DEAR TIME READER

If you were British instead of American, what would be your reasons for wanting to read TIME? Our subscribers in Great Britain have answered this question clearly and almost unanimously in a sack-full of mail we received from them recently. They read TIME for pretty much the same reason that Americans do: to keep themselves informed on the significant news of the world. But they have another important reason: they want to know about America and about the American viewpoint. Writes Brendan Bracken. Britain's wartime Minister of Information:

"I must be one of the oldest readers of TIME in Britain, and I have always found it to be an invaluable means of following events in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world. It is beyond the power of any Englishman to undergo the physical and mental labour of wading through a tithe of the great American dailies. . . . TIME gives a good summary of most of the news that appears [in them].

"TIME has three great qualities. It is supremely enterprising, lively and independent. My only complaint is that during the war it was delivered in England at maddeningly irregular intervals, and so I am glad that it is now possible to have a European edition of TIME regularly delivered to any address in Britain."

Mr. Bracken's letter, and hundreds of others like it, came to us as a result of our putting TIME back on a prompt delivery schedule to the British Isles. For four long years our readers there have stuck by us through one of the most miserable delivery schedules on record. Owing to wartime exchange restrictions, we could send only 3,077 copies of TIME to Britain.

Most of them had to get there as , best they could--by ship and in spite of German planes and U-boats. So our average British reader was lucky to get his copy within one to three months of the date on its cover.

Some months after V-E Day, when air-freight opened up, we began air mailing our Overseas edition from the U.S. to our loyal 3,077 British subscribers. Soon thereafter, British authorities raised our quota to 30,000 and let us fill it with copies of our Paris-printed edition for U.S. troops in Europe. Then finally, a fortnight ago, we began printing a full-sized, ad-carrying edition of TIME in Paris for delivery to civilian readers in France. England, and the Low Countries within 24 hours of its delivery date in the U.S.

If we doubted the interest and loyalty of our British readers after four years of mistreatment, they--like Brendan Bracken--reassured us by their response (hundreds of them wrote in with uncharacteristic British enthusiasm) to the first issue of TIME that reached them by airmail. They were happy to get TIME on time, and they said so. Some excerpts from their letters:

A subscriber in Bexhill echoed many a British reader when he said: ". . . What I think of major importance is that your European-printed edition is not in any way trimmed to European or English taste."

Said Novelist-Historian H. G. Wells: "TIME edits the world for me. It is indispensable to release one's mind from the falsities and misinformation and suppression of party 'organs.' May it prosper for another half century."

Like many who wrote us, a subscriber in London wanted to see ads again. Said she: ". . . As long as we on this side cannot purchase goods from America the advertising is merely tantalizing, but it is nice to see. . . ."

To English readers Bracken, Wells, et al. TIME'S thanks for their patience and for their unflagging enthusiasm.

Cordially,

JAMES A. LINEN

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