THAT INFERIORITY COMPLEX

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 8

THAT INFERIORITY COMPLEX

Wellington people should be heartened by what Mr. Harold Gatty, representative of Pan-American Airways, had to say, in an interview in "The Post" yesterday, on the suitability of Wellington Harbour as a flying base. His words were:

Not only is Wellington Harbour quite suitable for flying-boats as they are being built today,.but the expanse of clear water is so great that it will be suitable for any future flying-boat development that one can visualise. If a flying-boat can't land here, well, it can't land anywhere.

This, from an authority of Mr. Gatty's standing, should settle the qiiestion of suitability once and for all. How the question ever came to be raised in the first place would be a mystery, if it were not for a characteristic of Wellington people as a whole which has not once but many times reacted to the material disadvantage of this city. This characteristic is a disposition to hide their light under a bushel, so to speak, a self-deprecatory modesty,' an unassuming diffidence, a meek acceptance of other people's valuation of them, which Mr. Gatty well sums up in the modern psycho-analytical expression, "inferiority complex." I have heard it seriously stated, observed Mr. Gatty, "that Wellington Harbour is not and cannot be suitable for a flying-boat terminal. And that has been said, not by people outside Wellington, but by Wellington people." Unfortunately this is only too true. Wellington cannot blame outsiders for "knocking" her, when some of her own folk do the "knocking." Wellington has a proud and unchallengeable motto, "Suprema a Situ," which in normal times might suffice to answer all criticism. These times are not normal, ..but a period of transition to other modes of transport on which Wellington's future as a great city may well depend. It is high time to get rid of that "inferiority complex." .