit would Mr. Dupont have us do ? Scrap all the work and money that have been put into the Festival ? Fortunately there are other Americans who take a longer view, such as those generous "Pilgrims," who recently gave additional large amounts of money to continue the restoration of our national monuments. Always a country must use some of its income for the stimulation and maintenance of its cultural life ; otherwise it might as well lose its wars.
It comes ill from Mr. Dupont to complain of our spending money on " highly-priced advertisements" in American magazines, when it was on American advice that we stepped up our advertising in order to be able to enter the American market. He says he does not want to be "ungracious "; surely it is because of our realisation of American good- will towards us that we have not pointed out that, in fact, our "economic stability " is due to our own efforts and not to any infusion of American dollars. American dollars are needed because, under American pressure, the East-West trade (and I mean China as well as Eastern Europe), which is essential to our economy, has not improved and is now deteriorating.
. I am particularly sorry to learn that there are British people who, in private letters, are urging Americans not to come. Asking Americans to stay away at the same time as demanding that visitors from Eastern Europe should not be allowed in is, in effect, asking that we exist without trade at all. Even those who think the Festival ill-conceived should be patriotic enough to realise that, as we are going to have it, we should all see it is as big a success as possible. Instead of telling our friends in America to stay away because everywhere will be crowded, we should wherever possible invite them to stay with us and thus help our national economy and save them from hotel coffee. And if we have to give them American dried egg for breakfast, it will do no harm to point out that it is they who prevent us importing fresh Polish eggs by restricting our
Previous page
