As regards the egotism, we should say that Lord Beaverbrook
made a misstatement and also tried to encourage a public nuisance were it not that he was compelled to define egotism in such a way as. to deprive it of its ordinary meaning. Mr. Baldwin, according to him, is an egotist, his egotism being humility or the affectation of it. But when humility becomes arrogance we begin to feel ourselves lost : shyness becomes brazenness, generosity meanness, and stupidity cunning. Perhaps it is all the result of the inferiority complex which apparently everybody has got. If you are humble it is obvious that you have got it, and if you are over- bearing it is obvious that you are merely trying to disguise and suppress it. If Lord Beaverbrook had substituted courage and persistence for egotism his address would have been nearer the mark. The Times under Lord. Northcliffe, who had the qualifications postulated by Lord Beaverbrook, had much less influence than the Times under its present editor, who shows no traces of egotism. * * * *
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