SELF-DEPRECIATION.
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E HAD the opportunity recently of discussing mechanical transport and the industry upon which it is dependent with an unusually large number of people visiting this country from overseas. Whenever this experience falls to one's, lot, it is impossible not to be impressed by the unfortunate results of OUT national habit of running down all things British. We have not, on the whole, found recent visitors altogether disposed to believe everything they hear to the detriment of British industry in general and the motor industry in particular. At the same time, one cannot doubt that constant reiteration has its effect.
It is the habit of the average Englishman to spread the view that the ordinary Englishman is 50 years behind the times, and is far too stubborn to be roused into activity. The people who convey this opinion, of course, make the tacit reservation that they themselves are above the average ; but, if A is constantly telling you that B is a fool, and B is equally persistent in expressing a similar opinion of A, one is apt to come to the conclusion, sooner or later, that, in this particular 'hatter, they are both right.
The development of world trade depends largely on the creation of a favourable atmosphere in which D26 to do business, and this is why this practice of self depreciation is so injurious.'
S-cnne of us rather like to think that we are governed by the biggest knaves or fools unhung, and that our outstanding quality is an insensate obstinacy, in spite of which we somehow. "worry through." Now, our commercial competitors, as, foe example, the Americans, take a very different line. Tbeyenay, perhaps, sometimes err in the other direction, but their persistency in claiming predominance in commercial ability certainly leaves people with the belief that they are a thoroughly live and up-to-date raee, whose products are likely to partake of their own characteristics.
It is to be feared that the habit of national. selfdepreciation is so strong in many Britishers that it cannot be altogether erased. We believe, however, that, if our great industries are to make the strongest possible attempt to secure supremacy in the world's trade, one of the first things that they mudt do is to create among possible buyers an atmosphere of confidence, not only in their integrity and the quality. of such goods as they produce, but in their astuteness, their adaptability, and their firm determination to keep abreast, or even ahead, of the times.