The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1930 FEAR COMPLEX AND FOLLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1051, 15 August 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1930 FEAR COMPLEX AND FOLLY

SPIHNG is oil tiptoe in Auckland as bright and confident as Nature always' lias been at the same season since the beginning of the world. Birds are singing in their quest for nesting places; trees are in bud and, here and there, also in blossom; the very air is brisk with the promise of glowing beauty and happiness. Does the community as a whole compare even reasonably well with the gaiety of tilings untouched by polities and pelf? The community suffers badly in comparison. It is gloomy, hesitant, and without alert confidence in itself and its resources. Pessimism is its main product, and the output suggests that the pessimists have been working overtime. This doleful fact, was brought out abruptly and soundly cuffed in the City yesterday afternoon at a. meeting of optimistic citizens whose purpose was to establish a society for promoting an early renovation of old, ugly and unprofitable buildings (Auckland is littered with such structures) as one means of relieving unemployment and social distress without a waste of public money. The initial purpose was achieved in a spirit of confidence that enterprising men speedily will bring the society’s laudable ideal into practice. Details of the society’s scheme may be left to common sense and time. The talk in support of it was much more interesting and inspiring than the idea. Several delegates trounced the pessimists who today are Auckland’s worst enemies and most miserable citizens. One speaker—Mr. It. Laidtaw—made use of a simile that exactly described the mood and method of too many people in Auckland. “The community is just like a motorist who opens his engine out going downhill, puts on the brakes when climbing and uses the reverse gear when he finds himself at the bottom of the dip.” Since everybody is not yet a master of the motorist’s. language, it may bo emphasised that Mr. Laidlaw merely explained in a polite, metaphorical manner that the community was going the wrong way to meet bad times and in doing so was inexcusably stupid. Different imagery, but no less descriptive and exact, was employed by Mr. G. W. Hutchison to demonstrate the chief obstacle to Auckland’s progress. Many people, he said, were suffering from a fear complex. Precisely! and the ways in which some of the citizens who are afflicted with terror can only be described as deplorable. Instead of facing difficulties with courage and constructive ability they arc putting into drastic operation the despair that assails timid men. They are holding up enterprise, increasing unemployment, adding more burdens to those in economic distress. There is no pessimist worse than the safety-first type of individual. Within the past month this class of pessimist has sprung up as quickly and numerously as toadstools—the word mushroom would not fit their case because mushrooms are useful. As Mr. Hutchison pointed out, “it is sad to see those who are supposed to understand economic problems getting up and telling the public to economise. The Prime Minister is one of them and the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand is another.” The speaker himself seemed to suffer from just a little of the fear complex. He had condemned inasmuch as he confessed the possibility of being guilty of lese majeste. There is no occasion for fear on that score because the pessimism of leading representative men is in New Zealand today the worst truth. The Hon. G. W. Forbes, who has been surfeited with praise for socalled courage, is the Dominion’s supreme pessimist, and yet he is the first successor to the greatest administrative optimist this country has ever known! The Budget is a notorious example of how the fear complex can dissipate the wisdom of responsible politicians. A few months ago Mr. Henry Ford Mas invited by a London journal to give an opinion as to what Mas wrong with British industry. His answer was applicable to Auckland as u-ell as to England. It was simply the obvious fact that the trouble is not so much the want of money as a lack of initiative. Business men and industrial leaders refuse stubbornly,to interpret their difficulties as notices to change their methods. They blunder on hoping for a magical restoration of the placid, profitable old times. And that is Auckland’s trouble and the main cause of its fear complex.