No Offense

Beneath their annoyingly impeccable manners the British were annoyed. Irritation over clumsy U.S. ways of springing delicate international mines finally became vocal over the President's offhand announcement of the disposition of the Italian fleet (TIME, March 13). Last week, Britons wanted Cousin Sam (lately, and off the record, they have been calling him "Uncle Spam") to know that they did not like his style. They chose their foremost forum, the floor of the House of Commons, gave Winston Churchill a bad half-hour answering polite but insistent questions from both sides of the House.

There was no great complaint in the House of Commons over the plan to divvy up the Italian fleet. What annoyed Britons of all stripes was the American disregard of other people's feelings. Besides President Roosevelt's airy aside, there was quite a bill of particulars:

> Item: Secretary Ickes' announcement of the U.S. pipeline in Arabia, with no preliminary warning to the British--who have a more-than-somewhat interest in Middle East oil.

> Item: the President's encouragement of the Zionists--to the dismay not only of Britain but of seven Arab states. The M.P.s failed to note that the President's actions last week were quite different from his talk.

London's bright Economist put the nub of British alarm, if not its central point: "If the Americans adopt a policy of intervention after the war, its value . . . will depend on its manners and methods. . . . If their intervention is to be unilateral, spasmodic and uninformed, the final result will be worse than straight isolationism."

But if the British were annoyed on the surface, they were resigned underneath. They knew--and they are cheerful pessimists--that the relations of the U.S. and Britain, for better or worse, would be a mutual problem for a long time to come.

With a politely imperceptible sigh, both Houses of Parliament joined in issuing an invitation (the first in history) to the U.S. Congress to send a delegation to sit a while in Westminster. Probably the invitation would be accepted. Probably, when it was, it would result in a great many kindly misunderstandings on both sides. But perhaps real understanding would be furthered.

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