Author: Taylor, Nancy M.
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: New Zealand World War II History
Publisher: New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
Rights: Creative Commons (see front page)

The Home Front Volume II

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About the electronic version

The Home Front Volume II

Author: Taylor, Nancy M.

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About the print version

The Home Front Volume II

Author: Taylor, Nancy M.

Historical Publications Branch, Department Of Internal Affairs, 1986
Wellington, New Zealand

Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45

Encoding

Prepared for the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre as part of the Official War History project.

The digital edition of this book was sponsored by Mary Weston, daughter of General Sir Howard Kippenberger who served as one of the Editors-in-Chief of the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War.

All unambiguous end-of-line hyphens have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line. Every effort has been made to preserve the Māori macron using unicode.

Some keywords in the header are a local Electronic Text Centre scheme to aid in establishing analytical groupings.

Revisions to the electronic version

- 21 July 2005
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- 11 November 2004
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- 31 August 2004
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The Home Front Volume II

Contents

- [covers]

- Official History of New Zealand — in the Second World War — 1939–45 — THE HOME FRONT p. i

- [frontispiece] p. ii
- [title page] p. iii
- Contents p. v
- List of Illustrations p. vii
- Abbreviations p. xi
- Metric Conversion p. xix

- CHAPTER 15 — Manpower is Directed p. 663
- CHAPTER 16 — The Shoe Pinches p. 742
- CHAPTER 17 — More Shortages p. 797
- CHAPTER 18 — Aliens p. 851
- CHAPTER 19 — Censorship p. 886
- CHAPTER 20 — Camp Followers p. 1014
- CHAPTER 21 — Women At War p. 1053
- CHAPTER 22 — Education p. 1116
- CHAPTER 23 — The Arts Survive p. 1183
- CHAPTER 24 — Victory at Last p. 1219

- Sources p. 1297

- [section] p. 1297
- A. UNPUBLISHED
- B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES p. 1299
- C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS p. 1300
- D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES p. 1301

- Index p. 1309

The Home Front Volume II

Contents

- [covers]

- Official History of New Zealand — in the Second World War — 1939–45 — THE HOME FRONT p. i

- [frontispiece] p. ii
- [title page] p. iii
- Contents p. v
- List of Illustrations p. vii
- Abbreviations p. xi
- Metric Conversion p. xix

The Home Front Volume II

[covers]

The Home Front Volume II

Official History of New Zealand — in the Second World War — 1939–45 — THE HOME FRONT

Official History of New Zealand
in the Second World War
1939–45
THE HOME FRONT

The Home Front Volume II

[frontispiece]

National Savings poster

The Home Front Volume II

[title page]

Official History of New Zealand
in the Second World War 1939–45
THE
NEW ZEALAND PEOPLE
AT WAR
THE HOME FRONT
VOLUME II

NANCY M. TAYLOR

HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS BRANCH
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS V. R. WARD, GOVERNMENT PRINTER WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND—1986

© Crown Copyright Reserved 1986
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced by any means,
electronic, mechanical, electrostatic photocopying or otherwise, or stored in a
retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Government Printing
Office.
ISBN 0-477-01360-0 (set)
ISBN 0-477-01259-0 (vol. I)
ISBN 0-477-01260-4 (vol. II)
Typeset in 12pt Garamond and printed on 85gsm Mataura Cream Opaque
Printing. Book typeset, printed and bound at the Government Printing Office,
Mulgrave Street, Wellington.

The Home Front Volume II

Contents

Contents

| | Page
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS | | vii
ABBREVIATIONS | | xi
METRIC CONVERSION | | xix
Volume II | |
15 | Manpower is Directed | 663
16 | The Shoe Pinches | 742
17 | More Shortages | 797
18 | Aliens | 851
19 | Censorship | 886
20 | Camp Followers | 1014
21 | Women at War | 1053
22 | Education | 1116
23 | The Arts Survive | 1183
24 | Victory at Last | 1219
SOURCES | | 1297
INDEX | | 1309

The Home Front Volume II

List of Illustrations

List of Illustrations

PHOTOGRAPHS (all held by the Alexander Turnbull Library)

| Frontispiece Volume II
National Savings poster. |

facing p.

866

Waste metal collection. War History Collection |
Glass and paper conservation. War History Collection |
A winchdriver unloading war material, 1943. Pascoe Collection |
Soldiers building a haystack, Hamilton, 1944. War History Collection |
Ration books being issued by the Post and Telegraph Department at Auckland, April 1942. War History Collection |
A ration book page |
The Coast Watching Station at Oteranga Bay, only accessible by horse, 1943. Pascoe Collection |
Patriotic poster designed by the Governor-General, Lord Galway. Evening Post Collection |
Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt talking to Mrs Janet Fraser at Auckland Airport, 1943. Pascoe Collection |
Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt and J. T. Paul, Director of Publicity, at Government House, 1943. Pascoe Collection |
Girl Guides in Auckland making camouflage nets. War History Collection |
Aircraft construction at the de Havilland plant in Wellington, 1943. War History Collection |
Red Cross supplies being loaded at Wellington Wharf. War History Collection |
Gift food being loaded for despatch to Britain, January 1948. War History Collection |
A munitions factory, 1943. Pascoe Collection |
Manufacture of helmets. Gordon Burt Collection |

facing p.

1090

A member of the Women's Land Service holding a lamb for tailing at Porangahau. War History Collection |
Battledress being manufactured at Cathie & Sons Ltd. War History Collection |
Aircraft being constructed. War History Collection |
Grenade making at Christchurch. War History Collection |
Cabbages grown by the Department of Agriculture for use by United States forces, Levin, 1943. War History Collection |
A Levin vegetable farm, producing vegetables for reciprocal lend lease. Pascoe Collection |
Cabinetmakers at work at the Disabled Servicemen's Centre, Christchurch. War History Collection |
Motor tow-boats built in Auckland for the United States armed forces being launched in 1943. War History Collection |

Loading rounds into ammunition clips at the Colonial Ammunition Company's factory, Hamilton, 1944. War History Collection

Woman tram conductor, Wellington, 1943. War History Collection |

A stack of stripped flax fibre ready for the manufacturing process with a flax bush in the foreground, Foxton, 1945. War History Collection

New housing estate, Naenae, 1944. Evening Post Collection |
Celebrating VE Day, Lambton Quay, Wellington, 8 May 1945. War History Collection |
Canadian sailors in Wellington on VJ Day, 15 August 1945. War History Collection |

The return of the 28th (Maori) Battalion, Wellington, 1947. Two kuias express grief for the relatives of soldiers who died overseas. War History Collection

Soldiers' cemetery, Karori, Wellington, 1944. War History Collection |

documents

| page
Approval notice for application for pair of gumboots | 774
CARTOONS (all by Minhinnick, New Zealand Herald) |
‘They say she knows where there's some wool!’ | 763
‘“Come and get it!”’ | 782
‘Austerity Christmas’ | 794
‘Buttercuts and Dazes’ | 819
‘We Have no Pyjamas To-day’ | 844
‘Simple Blackout Hints, No. 163’ | 910
‘Prisoner of War?’ | 943
‘Education under Difficulties’ | 1136

The Home Front Volume II

Abbreviations

Abbreviations

A to J | Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives
ad | advertisement
admin | administration
Admlty | Admiralty
aet | aged
AEWS | Army Education and Welfare Service
Aff | Affairs
AIF | Australian Imperial Force
ANZUS | Australia–New Zealand– United States
App | Appendix
Assn, Assoc | Association, Associated
ARP | Air Raid Precautions
ASRS | Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
Asst | Assistant
ATC | Air Training Corps
ATL | Alexander Turnbull Library

AUC

Auckland University College (now University of

Auckland)

Auck | Auckland
Aust | Australia
b | born
BBC | British Broadcasting Corporation
b'casting | broadcasting
Bd | Board
BEF | British Expeditionary Force
BEM | British Empire Medal
BHS | Boys High School
BMA | British Medical Association
br | Branch
C & P | Censorship & Publicity
Cab | Cabinet
Canty | Canterbury
CAS | Chief of the Air Staff
CB | Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath
CBE | Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
CBS | Columbia Broadcasting System
CIGS | Chief of the Imperial General Staff
CGS | Chief of the General Staff
CH | Companion of Honour
Chanc Exch | Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chap | Chaplain
Chch | Christchurch
chmn | chairman
C-in-C | Commander-in-Chief
cmdr | commanding officer
CMG | Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Cmssn | Commission
Cmssnr | Commissioner
cmte | committee
Cncl | Council
CNS | Chief of Naval Staff
Co | Company
Col | Colonel, colonial
Conf | Conference
Co-op | Co-operative
Corp | Corporation
CORSO | Council of Organisations for Relief Service Overseas
COS | Chiefs of Staff
CPS | Christian Pacifist Society
CSI | Companion of the Order of the Star of India
CStJ | Companion of the Order of St John of Jerusalem
CUC | Canterbury University College (now University of Canterbury)
C'wealth | Commonwealth
d | died
DCM | Distinguished Conduct Medal
DBE | Dame of the British Empire
Def | Defence
Dep | Deputy
Dept | Department
DFC | Distinguished Flying Cross
DHS | District High School
Dir | Director
Div | Division
Dom | Dominion
DSIR | Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
DSM | Distinguished Service Medal
DSO | Distinguished Service Order
Dun | Dunedin
Ed | Editor
ED | Efficiency Decoration
Educ | Education, educated
EPS | Emergency Fire Service
EPS | Emergency Precautions Scheme
Exec | Executive
Ext Aff | External Affairs
FCIS | Fellow of Chartered Institute of Secretaries
fdtn | foundation
Fedn | Federation
FNZIE | Fellow of New Zealand Institute of Engineers
FoL | Federation of Labour
FRAM | Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music
FRCS | Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons
FRS | Fellow of the Royal Society
GBE | Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire
GCB | Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath
GCIE | Knight Grand Commander of the Indian Empire
GCMG | Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
GCSI | Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India
GCVO | Knight or Dame Grand Cross of Royal Victorian Order
Gen | General
GGNZ | Governor-General of New Zealand
GMT | Greenwich Mean Time
GOC | General Officer Commanding
Gov Gen | Governor General
Govt | Government
HC | High Commissioner
HoC | House of Commons
HoL | House of Lords
Hon | Honourable, Honorary
HoR | House of Representatives
HQ | Headquarters
IA | Internal Affairs
i/c | in charge of
IGS | Imperial General Staff
ILO | International Labour Organisation
Imp | Imperial
IMTFE | International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Indep | Independent
Inf Bde | Infantry Brigade
Inst | Institute
Int Aff | Internal Affairs
ISO | Imperial Service Order
ISS | International Student Service
JP | Justice of the Peace
KBE | Knight Commander of the British Empire
KC | King's Counsel
KCB | Knight Commander of the Bath
KCMG | Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
KG | Knight of the Order of the Garter
KStJ | Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem
Kt | Knight Bachelor
Lab | Labour
Lib | Liberal
LIB | Bachelor of Laws
LM | Legion of Merit
LoN | League of Nations
LRC | Labour Representation Committee
Lt | Lieutenant
MA | Maori Affairs
MBE | Member of the Order of the British Empire
MC | Military Cross
memb | member
Meth | Methodist
mngr | manager
MHR | Member of the House of Representatives
MICE | Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers
mid | Mentioned in Despatches
Min | Minister
Miny | Ministry
MLA | Member of the Legislative Assembly
MLC | Member of the Legislative Council
MM | Military Medal
MP | Member of Parliament
MS | Manuscript
Nat | National
NBS | National Broadcasting Service
NCO | non-commissioned officer
NS | National Service Department
NZANS | New Zealand Army Nursing Service
NZBC | New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation
NZBS | New Zealand Broadcasting Service
NZCPS | New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society
NZEF | New Zealand Expeditionary Force
NZEI | New Zealand Educational Institute
NZFU | New Zealand Farmers' Union
NZLA | New Zealand Library Association
NZLS | New Zealand Library Service
NZMC | New Zealand Medical Corps
NZPA | New Zealand Press Association
NZPD | New Zealand Parliamentary Debates
NZRB | New Zealand Rifle Brigade
NZRSA | New Zealand Returned Services Association
NZU | University of New Zealand
NZWWU | New Zealand Waterside Workers Union
OBE | Officer of the Order of the British Empire
OC | Officer Commanding
Off | Officer
OM | Order of Merit
ONS | Organisation for National Security
Oppos | Opposition
Orch | Orchestra
OU | Otago University (now University of Otago)
Oxon | Oxford University
P & T | Post and Telegraph
Pac | Pacific
Parly | Parliamentary
PC | Privy Councillor
PEN | Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors and Novelists
PM | Prime Minister, Prime Minister's Department
PMG | Postmaster-General
POW | prisoner-of-war
PPU | Peace Pledge Union
Pres | President
Presby | Presbyterian
PRO | Public Relations Officer
Prof | Professor
PSA | Public Service Association
pt | part
PWD | Public Works Department
QC | Queen's Counsel
QM | Quartermaster
QMG | Quartermaster-General
RAF | Royal Air Force
Rehab | Rehabilitation
rep | representative
Rev | Reverend
RFC | Royal Flying Corps
RNAS | Royal Naval Air Service
RNR | Royal Naval Reserve
RNVR | Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
RNZAF | Royal New Zealand Air Force
RSA | Returned Services Association
Rt | Right
RTA | Railway Trades Association
Sec | Secretary
SM | Stipendiary Magistrate
S Mil Cmd | Southern Military Command
Soc | Society
SSDA | Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
Superint | Superintendent
Ty | Treasury
TEAL | Trans-Empire Air Line
TV | Television
UKHC | United Kingdom High Commissioner
UN | United Nations
UNESCO | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
USA | United States of America
USSR | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
UNRRA | United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
VAD | Voluntary Aid Detachment
VC | Victoria Cross
VD | Volunteer Decoration, venereal disease
Ven | Venerable
vol | volume
VUC | Victoria University College (now Victoria University of Wellington)
WAAC | Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
WAAF | Women's Auxiliary Air Force
WCC | Waterfront Control Commission
WDFU | Women's Division of the Farmer's Union
WEA | Workers' Education Association
Wgtn | Wellington
WHF | War History File
WHN | War History Narrative
WRNZNS | Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service
WVS | Women's Voluntary Services
WW | World War
WWSA | Women's War Service Auxiliary
Yearbook | New Zealand Official Year-book
YMCA | Young Men's Christian Association
YWCA | Young Women's Christian Association

Note regarding newspaper material cited in footnotes: where no pagination is given the citation is from the editorial.

The Home Front Volume II

Metric Conversion

Metric Conversion

Since 1960, most countries in the world, including New Zealand, have converted from varying methods of measurement to the Système International d'Unités (SI). The traditional English system for money and measurement denominations has been retained in this book, in keeping with the sources used and with the other volumes of the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War series.

The following information is supplied for conversion purposes:

Money

- One pound (£1) (20 shillings) = 2 dollars ($2)

- One shilling (12 pence) = 10 cents

- One guinea (21 shillings) = $2.10

Linear

- One mile (1760 yards) = 1.609 kilometres

- One yard (3 feet) = 0.914 metres

- One foot (12 inches) = 30.48 centimetres

- One inch = 2.54 centimetres

Square measure

- One square mile (640 acres) = 2.589 square kilometers

- One acre (4840 square yards) = 0.404 hectares

- One square yard = 0.836 square metres

- One square foot = 929 square centimetres

Cubic (liquid) measure

- One gallon (4 quarts) = 4.546 litres

- One quart (2 pints) = 1.136 litres

- One pint = 0.568 litres

Cubic (material) measure

- One cubic yard = 0.764 cubic metres

- One cubic foot = 0.0283 cubic metres

- One cubic inch = 16.397 cubic centimetres

Weight

- One ton (2240 pounds) = 1016 kilogrammes

- One hundredweight (112 pounds) = 50.802 kilogrammes

- One pound (16 ounces) = 453 grammes

- One ounce = 28.35 grammes

Horsepower

- One horsepower = 0.746 kilowatts

Temperature

- 32° Fahrenheit = 0° Celsius (freezing point)

- 212° Fahrenheit = 100° Celsius

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 15 — Manpower is Directed

CHAPTER 15
Manpower is Directed

TOWARDS the end of 1941, with more than 81 000 men and more than 1000 women gone from industry into the Services, it was clear that the work-force would very soon have to be directed, focussed and increased. Appeals in the public interest against military service, hitherto the only stabilising factor, had become inadequate when all other workers were free in the growing labour shortage to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Plans for control, modelled on British experience, were on the stocks well before December 1941, [1] but were brought forward by Japan's attack, which at once sucked thousands into the Army while vastly increasing the need for industrial and defence construction workers.

Civilian manpower controls began on 10 January 1942 and were gradually extended. The Government Placement Service, once concerned with relief of unemployment and the matching of jobs with people, became overnight, in its 22 centres, the Manpower Office, a branch of the National Service Department. To begin with it was decreed that workers in industries declared essential could not leave or be dismissed without the consent of the District Manpower Officer. A worker wanting to leave, or an employer wanting to be rid of him, had to give this official at least seven days' notice, and receive his permission. For serious misconduct an employer could still dismiss a worker, but he might be reinstated, not necessarily to the same position, if the Manpower Officer thought the dismissal unjustified. In such matters, either side could appeal to Manpower (Industrial) Committees in the main centres. Despite better pay offering elsewhere, the outflow of labour from essential work was checked, though as the future soon proved, a good deal of job movement was still possible within ‘essential’ boundaries.

Traditionally, New Zealand labour was highly mobile. Conditions in many firms were spartan, often worse, but both workers and management accepted this as normal, and the desirability of a job was measured mainly by the money paid. Although most factories were relatively small and relations based on understanding might have been possible Dr A. E. C. Hare, who during the early Forties pioneered research into industrial relations, found otherwise. With a few happy exceptions, businessmen relied on the surplus of labour that enabled them to engage and dismiss at will, without needing to build up a permanent staff, so that ‘employers tend to regard labour only in terms of cost, without regard to the complicated tangle of human emotions involved in the employment relationship, and the workers regard employment solely in terms of its advantages in cash.’ [2] For more than a year the war had promoted restlessness by favouring the worker: increasingly, he would shift from job to job without compunction, in pursuit of a bigger pay packet; he could even afford to dislike the boss. It was necessary to restrict this movement, which besides disrupting supplies and services, pushed up wages and inflation; it was considered not expedient, probably not possible, to arrest it altogether.

‘Essential’ industry became a term of very wide application. The first lists contained such obvious essentials as munitions, defence construction, mines, timber-mills, power supply, freezing works, butter and cheese factories. These lists were rapidly extended, often through the interdependence of one industry or unit on another, to cover not only whole industries and services needed by the war and the community, but many separate businesses producing, often remotely or only in part, for military orders. When an industry or firm officially explained that it was unable to obtain enough labour, the National Service Department would investigate its situation, suggesting adjustments or alternatives that might appear helpful. A declaration of essentiality, if recommended by the Department and approved in turn by the production committee of the War Council and by War Cabinet, would be signed by the Minister of Labour and published in the New Zealand Gazette. For instance, on 25 June 1942 the boot and shoe repairing industry was declared essential; on 15 July 1942, all commercial laundries, dry cleaning and dye works, except those run by Chinese. [3] Firms or sections of firms were added or deleted by amendments to previous orders: in July 1942, the Wellington Slipper Company was added to the list, as were Dalgety's at Wellington, with respect only to the repair, maintenance and installation of sheep-shearing machines, and Berlei at Auckland, with respect only to battledress-making. [4] In August 1942 the fourteenth list added 73 undertaking firms to the essential score, along with the Public Service, tobacco manufacturers, pastrycooks, plumbers and gas fitters. [5]

Meanwhile, to provide these essential industries with more labour than they attracted to themselves, men and women in various age groups, and all men with experience in certain hard-pressed trades, were required to register at local Manpower offices and were liable to be directed to urgent work. Such registration was required in March 1942 of men aged 46–9, women of 20 and 21 years, and men aged 18–70 with experience in building, engineering and metal trades. All men of 50 registered in April; in May, men aged 18– 65 who had timber work experience; in July, women of 22 to 25 years living near Hamilton (for a local munitions factory). Women of 22 and 23 years registered in August, those of 24 to 30 in September, and men aged 51–9 in October 1942. [6] In February 1943 scientists and technicians and women of 18–19 years filled in their forms and, the following January, women aged 31–40. Aliens who were not naturalised were included with everyone else, except alien males of military age who were left out till 8 October 1942, when they were required to register for industry. [7] Men aged 18–45 found unfit for military service were automatically listed for essential employment.

To lessen the paper work, from the outset persons already in essential occupations or unsuitable in various ways were not required to register. Thus invalids, war pensioners and those in hospital or prison were exempt from registration, along with merchant seamen, farmers, working proprietors of businesses, civilians employed in the Services, police, firemen, miners, railwaymen, gas and electricity suppliers, doctors, dentists, opticians, chemists, hospital workers, judges, magistrates, ministers of religion, members of Parliament. Fit men held on appeal from military service were also excluded. [8]

To prevent luxury or frivolous undertakings enticing workers away from occupations more valuable to the community but not protected by being declared essential, labour inflow to the low priority jobs was checked by an order in May 1942 (1942/135). This made Manpower consent necessary for the engagement of any employee in listed areas where labour was scarce in scheduled non-essential occupations (such as making beer, cordials, confectionary, fancy goods in general, washing machines, lawn mowers and refrigerators, frocks, millinery, umbrellas) and work in retail shops except those selling food or drugs. The inflow check was stiffened in November 1942 by another regulation (1942/319), which required Manpower consent in labour-short areas for the engagement of any worker except for work in five categories: in any essential industry or firm; on any farm, orchard or market garden; on any ship or wharf; at midwifery and nursing; in casual work lasting not more than three days. [9] From May 1942 to August 1945, employers sought permission to engage 86 791 persons for non-essential work and were refused in only 4550 cases. Women were more readily permitted to engage in non-essential work than men were and there was automatic consent for persons of less than 18 years, for widows of servicemen and for down-graded returned servicemen. [10] Women over 40 years of age and most men of 60 or more were outside Manpower range.

Through the 22 District Manpower Offices, the State reached out into the lives and occupations of thousands as it never had before. The officials themselves were not over-numerous: they totalled 195 men and 48 women in March 1942, 317 men and 189 women a year later, and increased only slightly thereafter. [11] But the word ‘Manpower’ came into wide and varied use, indicating how these regulations penetrated the whole fabric of employment: ‘Manpower is holding on to him’; ‘He's been Manpowered into cement’—or carpentry or the meatworks; ‘How did he get past Manpower?’; ‘Her firm came under Manpower last week’; ‘Manpower will catch up with him sooner or later’. By 1945 it could even enter the title of a locally-produced children's book, The Three Brown Bears and the Manpower Man.

Such power had to be used discreetly, if it were not to excite resentment and defeat its purpose. From registration forms Manpower officers sorted out those already in work of national importance, leaving them as they were; from the others they strove to meet the stream of assorted vacancies that poured upon them, some straightforward, some incessant and difficult. The first directions were of persons whose transfer would make the least disturbance to themselves and their employers: those not employed, or in light-weight jobs, those who lived near vacant jobs, those whose skill, training and current pay matched positions needing them. It was not policy to shift skilled workers to unskilled jobs or to pay them less than they were receiving or to drain any particular undertaking in comparison with others. Manpower respected industries not declared essential but still important in community value, and even in less essential concerns sought to leave a nucleus sufficient for rapid recovery when peace came. In each group, registered direction was progressive; the easiest directions were made first, but after further groups were registered and sifted to the same extent, earlier groups were squeezed again, with dislocation and hardship gradually increasing as national need persisted. [12]

Apart from the willingness or unwillingness of workers to accept new jobs, the reluctance, often anguish, of employers faced with the loss of valued staff perplexed Manpower officers and appeal committees. For instance: a flatlock machinist who produced 24–5 dozen men's athletic vests daily was, declared her employer, the best girl he had ever had, 20 per cent ahead of the rest. Her work made a difference of 100–120 dozen to the weekly ouput of his small firm, which although it had obtained an Army contract could not be declared essential because it had fewer than 12 hands. She had been moved to a double sewing machine in a firm with war contracts and a staff of 85, who were asked to work 53 hours a week and were expected to produce a minimum of 10 canvas kitbags each an hour. This firm, finding her versatile and a very good worker whereas most of those sent by Manpower were of very little use, held her against the appeal of her first employer. [13]

Tact was officially prescribed. ‘Interviews should be conducted in a spirit of mutual understanding in the light of the national emergency and Manpower officers should try to obtain the willing co-operation of every man interviewed, at the same time explaining the powers vested in them under Regulation 31.’ [14] After a year, National Service claimed that administration had been ‘carried out with a wide exercise of discretion and the avoidance of harshness, and in the early period considerable leniency was allowed.’ [15] More robustly, an Auckland Star article had stated earlier: ‘People are not sent into industry willy nilly … it is largely a question of “horses for courses”. Were it otherwise, industry while getting the required number of workers, would not get the required production.’ [16] In the first few months of 1942, up to 30 June, only 4066 directions were issued to men and 475 to women, but by the end of that year Manpower officials had grown bolder, giving out more than 4000 directions in December 1942, more than 6000 in both April and May 1943, though the monthly number thereafter eased back considerably. The rate was to quicken during 1944—5 when the Third Division returned to the labour field, with a peak of 9375 in July 1944. [17]

With workers tied to jobs, it was established that firms would not be declared essential unless their wages and conditions were up to the general standard of the industry. [18] Current rates of pay, even if above award levels, could not be reduced and incoming workers received the same rates. [19] In October 1942, as protection against loss of pay if work were intermittent, minimum weekly wage rates covering all essential industries were fixed: £5 10 s> for men, £2 17 s 6 d for women and £1 15 s for juniors. [20]

Transfers were limited by the difficulty of sending workers to highly essential jobs with lower pay than they were already receiving. Manpower did not wish to install aggrieved workers, and the Federation of Labour asked in October 1942 that those transferred should not suffer financial loss. [21] Some might be willing and able to accept reductions as part of their war effort, slight when ranged against soldiers' sacrifices; for others it would mean a severe and unequal reduction of living standards. Manpower authorities proposed financial assistance, pointing out, for instance, that a Christchurch girl, on £2 15 s a week as a shop assistant, if transferred to the Kaiapoi woollen mills, would receive £2 4 s 9 d, less 7 s 6 d in bus fares, leaving £1 17 s 3 d a week, an effective reduction of 17 s 9 d or 32 per cent of her former earnings. [22] Treasury proposed that losses in earnings of transferred workers should be made up for three months, giving them time to adjust, urging that continued subsidising would be costly and create jealousy among the other workers. [23] It was finally decided by War Cabinet that workers transferred to lower paid jobs could claim compensation, up to a maximum of £2 a week for men or £1 for women, with total income, exclusive of overtime, not exceeding £8 or £5 respectively. [24] Further, a married man directed away from his home and maintaining it while paying board could claim separation allowance of 30 s a week; for workers sent away from home fares were also to be paid. [25]

Up to 1944, National Service ran such assistance very thriftily. On compensation for direction to lower paid jobs, only £2,650 had been expended by March 1944 (£1,753 to men, £897 to women); in the following year subsidies to women totalled £5,210, to men £2,726 and in 1945–6 rose to £15,713 for women, £8,378 for men. This was distributed over a wide range of industries, but farming, clothing, tobacco, engineering, woollen goods, railway and social services such as hospitals claimed the largest shares. [26] Separation and travelling allowances expanded similarly. The former totalled £8,364 up to March 1944, rising steeply to £22,391 and £27,526 in the next two years, while travelling expenses totalled £9,068, £11,778 and £16,682 for these three years. [27]

By the end of 1942, essential industries had claimed some 230 000 workers, about one-third of the working population. [28] By March 1944 this figure had increased to 255 000, about 180 000 men and 75 000 women, 40 per cent of the 634 000-strong labour force. [29] At the same time, another 153 000 were in farming, which despite its importance was never declared essential, though its labour demands were eased by other means: by direction, by braking on military recruitment and by seasonal or more lasting releases from the Army—apart from some 2000 Land Service women, and teachers and students working in their summer holidays. [30] Farming was not declared essential partly because unwilling workers could not be trusted with animals and partly because the living arrangements of farmers and their workers were often so close that holding reluctant parties together would have produced intolerable situations. [31]

Within those industries classified as essential there was plenty of room for movement, provided that reasons could be given to Manpower officials. Up to March 1943 there were 62 000 applications to terminate employment, many from seasonal work and unavoidable, and only 8400, or 14 per cent, were refused. Of the rest, 22 per cent transferred to other employers in the same industry, 50 per cent to another essential industry, 5 per cent to non-essential industry and 23 per cent retired altogether. However, Manpower authorities claimed ‘a very considerable reduction in labour turnover’, stating that many thousands who would otherwise have left their employment had refrained, realising that their applications would have little chance of success. [32] During 1943–4, some 6000 changes a month, a turnover of 2.3 per cent, were permitted, making a high yearly labour turnover of 27.6 per cent, [33] mostly within essential industries. By March 1946, applications to terminate employment had totalled 304 218. Of these, 93 033 were from employers, of which 2676 or 2.9 per cent were refused, and 211 185 from employees, of which 30 733, or 14.6 per cent, were refused. [34] The regulations required work to be performed with diligence and Manpower authorities were aware of some directed workers' attempts to make their employers glad to be rid of them. [35]

Figures of directions into essential industry show the volume of Manpower work, while the directions withdrawn, slightly more than one in ten up to March 1943, rather less during 1943–4, and slightly more again thereafter, suggest readiness to accept argument. [36]

MANPOWER CONTROLS

| January 1942 to 31 March 1943 | | |
| | Males | Females | Total
Total directions given | | 25 013 | 5 766 | 30 779
Number withdrawn | | 2 462 | 922 | 3 384
Number complied with | | 22 250 | 4 716 | 26 966
Number not complied with | | 301 | 128 | 429
| 1 April 1943 to 31 March 1944 | | |
Total directions given | | 46 325 | 13 354 | 59 679
Number withdrawn | | 4 083 | 1 308 | 5 391
Number complied with | | 41 295 | 11 692 | 52 987
Number not complied with | | 947 | 354 | 1 301
| 1 April 1944 to 31 March 1945 | | |
Total directions given | | 59 043 | 19 111 | 78 154
Number withdrawn | | 5 226 | 2 902 | 8 128
Number complied with | | 53 536 | 16 044 | 69 580
Number not complied with | | 281 | 165 | 446

Between April 1945 and March 1946, men complied with 21 427 directions, women with 5128, making 26 555 for the final year and 176 088 for the war's total. [37]

With so many industries classed as essential the question arose, how essential was essential? Employers could and did claim that the making of prams or corsets or hair curlers or teddy bears, plus the continued existence of their own firms, was necessary for public well-being and morale. [38] The Press on 13 March 1943 held that application of the term had been so widened that the purpose of the regulations, to distinguish plainly between essential and non-essential industries and to provide labour for the former at the expense of the latter, had been whittled down and blunted. Certainly problems were complex and far from clear-cut. Every woollen mill employee was necessary to clothe and blanket the forces and the nation; there could be no question about the need for munition workers or railwaymen, and presumably many public servants were needed, but it was hard to see the whole Public Service in this light or to be sure that every girl typing or driving for the Army would not be more usefully employed by her old firm; it was hard to see that a man could properly leave plough or cow to make mattresses or gumboots or biscuits.

With sections of firms declared essential, there was inevitably a good deal of looseness: one week 20 girls might be sewing khaki shirts while 10 sewed women's dresses, but the proportions might vary from week to week. Manufacturers were supposed to notify Manpower when military contracts ended or were reduced, and such commitments were supposed to be under constant review, but inevitably there were blurrings and time-lags. An employer with an Army contract would be loath to lose staff and have to queue again at the Manpower office if the contract might be renewed in the next month, and meanwhile there would be keen civilian demand for anything he could produce. For instance, an Auckland engineering firm which had contracts for munitions and for service buckles and badges claimed that at times about 80 per cent of its staff of 47 were on essential work, but an investigator from National Service found the munitions contract almost complete and the buckle-makers producing trinkets of jewellery, brooches and badges which had lately ‘been on the market in some abundance’. The Manpower office promptly removed six girls and threatened to take more; they were doing work ‘just the antithesis of what we expected’. [39] A further employment restriction order of 23 March 1944, [40] requiring Manpower consent to the engagement of almost any worker, attempted to check on degrees of essentiality.

There were penalties, fines of up to £50 or three months in prison, for evasions of the regulations but Manpower was not hungry for prosecutions. Its declared policy was reasonable leniency and the benefit of the doubt; anything else would have aroused self-defeating hostility. Its 1944 report stated:

Those who would advocate … rigorous severity … show little appreciation of the realities of work under wartime conditions, where pressure of work, shortness of staff, the lack of understanding of the import of regulations, and various other factors lead to the unintentional commission of minor offences by employers and where long hours of work, unfamiliar work and personal difficulties and worries frequently bring about the commission of offences by workers which do not imply any wilful evasion of obligations. In the view of the Department penalties exist for dealing with more serious and deliberate offences, and with persistent offenders, employers and workers.

It was pleasing that although 255 000 persons were subject to control, and so far more than 90 000 directions had been issued, only 796 prosecutions had been instituted in two years; 136 of these were withdrawn, 82 were incomplete, there had been 520 convictions and 58 dismissals. [41]

Manpower officers handled an immense amount of work and served long hours, often being available for interviews in evenings. They were aware of dealing with complex human and industrial problems, of their duty to treat both industry and workers fairly, within the framework of the war's needs. The report of 1944 stated that it was no easy thing to direct a worker to change his employment, to decide on an application to leave essential work or to deal with alleged absenteeism.

Workers and employers are thinking human beings with their own views, their own plans and tastes and hopes and interests and temperaments. Each is striving towards some goal, and is prepared to try various means of reaching it. Before a decision or direction is given, much investigation, interviewing and recording work must be carried out. Some workers and employers accept the direction or decision without question but in many cases a whole train of further interviews and negotiations is opened up by each action of the District Man-power Officer, leading at times to a modification of the step being taken or (in a few cases) to appeal, which means still more work. [42]

Manpower's vision of itself may well have been more sympathetic than its appearance to workers or employers, but not many appealed to the Manpower Industrial Committees set up in the four main centres (each with an employers' representative, a workers' representative and a government-appointed chairman). The 1944 report recorded that a steady 3 per cent of direction to essential work had given rise to appeals, about half of them successful; 2.5 per cent of decisions on terminating essential work produced appeals, about one-third succeeding; 3.5 per cent of fines for absenteeism led to appeals, of which a quarter succeeded. [43] By 1946 a total of 494 618 decisions and directions, in these three areas, had been given, 14 450 or 2.9 per cent of them producing appeals, of which 5361 were won. [44]

From mid-1944, as shown by the figures listed, [45] directions increased steeply, reflecting the shift of emphasis in the war effort from soldiering to production. The 3rd Division returned from the

Pacific, some 9500 men being directed into essential work, while home service forces were firmly reduced. Also, under the replacement scheme, the long-service men of the 2nd Divison became available for direction. In their case most directions were merely formalities, given only with the full agreement of the men, though Grade I men under 41 years with fewer than 4 children were temporarily directed to essential industry to fill gaps left by men drawn into the Army. [46] When fighting ended in Europe, Manpower controls were reviewed and at the end of June 1945 revocations of essentiality began, [47] both for industries and for groups of people. By VJ Day (15 August 1945), undertakings employing in all about 10 000 workers had been freed from control by revocations, and from about this date consent was automatically given to any worker leaving a job except to men of 18 to 44 years inclusive who had not served overseas and single women of 18 to 19 years. Even within essential industries control was lessened. From the end of November 1945 it was not necessary to obtain Manpower consent for the engagement of new labour, provided that the engagement was notified within 48 hours.

This requirement finished at the end of January 1946 when no employer needed official consent to engage or dismiss labour. [48]

After 30 August 1945 the Public Service was not designated essential, and revocations during the next three months freed 109 000 workers. In September, among the industries cleared were footwear repairs, shipbuilding, engineering, pastry-cooks' and butchers' shops; by mid-November biscuit factories, food canning, soapworks, road transport; by 6 December abattoirs, flax and paper mills, teaching, woolscouring and fellmongery were among those lately freed. On 31 January 1946 a large list included builders and their supplies trades, woollen, knitting and hosiery mills, plumbers, fertiliser and flour mills, furniture, gas, rubber, sack and tobacco manufactures, Public Works, tanneries, hotels and restaurants, timber yards, joinery, electricity, water supply and sanitation. Thereafter essentiality remained only on hospitals, tramways, dairy factories, freezing works, sawmills and coal mines. By 31 March 228 300 workers were cleared out of the 255 000 originally affected; only coalmining, meat freezing and sawmilling remained essential. By 29 June 1946 these last declarations and all remnants of industrial manpower regulations were withdrawn. [49]

To complement Manpower regulations in making the best use of labour there was fairly limited development of works councils and of manpower utilisation councils and committees. Before the war there was little consultation between workers and employers over production conditions and methods. Most employers did not welcome advice on how to run their factories, many employees were too new to their work to have much advice to offer, and trade union effort was towards obtaining wages and conditions as favourable as possible from employers and the Court of Arbitration. Pre-war works councils existed mainly in the large railway workshops, in meat works and in coal mines, and though concerned mainly with welfare complaints and disputes dealt also with production and efficiency.

Under war pressure, and advocated by the Federation of Labour, [50] these works councils increased till by 1944 there were between 90 and 100; about 25 in meat works, 18 in coal mines, 8 in railway workshops, 17 in small government-run linen flax mills and about 30 in other undertakings. [51] In general they did not function vitally; those in coal mines, notably, fell into disuse as mining's industrial relations deteriorated—but in some industries and branches of the Public Service, notably the Post and Telegraph Department, various efficiency committees proved helpful. [52] In the war-activated building industries, James Fletcher, Commissioner of Defence Construction, advocating works councils in each firm with more than 30 men, circulated a draft constitution to employers and workers. But insistence that they should be optional and that employee's representatives should be chosen by management was unacceptable to the unions and deadlock resulted. [53]

As part of its Manpower activities, the National Service Department in 1942 began to organise national manpower utilisation councils and local committees in the chief industries. On these, workers and employers were represented in equal numbers, a National Service official was chairman and concerned government departments were also present. They were purely advisory bodies, to inform government on the manpower situation of the industry and on the effectiveness or otherwise of Manpower measures, and they met seldom. In some industries local committees, tributary to these councils and replicas at district level, were set up. They were more active than the councils, their advice improving the use of labour and keeping military service appeal boards aware of local pressures. [54] By 1945, there were Dominion councils for about 22 industries. A few, such as food canning and preserving, butter, cheese and biscuit making and tanneries, had no local committees. Others, including the baking trade, clothing, gas making, electrical trades, footwear, plumbing and laundries had committees in the four main centres. A few, road transport, printing and publishing, engineering and furniture making, had 12 to 20 local committees; others ranged in between. Coal distribution had no Dominion council but four local committees; shipbuilding had its one committee at Auckland. [55]

The search for all available labour led even to prison gates. From July 1943, beginning in Auckland, all men and women on release were interviewed by District Manpower officers to place them in suitable essential work. This hastened the rehabilitation of ex-prisoners while avoiding waste of time and labour. [56]

For men, used now to military conscription, industrial conscription was not remarkable, but for women it was new and at the start it was tackled rather nervously. Later it became firmer, but continued to be gradual, tactful and far from universal. Authority tried to disturb employers, parents, conventions, and the girls themselves, as little as possible.

As the range of work accepting and seeking women widened, the number of women willing to do tedious or unattractive tasks shrank. Many girls, especially those in shops and offices, instead of waiting for direction to some distasteful task, sought out essential work acceptable to themselves, or volunteered into the Services, causing a ripple of job-movement ahead of Manpower pressure. [57] There was general willingness to replace men directly, as on postal rounds, driving, on the trams and in work such as munitions-making that obviously contributed to the war effort. [58] But there were many necessary, unglamorous jobs, such as domestic work in hospitals and hotels, waitressing, mental nursing, jam and pickle making, in woollen mills and meat canneries, which did not quicken the patriotic pulse and where employers turned anxiously to the Manpower office.

Several of the first industries declared essential, notably clothing, woollen mills and boot and shoe making, were largely staffed by women, who were thus in the Manpower bag from the outset, and other such declarations followed. There was no delicacy about holding women in jobs that they had already chosen, but there was, especially at the start, concern at giving directions to those who registered by age groups. At no stage were women caring for children under 16 years old obliged to register, though they were asked to volunteer if they could make arrangements for their children or for part-time work.

Besides the general recognition that willing workers were better than conscripts, authority did not wish to have industry studded with martyred ladies thrust into situations repellant to them. The Manpower approach could itself affect workers' attitudes, and tact was again clearly prescribed: ‘In the direction of women into essential work considerable care should be exercised in the method of approach which should be in the nature of the offer of an opportunity to give practical and valuable assistance to the war effort, and not a dictatorial direction to do so compulsorily.’ [59]

At the start WWSA interviewers helped to sort out registered girls as available, possibly available and not available; [60] then Manpower officers interviewed the first two groups. Foremost for direction were those not working or in jobs of light responsibility and those, such as dressmakers, with skills that could be switched to war purposes. Girls willing to transfer were shifted first, and those who had no solid reason for objecting were coaxed, cajoled or ordered to move. At first, childless women keeping house for their husbands were not directed to work but, as pressure grew, policy changed and by the latter half of 1943 mere marriage was not enough to keep women from work of national importance. [61] At Auckland in 1942 the first transfers of young women were from clothing establishments without service contracts to factories making uniforms etc. [62] In Wellington by mid-May, 62 women had been directed to new jobs, 50 as clerical workers in the Services, while among the others a housemaid and a dressmaker became battledress machinists, a metal press operator was moved from match boxes to munitions and an upholsterer from civilian furniture to ships' upholstery. [63] In Christchurch by the end of August, 120 women had been directed, mainly to the clothing trade, hospitals, woollen mills and to firms making gas masks. [64]

More than with men, it was ‘horses for courses’: girls from

Remuera homes were not pushed out to Westfield. Manpower officers tried to match the girl and the job, and to offer choices. For instance, an Auckland office assistant in 1943 was offered laundry work, the Westfield cannery or mattress-making. The smell of meat and the thought of slaughter put Westfield beyond the pale, while mattres-smaking would fill her hair with fluff, but the laundry, though hot and exhausting, proved acceptable, with a cheerful atmosphere and plenty of pleasant company assembled from many a more elegant occupation. [65] There was little embarrassment about a wide range of work that normally would have been considered unsuitable: hairdressers were happy as postgirls, shop assistants as railway porters or cooks.

Of course, not all were willing to change, for various reasons, and here Manpower officers had to decide whether or not compulsion would produce worthwhile returns. A mother objected to her daughter going to the Kaiapoi woollen mills lest, mixing with the crowd of girls there, she might learn to drink or smoke or forget her home training. [66] A doctor's receptionist, with experience of filing in a government department, when asked to work in the records of Inland Revenue promised that if compelled to go there she would confuse every file that she could lay her hands on; she heard no more of the proposal. [67] A nurse-attendant at Greenlane Hospital, who early in 1942 had accepted this position as the least of several evils, after some months no longer enjoyed the work and wished to leave in order to join one of the Services. Her appeal was dismissed, the chairman of the Auckland Manpower (Industrial) Committee saying, ‘Many people conscripted into positions are not happy, but today if they do not like it, they must be disciplined.’ [68] A 19-year-old wardsmaid, after three court appearances, was gaoled for 48 hours for failing to take up and remain in employment at Wellington Hospital. [69] Three probationers who had volunteered for nursing later sought release on grounds that they had been mistaken in taking up this profession. This was refused by Manpower authorities, whereon they staged a sit-down strike at Blenheim hospital. ‘Have you ever worked at a job you loathe?’ one asked the magistrate, and another said that he could not force them to stay at nursing against their will. He replied that young men in the Army were giving their lives in work they did not like, and that he had power to make the girls work for three months in a place much more uncomfortable than the hospital. They were each fined £5. [70]

Some jobs were acutely unpopular, with mental hospitals and Westfield probably well in the lead. The enlarged canneries of the Westfield Freezing Company, working on overseas orders, needed about 450 women and were chronically plagued by staff shortage and absenteeism. [71] The difficulties of transport, despite the Army truck pick-up system begun in 1943, [72] work on Saturday mornings, the closeness of the main freezing works and the heavy smell of cooked meat were powerful detractions, despite publicity about pleasant facilities, good cafeteria, locker rooms, showers, gay chatter, no raw meat, and the sense of directly serving the fighting men; wages were from 45 s to 70 s 6 d according to age, for a 40-hour week. [73] A woman factory investigator cheeringly reported that the main room where the meat was cooked resembled a huge kitchen; the smell, though strong outside, was not noticeable within and there were hot and cold showers ‘so that girls need not take the atmosphere of their work away with them, as they did at some other factories.’ It was not, she concluded, a ‘job that we would seek in normal times, we girls from shops and offices, but it is not so terribly terrible as we would believe. The outside is a long way worse than the inside.’ [74] Despite such assurances a young woman, told in the Manpower office that decision on her case was reserved, withdrew declaring ‘I won't go to Westfield, I won't’, her mother following with a firm ‘Manpower or no manpower, she won't go to Westfield.’ The officer in question stated that every young lady sent to Westfield had protested vigorously, but more would have to be found. [75]

Appeals against work in mental hospitals were also conspicuous: for example, of 13 young Nelson women so directed 12 lodged appeals; [76] in June 1943 there were 20 appeals, on the grounds of fear and hardship, against direction to Porirua; [77] a month later, out of 31 girls so directed, there were 13 appeals, 6 allowed. [78] The remoteness of some of these institutions, plus cold and cheerless staff quarters, may well have increased reluctance, [79] and there was scattered public protest about the unsuitability of such work for young women, for instance from a few clergymen and others, [80] by H. Atmore MP [81] and the Mt Eden Borough Council. [82] At first girls were persuaded to volunteer, but the shortage continued, intensifying the work of existing staff; direction was toughened, and there was strong reluctance to release anyone who wanted to leave. [83]

By March 1943 there were 110 503 women listed for work of national importance: 21 436 were aged 18–19 and 41 322 were 20–3; in the 24–30 years group, 20 898 were single, 13 746 were married but childless, and there were 13 101 others, either married with children but contriving to work, or women of more than 30 years who had volunteered. [84] When the age range was extended to 40 years, the total rose to 146 862 by the end of March 1944; a further 10 646 registered during the next year, 8212 being the inflow of 18-year-olds, the rest of assorted ages, bringing the grand total to 157 508 by 31 March 1945. [85]

Not nearly all these were available for Manpower manipulation. Apart from family responsibilities, many were already in essential work or work of sufficient value for them to be left undisturbed. Thus by September 1942, in the Auckland area where 4233 women of 20–1 years had registered, only 1000 were liable for direction; the second group, of 22 to 23-year-olds, had yielded 2500 registrations of which 600 to 700 could be directed. It was expected that of the 24–30 years group in the Auckland area about one-fifth would be available. Continuous review went on, however, with the threshold of availability being lowered as demand increased. [86] In the first six months of the regulations 7000 workers, including 1000 women, were drafted to new jobs. [87] By March 1946, women had complied with 37 580 directions, men with 138 508. [88] It must be remembered that one person could comply with several successive directions.

The Labour Department reported in 1943 that while thousands of women had entered essential occupations of their own accord, ‘various analyses’ had shown that a ‘fair number’ were not in any employment before direction. [89] Statistics were not kept until October 1943 but, between then and March 1945, women sent into industry who at the time of direction were not gainfully employed numbered 8205. Of these, farming (which included vegetable-growing etc) claimed 1517, engineering 441, food and drink 705, textiles and footwear 1547, other secondary industries 451, shops and warehouses 82, offices 676, hospitals 1147, hotels 1285, miscellaneous 354. [90]

Apart from those not previously employed, there was a general swing away from shops, offices and less essential factory work to the growing list of industries labelled essential. Sometimes this meant going to quite different work, sometimes movement within one's trade. Among the first to be moved were clothing machinists, from non-essential to priority work. This pressure towards military orders and utility clothing had to be sustained, for neither the girls nor their employers favoured such work, and Service orders fluctuated. By 1943 a pro rata system was established: firms not on war work with a staff of 4 to 10 were expected to yield one employee for essential work when demanded, a staff of 10 to 20 would lose two, and so on. [91] Without such a quota system, small businesses depending on a handful of skilled women could have collapsed, worsening existing shortages and leaving the post-war industrial stage very empty. Women, to a greater extent than men, were permitted to engage in work not covered by declarations of essentiality, [92] though these declarations covered a wide field.

In the clothing trade, for instance, it was not only firms with military orders that bore the stamp of essential industry: those making shirts, pyjamas and other utility lines, and children's clothing, shared the label. An advertisement in January 1943 instances the coaxing tone adopted in the competition for workers, with ‘essential industry’ being an advantage, implying not serfdom but security, with youth no barrier:

Children's Clothing and Underclothing. Apprentices, 13 to 17, are required in this always essential industry. Parents, have your daughter taught a trade that will always be useful in her private life. Light, dainty, interesting work in light, airy, pleasant surroundings, 40-hour 5-day week. Very high standard of pay with easily earned bonuses. Paid holidays, cafeteria under qualified matron. This is a declared essential industry and all our employees' positions are guaranteed permanent. [93]

When those in essential or permitted occupations, plus those with domestic responsibilities, were sorted out, relatively few were available for direction within range of their homes. In country towns girls remained lightly employed. [94] Many on their own initiative moved to the cities, finding board for themselves or through friends, and they were urged to do so by the National Service Department. [95] At

Wellington, the YWCA helped both girls and the Department through its transients' hostel, and by systematically searching out good landladies. [96]

Some manufacturers, especially of clothing, met their labour problems by establishing factories in smaller towns. This began in 1942, notably at Masterton which by 1945 had five clothing factories, and at Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Hawera, Wanganui, Napier,

Levin, Thames and Timaru. [97] In 1939 there were 515 clothing factories in the four main centres, 70 in secondary towns; in 1945 there were 524 in the main centres, 91 elsewhere. [98]

Other small towns retained numbers of potential factory workers, eyed hungrily by Manpower officers, especially at Wellington and

Auckland, but untouchable unless suitable boarding arrangements could be made within reach of their pay. Beginners' wages, especially for girls, were based on the assumption that they would live with their parents. In July 1942, several directions sending country girls to mills at Ashburton had to be withdrawn because those under 21 would receive, after taxation, less than 17 s a week. [99] The obvious answer that the girls should live in hostels was tried in Wellington, with limited success. There was sturdy opposition to girls being drafted to. Wellington, and as the hostels were mainly reserved for such draftees, they did not relieve the housing needs of others, however hard pressed.

Apart from concern for girls' welfare in a troop-ridden city, there was reluctance in country areas to lose those who could help on farms or help farmers' wives. Government respected this view to the extent of suggesting to all rural volunteers for the three Services that they might work in the Women's Land Service instead. [100] Even with hostels provided, the directing of groups of girls from, say, Gisborne or Westport to Wellington industry was vigorously opposed by mayors and local chambers of commerce; in particular, South Islanders were emphatic that industry should be moved south rather than girls be drawn north. [101] Maori tribal committees steadily opposed their young women being drawn to the ‘vile’ cities. [102]

Labour and lodging problems were greatest in the Hutt Valley where, besides other industries, Ford Motors employed hundreds of girls on munitions, and Wills, handling much of New Zealand's tobacco, had hundreds more. By February 1943 the government had built at Woburn for £67,993 a hostel consisting of nine 4-unit, 2- storeyed wooden blocks, which could be converted into ordinary flats after the war. Kitchen, dining room, lounges, etc, were in one block, while the eight others could together house about 350 girls, two in a room, paying 27 s weekly. It was run by the YWCA, as the agent of the government, and the staff included seven superintendents and matrons, who sought to organise recreational facilities and to supervise, more or less tactfully, the leisure of women compulsorily directed far from home and living near an American camp. [103]

At Richmond Road, about half a mile away, a similar, seven-block, hostel was completed late in 1943. It was then diverted to Army use as a convalescent home, but the Army did not actually occupy it. When the Woburn hostel's kitchen and cafeteria were damaged by fire in February 1944, the Richmond Road facilities were used as substitutes for two or three months, and in April 1944 were fully restored to the girls of industry and the YWCA.

Meanwhile the government had taken over the Orient Hotel at Oriental Bay, Wellington, intending it for about 90 girls, mainly working at Wellington Hospital and at Godfrey Phillips' tobacco factory. It was opened in December 1943, again under YWCA management, though long delays thereafter in completing renovations, fire escapes and heating reduced its capacity. [104]

Woburn was occupied fairly consistently, but Richmond Road and the Orient hostel during its first year were by no means fully used. They were reserved for Manpowered girls from outside Wellington, but the girls proved hard to muster and pressure for them fluctuated: some industrial programmes were changed, so that anticipated drafts of girls, to whom rooms were allotted, were cancelled; interlocking uncertainties and inertia kept rooms empty. Richmond Road, which could have housed 276 girls and staff, was in use for barely 18 months before it was returned to the Housing Department in September 1945, and for only a few months in mid-1945 was it fully occupied. Throughout, one block holding 46 girls was used by the WAAC, and for most of its time only three of its blocks were in use. [105] Much the same situation prevailed at the Orient hostel till the YWCA, uneasy about empty rooms while other girls were desperate for accommodation, in September 1944 obtained permission to admit local girls provided they worked in essential industries. [106]

These difficulties in Wellington hostels caused National Service to turn down proposals, in July 1944, for hostels at Auckland, [107]

though there was talk about the need for them. [108] But even if Wellington's hostels were not an unqualified success, they eased an acute employment-accommodation problem for, at most, about 550 girls who were working long hours, and they may well have been more pleasant for not being fully packed. The tobacco employers reported that their directed, hostel-living girls worked well and cheerfully, with less ordinary absenteeism than there was among local girls though many, on account of travelling difficulties, were late in returning from holidays. [109] After the war, many chose to remain in

Wellington instead of returning to their home towns, those in munitions transferring to other labour-hungry places such as woollen mills, clothing and biscuit factories. [110]

By 1941 the growing labour shortage had put workers in a position of strength, able to take a day off here and there without fear of dismissal, and employers noticed an unpatriotic readiness to exploit the situation. The term ‘absenteeism’, properly defined as persistent lateness or absence without leave or reasonable excuse, was bandied about by some employers and newspapers, alarmed at labour's recalcitrance and the government's weakness in meeting it. There was little attempt, at the start, to distinguish between absences that were delinquent and those reasonable in the context of industrial conditions and wartime stresses.

Some newspapers gave a good deal of publicity to absenteeism, particularly to belated returns from holidays at Christmas and Easter. Thus, on 9 January 1941, the Evening Post had a double-column article on the war effort being hampered by workers who, despite pre-Christmas appeals by Cabinet ministers and employers, had failed to resume on Monday 6 January. Some factories with war contracts reported high absence rates, one of nearly 90 per cent, and ‘inquiries made today revealed that this practice was general throughout the industrial strata of the city.’ Workers were trickling back, bronzed but unrepentant, their attitudes keenly resented by proprietors: ‘The humiliating part is that I cannot tell them what I think of them,’ stated one. The tendency to take days off without leave or notice had been going on for some time. The cause was high wages. Many young girls, with more to spend on themselves than had the average married man, were working four-day weeks. The manager of a large staff, who had promised a £2 bonus to those who worked full-time between 1 October and Christmas, had paid out only £20. [111] The secretary of the Manufacturers' Association said that there had been an increasing tendency in recent years for workers to absent themselves for trivial reasons, although they now worked 50 fewer half-days in a year than they used to and had other holiday privileges. Yet at many factories large and small throughout the country, especially in Wellington and Christchurch, post-Christmas production had been seriously affected. [112] In Christchurch, Millers, a large clothing factory, reported 37 per cent absenteeism on 6 January. There was no trouble at Dunedin, where one large firm had no absences at all and another only 4 or 5 among 830 hands, [113] nor were excessive absences reported at Auckland.

An Evening Post editorial on 10 January reproved the absentees' carefree abuse of their sheltered conditions in the war and called for firm action by the government. Next day Sullivan, Minister of Supply, stated that his inquiries showed that absenteeism was not a disease affecting every factory; some workers had been irresponsible, the majority had loyally returned on time. Ten large Wellington factories showed absentee rates on 6 January varying from 40 to 3 per cent, and at Christchurch the range was from 42 per cent to almost nil. He pointed to the absence of trouble at Auckland and said that relations between employers and staff in individual factories largely affected absences. Besides this, the Post published a further column of local employers' views, claiming that while other parts of the country might not have suffered serious disorganisation, Wellington industrial concerns had been severely affected. [114]

Staffs in clothing factories were prominent offenders. A machinist whose son had enlisted and who had herself gone back to work but found it too hard, wrote of the industry's background:

This year apparently most workrooms closed for ten to fourteen days. It is not so long since we used to get three to four weeks off at Christmas and the employers did not worry how we managed to live in the meantime. The wages were then 38s per week and very little overtime for thoroughly experienced hands. The girls in these workrooms are not deliberately disloyal, believe me, but modern methods and the bonus system work the girls to the limit of endurance. The awards specify 70 hours' overtime in one year unless a special permit is obtained, but most workrooms work far in excess of these, and when Christmas comes the majority of girls are tired mentally and physically. The award rate for clothing employees is now £2 17s 6d, so the girl must work hard to make £3 14s in four days, as one of the employers maintains. Now that the worker is calling the tune and having a fair time for recreation, the employers are kicking and crying disloyalty. I say no, only getting a little of their own back. [115]

These details show the type of complaints and defences that were repeated during the next two or three years. In another instance an

Otago Daily Times editorial on 10 April 1942 attacked Otago freezing workers for late returns after Easter. This drew vigorous and detailed rebuttal in several letters, including one from the union secretary who suggested that the author of the editorial would be ‘more profitably employed on the slaughtering board, guthouse or other appropriate department.’ [116] Women were the most frequent offenders. Complaints about girls, uppish with overtime and bonus payments, or with plentiful boy-friends, forsaking their machines, their trays or their mops, were heard repeatedly, newspapers giving ample and indignant coverage, especially to clothing and footwear workers. Such absences did not occur in shops or offices, though they were very common among waitresses. In the context of the war, this withholding of effort was obviously deplorable; in the context of work-force feeling it was more comprehensible. Until the demand for skilled labour grew acute early in 1940, girls who stayed away without very good reason would promptly have been dismissed; they might also have been dismissed to balance fluctuations in factory orders. The knowledge that they could take time off without being sacked would be as agreeable to girls as it was disturbing to management. The lamentations from some Wellington clothing factories in November 1941 bear witness. Said one, ‘Girls are the most irresponsible creatures imaginable, yet in these days we are entirely at their mercy.’ Another said that it was now impossible for a man to be boss in his own factory, as he would find himself without employees: ‘Sack a girl because she is useless and with her go all her friends too. They do not care two hoots, knowing perfectly well that when they want to earn some more money they will have no difficulty in getting another job.’ [117]

Tales of 16-year-old girls getting £3 10 s a week, even £5 for factory work, [118] were exaggerated, said other managers: the starting wage was 20 s to 25 s, with periodical increases for experience, and though some girls of 16 might have two years behind them, generally girls earning high pay were highly skilled. One manager claimed that his absentee rate was almost negligible and his girls were keen, especially on essential production, with overtime willingly worked and just as willingly paid. [119] The award wage for an adult female clothing worker was £2 15 s (plus 5 per cent cost of living increase), but many firms were paying above award rates to get and keep staff.

It was not hard, given reports of a few outstanding payments, to believe that these were general. It was not widely realised that with production boosted by piecework and overtime, girls on monotonous and exacting tasks became genuinely very tired, and such things as a sunny day (or a very wet one), a headache, a period, or the husband or boy-friend being on leave, seemed plenty of reason for a day off. The regulations, beginning in January 1942, which checked movement from job to job, created worker restiveness while removing still further the threat of dismissal.

Other regulations, passed on 20 May 1942, required employers to report any absence exceeding four hours to Manpower officers, who would investigate. At this stage further and better excuses were usually produced and often it was decided that real absenteeism was not fully proved. Otherwise a warning would be issued in the first instance, and for repeated offences the Manpower officer could direct the employer to deduct up to two days' pay, which would go into the War Expenses Account. Appeal against such fines could be made to the Industrial Manpower Committee, but two fines of pay, or attending unauthorised ‘stop work’ meetings, could bring offenders before the courts, facing fines of up to £50. By VJ Day, Manpower officials had received 48 237 complaints; 11 252 were not proved, there were 29 085 warnings, and 7900 fines were taken from pay packets. [120]

In the DSIR, an Industrial Psychology Division was established. Its first report, for private circulation only, covered research between November 1942 and August 1943 into 34 engineering firms employing nearly 6000 workers, mainly men, and 11 other firms employing 961 women. It found average absentee rates of 6.5 per cent for men and 12.1 per cent for women, very close to current Australian figures of 5 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. [121] It also found that conditions in many factories were unhelpful: heating and ventilation were often not good, and refreshment facilities were scanty. Thus, in the 34 engineering factories there were only three canteens, one good, one too small and one poor; ten had reasonably pleasant mess rooms, providing tea or hot water; in three these were unsatisfactory; 18 had neither canteens nor mess rooms, and some firms disapproved of tea breaks. Among such workers, sustained mainly on sandwiches, pies and fish-and-chips, their days lengthened by persistent if not excessive overtime, both ill-health and absenteeism seemed probable. The waiting and weariness of travel on crowded buses, trams and trains which did not mesh with overtime hours would also contribute to fatigue.

Good relations between workers and management, however, emerged as the most important single factor in keeping absence rates low. [122] The report held: ‘Up to a point absenteeism is an unavoidable outlet for the strains and tensions of wartime industry (fatigue, monotony, irritation and social dislocation).’ Absence rates of 5 per cent for men and 10 per cent for women would be reasonable, and the rates of many firms were well below this. There was no single, simple remedy but the most important contribution would be a ‘substantial advance in methods of personnel management’. This would involve the training of managers in modern practices and outlook; better keeping and use of labour records; less criticism of shortcomings, remembering that good workmen were not born but made, and awareness that absenteeism was to a considerable extent a problem of youth. Fines, it seemed, lessened individual absences, but had no marked deterrent effect on the rest of the firm. Rewards for good attendance had not proved a lasting answer, and more severe penalties, unless applied with great discrimination, would certainly be unjust to many genuinely maladjusted to the industrial situation. There was a case for stepping up penalties immediately after holiday periods, but stringency of the Russian sort was unthinkable. Ventilation and heating facilities for meals, and first-aid and accident prevention, should be improved. Overtime should be limited and monotony lessened, while informative publicity, arousing feelings of urgency, loyalty, interest and usefulness, should be developed along with workers' committees. [123] The investigators agreed with the clothing machinist quoted above [124] in believing that Depression experiences should be kept in mind when assessing the root causes of absenteeism. [125]

The Psychology Division found wide variations in absence rates from firm to firm, suggesting the importance of specific internal factors. [126] Among men the usual reason given was sickness. Women, absent more often, also pleaded business (which included personal affairs, shopping and hairdressing), family (illness of children or husband, husband or boy-friend on leave, household duties, death in the family) and miscellaneous reasons, such as the dentist or a parade in town; or they offered no excuse at all. [127]

Women's absences had been noticed quite early. In June 1940 Sullivan had said that though young girls in factories were doing splendid work while actually on the job, they sometimes stayed away for days at a time, producing serious dislocation. [128] Only during a few bad times did many New Zealanders doubt that somehow the war would be won. Assurances, often repeated, that workers' full efforts were needed for victory became unreal when reviewed beside the delays and checks which almost inevitably litter factory production, and were even more remote from such tasks as housework in hotels or non-military hospitals or waitressing in restaurants. Probably most women felt less involved in the war than did men, basically because life-and-death military service was not expected of them. Many could not imagine that what they did or did not do could affect the war's progress or outcome. Therefore they sought to live with the war, getting what they could from things as they were. Young girls, with their normal courting and marriage routines disrupted, accepted or sought what fun was going. Mostly such fun was with servicemen, often with Americans, affluent and fascinating. Employers allowed for such factors in assessing staff needs. When girls with husbands on leave stayed away from work, it was rated ‘only natural’, but there was less tolerance for other attachments. [129] A Dominion article early in 1943 complained, among much else, that free-spending male escorts contributed to the slackness of girls, who were ‘reported to keep very late nights, to be absent from work frequently, and often to be indifferent to the job when they are there.’ [130]

For different reasons, absence rates were high among married women. If they had homes and husbands, let alone children, they were doing two jobs. They were not wholly dependent on their earnings and they felt that they did enough for the war effort without putting in every day at the factory. [131] No one could reproach a mother who stayed home with a sick child, while even housework and shopping could get out of hand and husbands grow fidgety. By no means all absences were reported to Manpower: up to 31 March 1943 only 7564 persons had been reported, fewer than the workers who would have been absent on a single day. [132] Some employers, who attributed all absence to irresponsibility and excessively high wages, were exasperated by the kid-glove method of Manpower inquiries and believed that distinguishing between irresponsible and excusable absences might well have been left to the courts. [133] They complained that it was no use complaining. [134] Others, who accepted a high rate of absence, some mentioning 10 per cent, some 20 per cent, as one of the trials of the times, allowed for it in their arrangements and saved themselves the trouble of making charges. [135] Up to March 1943 the National Service Department had dealt with 6960 of the 7564 complaints, giving warnings in 5109 cases and fining in 424 others, or six per cent; 1427 charges were not sustained. [136] Fraser told the House in June that on 8 March Manpower officers were instructed to take a more severe line in future. [137] Later in the year, the National Service Department told employers that it was taking stricter measures and asked them to report absences for which they had not received genuine reasons. The Department recognised that many employers had ceased notifying in view of many experiences of inactivity by Manpower officers. [138] In the year ending March 1944, of 18 814 cases dealt with, 10 983 were warned, 3272 or 17 per cent were fined, and 4559 were not sustained. In the following year, from 16 298 investigations there were 9451 warnings, 2991 (18 per cent) fines, and 3856 not sustained. Against the total 6687 fines imposed, there were 268 appeals; in 42 cases fines were reduced and in 88 wholly remitted. [139] In its 1944 annual report, the New Zealand Employers Federation said that on account of National Service ineffectiveness few employers bothered to report absences with the result that the Department claimed that absenteeism was no longer a serious problem; strong enforcement of the regulations would have benefited the nation. [140] In the Wellington

Chamber of Commerce, discussing a firm's complaint of major absences after Christmas 1944, it was said that both employers and employees were to blame. Early in the war employers were reluctant to report absenteeism, some ‘got into bad odour’ for reporting cases, it was easier to ignore the law and some workers took advantage of the position. Continued strain was also mentioned, and flighty girls with too much money in their pockets. [141]

As part of the drive against both absenteeism and failure to register for direction, Manpower officers, along with the police, had authority to question people on private premises and in public places such as hotels, cinemas and billiard rooms concerning their work obligations. In 1944 the National Service Department claimed that raids, carried out ‘tactfully and in a manner to cause the least inconvenience to the public’, had located several hundreds of defaulters and absentees. [142]

This tact may have been slight exaggeration for the official record. After June 1942, hotel lounges were watched for truant women, and there were sporadic raids resulting, by March 1944, in more than 1000 women being interviewed and about 10 per cent of them being made available for work. [143] Thus, during two days in May 1943

Wellington police and Manpower authorities found 40 ‘known or suspected defaulters’ in hotels; [144] in August, raiding two Hamilton hotels to investigate possible immorality, excessive drinking and Manpower defaulting, officials questioned more than 100 people, finding some who had left employment without leave and others temporarily absent. [145] In January 1944, the New Zealand Herald noted that while more than 200 jobs for women were advertised in its columns, its reporters counted ‘hundreds’ of women drinking in hotel lounges on a Friday afternoon. The practice had been somewhat curtailed during the Manpower raids in the middle of the previous year, remarked the Herald, ‘but the numbers frequenting the lounges have again increased and suggest that further raids could well be considered.’ [146]

In March and April 1944 these raids were intensified, and people were questioned not only in hotels but in cinemas, tea rooms, billiard rooms and golf courses in many centres. It was widely reported on 13 April that in 163 raids in various parts of New Zealand 110 persons, all women, had been located for direction to work; also 63 definite cases of absenteeism had been found and others were still being investigated. Further, said H. L. Bockett, [147] Controller of Manpower, the raids had caused many people who should have registered earlier to do so. [148]

In the bars of six Auckland hotels the first raids, on the afternoon of 12 April 1944, were generally treated as a ‘not uninteresting novelty’. There were relatively few civilians present, most of them legitimately; they included carpenters and other out-door men who could not work on account of rain, seamen, night shift men and a ‘surprising’ number with medical certificates. About 70 names were to be checked, but were not expected to yield more than eight or nine absentees. In hotel lounges at the same time, few women were absent from work without good reason. [149]

At Wellington the Dominion reported in mid-April that of 538 persons interrogated in hotels, cinemas and billiard rooms during the past month only six were absent from essential industry without excuse, while 31 not gainfully employed had been ordered to report to Manpower, nine of them being directed to essential work. A large number of young people proved to be on shift work, had a rostered day off or were actually on holiday, disproving the impression apparently held by the public that numbers of young people at places of public amusement were malingering. The raids, it was held, had deterred absenteeism; some places of amusement were less patronised and one had closed in the afternoons. [150]

These reports do not suggest a very large haul. The District Manpower Officer at Christchurch, questioned at this time, would not give figures but said that the greatest value of the raids was ‘not in the absentees detected, but in the absenteeism they prevent’. [151] The raids clearly were in response to complaints against absenteeism, but no conspicuous improvement was claimed; there were other places to be in besides pubs and pictures.

It was tempting to believe that longer hours would increase production in proportion; consequently, regulations facilitated longer hours by lowering rates for overtime and by permitting extra work by women and boys. Reports from Britain of dramatic hours worked after Dunkirk were countered, after a few months, by statements that such effort could not be sustained and that production actually fell; but, as Dr Hare remarked, ‘The idea that output can be automatically increased by increasing hours of work is deeply ingrained and dies very hard’. [152] After Japan's entry, long hours were worked on defence construction, while in munitions and engineering 10–30 hours of overtime weekly were normal during the first half of 1942. [153] Engineering efforts, such as the making from scratch and in a rush of Bren gun and universal carriers, [154] involved a tremendous amount of work, spread out in many factories. Pressure extended over many fields: in a firm making and repairing agricultural machinery, men worked 55 hours a week and by July 1942 this was ‘getting them down.’ [155] A pamphlet, Hours of Work in Wartime by Leslie Hearnshaw, [156] a Wellington University College lecturer, published in August 1942, concluded that long hours diminished human efficiency so much that production fell, workers' health suffered and overtime pay was handed out for nothing at all. Hare's pamphlet,

Labour in New Zealand 1942, also warned against excessive overtime, and his views were supported by some newspapers. [157] Already some Wellington firms, from their own records, had found that overtime was being cancelled out by absenteeism and were reducing it as much as possible. [158]

Overtime paid better than normal hours. In Britain ‘Dog-tired men would take the day off in the middle of the week, losing an ordinary day's pay—then turn up on Sunday to earn double pay. A vested interest in Sunday work and in overlong hours was created, and stood against Ernest Bevin's [159] well-conceived attempts to revive sanity.’ [160] Overtime and absenteeism, through exhaustion and the pay motive, readily became a cycle in which workers got more money for the same or less work. This was the case in Britain and to some extent in New Zealand. Especially if workers were absent in normal hours, overtime would be needed to catch up on orders. Frequently, awards required that on overtime evenings payments must be made for at least three hours, whether or not the full time was worked. As an instance, trainee girls in a clothing factory on 17 s 6 d a week had to be paid 1 s 6 d an hour overtime, with a minimum of three hours. Thus they would receive 4 s 6 d for three hours or less on overtime, but only 3 s 6 d for eight hours' normal day work. [161]

By 1943 the excessive post- Japan hours were largely reduced: for defence works, engineering trades and the railways they were usually between 48 and 56 a week, though longer hours—up to 60 and 70 a week—were worked sporadically on the wharves and by ship repairers, railway drivers and cement workers. [162] During 1944 hours continued to shrink, with building and construction trades, railways and engineering work running at between 45 and 48 hours weekly, though there were exceptional cases of 60 hours or so. [163] Some hours, however, were lengthened. From March 1944 the Auckland Transport Board's traffic staff worked a 6-day week of 54 hours. They had previously been averaging 48 to 50 hours; the increase was to meet the inroads of absenteeism, though it was realised that ‘longer hours before long would bring increased absenteeism.’ [164]

Throughout, with both men and women absentee rates varied greatly from firm to firm. This was noted by the Industrial Psychology Division researchers who found rates varying from 1.37 to 9.40 per cent among men and from 5.45 to 21.70 per cent among women. [165] Sullivan drew attention to it in January 1941 and at the same time the Otago Daily Times had found in virtuous Dunedin one firm with a very high absence rate. [166]

On 4 January 1943, when absenteeism was reported to be ‘rife’ in Australia, Auckland returns to work were satisfactory, except in the clothing trade. In shipbuilding and some other heavy industry, work had continued over the holidays, and there was no trouble at Westfield's freezing works or other equally essential industries. Ten clothing firms questioned in Auckland reported that only a small proportion of their staffs were present on the day the firms re-opened, but it appeared that this day was not held to be compulsory. [167] There was no large-scale absenteeism, however, and some clothing firms that were overhauling machinery had arranged to open later. [168] Again Dunedin was fully on the job, and there were few complaints from Christchurch where most large factories had arranged to re-open a week later on 11 January. [169] At Wellington few complaints were lodged officially—an early report stated that 95 per cent had returned on time [170] —but a local survey declared that absentee rates were very serious, ranging from 26 to 80 per cent. Details for seven firms with very high rates were given, with no suggestion that others were less affected, and employers were said to be demanding that the penal regulation be applied. [171]

Four months later, at Easter, a Dominion article found that, in the absence of sufficient penalties, in eight Wellington firms 163 employees, 11 per cent of the total 1476, resumed late. The numbers varied greatly from firm to firm: 2 out of 180, 17 out of 300, 27 out of 160, 53 out of 254, 13 out of 140, 22 out of 80. Employers called on the National Service Department to state the number of cases investigated, prosecuted and fined. [172] This was supported by a

Dominion editorial on 29 April, attacking the government's weakness with slackers. The Christchurch Manufacturers Association at the same time reported that at four Christchurch factories with a total of 1000 employees, 140 were absent on the Tuesday after Easter. [173]

After 1943 there was less outcry in the press against absenteeism. Manpower officers were imposing more penalties, victory was closer and possibly investigators such as Dr Hare and the Industrial Psychological Division, along with overseas findings, had persuaded some employers' spokesmen that, for continued effort, rest was needed and if not given would be taken. The Industrial Rest Period Regulations of December 1943 (1943/194) had decreed that, for the efficient prosecution of the war, all workers whose awards did not already entitle them to at least five days' paid annual holiday should have such a holiday from 27–31 December inclusive, while those whose work had to continue over these days should have an equivalent rest period within six months. [174] On 7 January 1944 the New Zealand Herald reported that Auckland absences varied from rather high to almost negligible and that managers did not regard them seriously, some saying that factories had been working very hard for a long time, often up to 60 hours a week, that some lateness was expected, even that an extra day or two off now would mean more output in the long run, and that the weather was ideal for holidaying. Some clothing and footwear proprietors had themselves arranged not to open for a further week, acknowledging that workers needed a longer rest than in normal times. [175] In Wellington, many manufacturers were very pleased with the rate of returns, though one firm had a 33 per cent female absence on Tuesday 4 January. Here too some employers had approved longer holidays, one reporting that this had ‘worked out pretty well’; the ‘habituals’ were still away but few of the others. [176] There were reports of men returning late to the Wanganui freezing works and to some West Coast mines. [177]

A New Zealand Herald article stated that there was increasing evidence that Auckland employers were interesting themselves more and more in industrial health and were realising that while nothing could be done about certain types who stayed away for no reason, these were only a small proportion of their employees. It quoted from the Medical Journal of Australia that to fulminate against all absentees as slackers or worse was plain foolishness. The problem deserved careful study. It was in part a medical one and doctors must insist on this being accepted. Bureaucracy could be both insensate and unintelligent. Past a certain point long hours did not improve production; fatigue was cumulative. [178]

After Easter 1944 Wellington manufacturers who surveyed 12 firms employing 2123 persons found that absenteeism ranged considerably, averaging 10.5 per cent, almost all by women. [179] There was a calm tone in the New Zealand Footwear Manufacturers' annual report, presented in July 1944, although theirs was a hard-pressed industry. They had suffered to some extent from absenteeism but only with a very small number of workers was it persistent or avoidable. ‘It is well known that in industries which employ a large percentage of female labour, where inexperienced labour is being used to a substantial degree, and where long hours of overtime are being worked, there is usually a chronic absenteeism. In the footwear industry last year, however, manufacturers, in conjunction with workers' organisations and Department officials, have, with the goodwill of the operatives, reduced absenteeism to a minimum.’ The effort made by married women was warmly commended. [180]

By December 1944 the Annual Holidays Act had decreed that, except where existing awards were more favourable, every worker should have two weeks' holiday on full pay. Most took these holidays at Christmas, many factories being closed for 19 days. There were fewer reports of absenteeism, with suggestions that some was expected, as in the mines and freezing works. [181] Of 12 Wellington firms, half reported their staff position as practically normal, half found it bad; again women were the offenders. [182] The New Zealand Herald featured two articles which reported on work conditions and staff welfare in factories in the four main centres and advised that improvement was necessary. [183]

In all, newspaper reports and the industrial research of Dr Hare backed up the National Service Department's opinion that there could be seemingly identical factories in the same neighbourhood with widely different absentee rates, and that the solution was mainly in sympathetic adjustment between management and staff, in improved individual handling of cases of absenteeism, and in elimination of conditions which promoted ill-health, undue fatigue and lack of interest. [184] In the last year of the war the Department repeated that real unavoidable absenteeism was difficult to determine. Incidence had changed little in the past year. Among men it was highest in heavy industry, mining, sawmilling, the freezing works, iron foundries, building and construction. Among women, most occurred where routine was monotonous and sometimes physically exhausting, as in textile and clothing manufacture and in the domestic work of hotels, restaurants and other institutions. It was believed to be higher with persons held under direction, among young persons imperfectly adjusted to work environment and among women with domestic responsibilities; in general, women continued to be worse than men. [185] The annual report of the New Zealand Employers Federation, considering the health and character training of children, future employees, said that there should be flexibility in current hours: no restriction should be placed on mothers who wished to work shorter hours or to stagger those hours. [186] Probably it could be said that the great increase of industry during the war, combined with the labour shortage, brought absenteeism to the fore, and that after the initial impact, industry learned to live with it while learning also that its own conditions must improve.

Broadly speaking, in the first nine months of 1942 effort was concentrated on home defence, but towards the end of those months

New Zealand was moving away from coastal defence, air fields and camps to its tradition of sending troops to meet the enemy beyond its shores. [187]

Meanwhile, as American demands for food grew and shortages of all sorts increased, there was widespread restiveness about mobilisation and manpower. For employers and the public in general the manpower problem loomed over and through all other difficulties. There were recurrent demands that the government should make a thorough survey of military and industrial needs and of the men and women available, and shape policy accordingly; that it should make up its mind and take the people into its confidence. The interdepartmental War Planning and Manpower Committee in August 1942 attempted to frame an ‘all in’ plan covering the total economy, but it was soon clear that the administrative complications and disruption involved would be immense and might create as many difficulties as solutions, [188] while in the improving war situation problems were changing faster than the scheme could have been applied. Perforce, the government answered pressures with piecemeal adjustments and withstood grumbles.

There were several lines of thought concerning the competition between the Army and industry for manpower. Some wanted the main Pacific effort to be not in soldiers but in feeding and servicing Americans, while others protested that the providers of biscuits and cheese, of potatoes and cabbages, could not claim a speaking place in the post-war Pacific. It was also argued that New Zealand already had quite enough men in the forces, and that overseas commitments could be drawn from those in camp without calling up the older men, thus further disrupting economic and family life. Again, many thought that after, say, six months of training men should be returned to their civilian jobs, ready for recall in a military crisis. There were complaints that soldiers were held uselessly in camps at the dictate of the Army which cared nothing for the total manpower problem or any aspect of the war effort except the supply of servicemen.

Mobilisation was highest in July 1942, with 154 549 men and women in the Services, 52 651 of them overseas. By November 1943 the home forces had dropped to 60 965, while those overseas had reached the peak of 75 952. [189] After the call-up in June 1942 of 21 000 family men aged 32–4, the Director of National Service considered that the armed forces had now claimed all the men that the national effort could afford, and he urged that there should be no more ballots. [190] But 35 000 men in the Army were not fit, by age or medical grading, for overseas service, [191] the Air Force was seeking volunteers from Army ranks and to meet overseas commitments in two divisions it was necessary both to probe into the higher age groups and to comb out those from earlier ballots held in essential industry. More than 22 000 men aged 35–7 were called up in the 17th ballot of 15 September 1942, nearly 22 000 of 38–40 years in November, and 32 000 of 41–5 years, for limited home service only, in December. [192] The early complaint that people did not know there was a war on was replaced by murmurs that New Zealand was over-committed. Fraser, on 21 November 1942, said that there was a lot of loose thinking about manpower, and alarmist talk about the effect of ballots on industry; only 25 per cent of those then being called were reaching camp, and only 20 per cent were expected from the 41–5-year-olds. Among the older men, more skilled and responsible, it was found necessary to postpone service for increasing numbers; by October 1942 fit reserved men were reckoned to exceed 30 000, and by mid-November about 10 000 fit men had been released from camp. [193]

Farmers and others reiterated their needs for labour if production were to be maintained, complaining that the Army held men for home defence after the danger had passed, often squandering their time on useless routines. The New Zealand Herald wondered if a large Army rather than a strong Army had been created; [194] Truth complained that men were taken in too quickly for proper training and regardless of civil dislocation, hinting that the Army was guided by its need to balance the number of senior officers. [195] The Wanganui page 700 Herald suggested that merely putting more and more men into uniform did not necessarily improve military strength, and that to recall the 2nd Division for Pacific service might avoid further calling-up and disruption; [196] there were murmurs about a standing army awaiting most improbable attack. [197] The Southland Daily News on 26 January doubted the wisdom of calling men from important jobs to a routine of eating and marching day in and day out. Manufacturers spoke of men who could be infinitely more useful in vital jobs than as soldiers, of production falling because staffs were exhausted by long hours and concentrated effort while it was known that thousands were wasting time in camp. They suggested that the government, though sympathetic to manufacturing problems, was guided by Army views. [198] As noted elsewhere, [199] conferences at

Christchurch and Auckland drew together all such discontents, including grave misgivings about an active Pacific force, in proposals that it was time to reduce the home Army and move from defence to production.

Fraser, on 4 December 1942, said that in the improved situation all agreed that it was time to decide on the minimum force needed to defend the country, how many could be released and how they could be recalled if danger loomed again. [200] McLagan on 23 December announced that the utilisation of manpower would be re-considered early in the New Year and that the 41–5-year-olds just balloted should stay in their jobs till further notice. The New Zealand Herald on 29 December remarked that most of these men, ‘putting two and two together’, felt that their military service would not be more than ‘a sort of glorified Home Guard’, with perhaps three months in camp and some spare time training. In fact, they were never called to camp; the sending out of their notices had been in part a continuation of action initiated a good deal earlier, and it served to bring this group under Manpower direction.

At the other end of the age range there was increasing uneasiness about boys of 18 and 19 remaining in camp, many of whom had not even started on a real job, apprenticeship or university work. In May 1941, when the intake age for Territorials had been lowered to 18, training was for a few months only, and did not itself break normal career development very much; but in January 1942 such service became permanent home defence. By the end of the year, there were thousands of lads with months of Army routine behind them, and the prospect of a year or so more of it before they were old enough for overseas service. Non-sentimental groups, such as the RSA, Chambers of Commerce and manufacturers, feared that work attitudes might be gravely impaired by long exposure to routine garrison duty, and meanwhile employers were reluctant to take on 17-year-olds, knowing that they would soon be called up. [201] Recognising this, the government announced on 16 March 1943 that the Army would release those of 18 and 19 years who wanted to return to civilian life.

There was, at the start of 1943, strong public pressure for the reduction of home forces, and some for the Pacific force being on garrison work only. This did not prevent the government from responding to another strong pressure, that New Zealand should bear its part fully in the Pacific, by deciding on 6 March to increase the 3rd Division to full divisional strength, transforming it from a garrison to a combat force. [202] These would be Grade I men; it was the lower medical grades in the main that were to be released to industry.

There had, in fact, been many releases already. No sooner were men rushed into the Army in the post- Japan flurry than there was urgent need to get vital workers out again. Even in the three months April–June 1942, 2300 men considered key workers were released, the recommendations of appeal boards being approved by the Army. [203]

Pressure for more widespread releases came strongly from rural areas. About April 1942 county councils, led by Inglewood's, sent in with monotonous regularity a resolution expressing grave concern at the withdrawal of workers from industry, urging that after a period of training men should return to their homes, with full equipment, to be members of a compulsory militia, incorporating the Home Guard, kept efficient by compulsory parades. In July the Farmers' Union conference passed a similar resolution. The government replied that it was not possible to combine such demobilisation with effective defence, [204] but fully realised that to maintain production, to keep cows in milk and ensure that sufficient crops—potatoes, wheat, barley, oats, fodder, linen flax, vegetables, tobacco—were planted and harvested, farmers must be sure of adequate labour, particularly to meet their surges of work. With spring approaching and the battle of Midway won, Fraser on 8 July 1942 announced that men on farms liable for military service would be left there in the meantime, and farming men already in camp would, where necessary, be returned to the land.

In camps such men were listed, farmers could apply for them, and the men themselves could apply to return to their previous occupation. Primary Production Councils had increased responsibility: they had lists of men called in ballots and other information, and they advised Manpower authorities of needs in their districts, recommending recalls, either temporary or permanent; they could even, on grounds of public interest, institute appeals that they thought justified where the people concerned had not appealed or where the Army had failed to return men considered essential to farming. They also advised and encouraged farmers about crops needed and organised the pooling of equipment. [205]

As military service appeal boards were flooded with applications and speed was vital, provisional leave was readily granted to get men on to the land immediately, while longer or continuing needs were sorted out. Farmers might not get the special men they wanted, Polson explained, but they would get good farm hands. [206] Men who convinced their officers that farms needed their labour were released, usually for 14 or 28 days, pending inquiry by the boards. [207] About 12 000 of the Territorial force, that is those whose age or medical grading disqualified them from overseas service, had come from farms. By August appeals totalled almost 8000 and in the first rush about 6000 men were released to a farming community which had not expected such ready compliance. [208] Similarly, for freezing works, experienced men in camp, and even some without experience, could volunteer through Manpower officers, who would seek their release, [209] while to lessen Army disruption some men being called up for service were drafted instead to the meatworks from December to May 1943. [210] In all, stated the Minister of Defence on 14 November 1942, since 15 July essential work had received more than 10 000 men from the Army. Further figures recorded that from June to the end of November, 12 693 men (9177 for farms and 3516 others)

were released from camps and only 4000 of them had been reclaimed by the Army. [211] The initial exuberance was replaced by closer scru tiny and more consideration of a man's military value. Only in very exceptional circumstances and with approval from Army Headquarters were men released who were in line for overseas service and who had done a substantial part of their training, nor were Grade I single men of overseas age granted postponement or release unless they were of remarkable civilian value. [212]

Towards the end of 1942, with the invasion threat clearly receding, both elasticity and caution had been evolved. For dairy factories, shearing and freezing works, for planting and harvesting, an employer wanting a man or several men applied to the District Manpower Officer who, if no civilians were available, would ask the Army for suitable men. Unit commanders could on their own authority release men for up to 40 days, but if they were needed for longer an appeal board's recommendation was necessary. Always, appeal boards and Manpower officers had only advisory powers: decision on whether a man could or could not be released rested with the Army. [213] There were Army decisions that seemed vastly unreasonable to farmers such as keeping a man with considerable farming experience whose alleged main Air Force task for two and a half years was pouring tea, or retaining a tractor driver to pump petrol into Army vehicles; [214] sometimes farmers did not get the men they asked for but were given others; [215] some men were released for a time from camp without real justification; [216] there were delays and uncertainty. [217] The system was not foolproof, or proof against opportunists. [218] In the hurried pressures of 1942 there was little perfection, only the meeting of emergencies as they arose. As Fraser said on 9 July 1942 New Zealand, with its sparse population, had to make all sorts of compromises, between the efficiency of the Army and the efficiency of industry. [219]

Farming was not the only industry relieved by Army releases. Fraser on 4 December said that between 1 July and 25 November 1942, 14 519 men had been released. In the 1749 who emerged during November, there were 631 farmers, 424 shearers, 110 dairy workers, 14 miners, 68 timber workers, 41 market gardeners, 121 freezing workers and 340 miscellaneous. [220] By April 1943, withdrawals from the Army totalled 20 416 (11 718 for farms, 8698 others). [221] Most were not permanent: 32 per cent of the recommendations were for less than three months, 29 per cent for three to six months, 39 per cent for more than six months including sine die; in addition 1450 men had their leave extended. [222]

All this produced what the Press of 5 March 1943 called ‘a jostle at the camp gates, between a stream of men leaving the Army, partly trained, to go back into industry, and a stream of men in the higher age groups drafted out of industry to begin training.’ By now Army's appetite was sharpest for Grade I men suitable for overseas. [223] The 41–5-year-olds were not disturbed and in March 1943 the Prime Minister, announcing new procedures for releases in which District Manpower officers largely replaced military appeal boards, said that while as many men as possible would be released to industry, only in very exceptional cases would Grade I men be released. Every effort would be made to extract Grade I men from industry, [224] replacing them with men less physically fit. In September 1943 McLagan stated that since June 1942 13 800 farm workers had been released, of whom about 4000 had been remobilised, while 1500 new men had been drawn from farming into the forces, making the net gain to the industry about 8300. [225]

In June 1943 the Army in New Zealand was re-organised: Grade I men were to be held for reinforcements or transfer to the Air Force. Field units were to be demobilised and most of them placed on a care and maintenance basis, while the remainder were to be the core, for training and for maintaining equipment, of a part-time Territorial force, on pre-war lines. [226] Anti-aircraft and coastal defence would be gradually reduced. [227]

This facilitated the movement back to industry. In all, to the end of March 1943, 16 300 men were released from the Army. [228] McLagan at the end of October 1943 announced that between 1 April and 28 September, to all industries, 12 241 men had been released and the outflow was continuing. [229] By 31 March 1944 the year's releases were 18 433, as well as 5500 soldiers returned from overseas. [230] In 1944–5 a further 13 900 were released from home defence units, while 9500 ex-Pacific Division men were directed to essential industry. [231]

In December 1943 industry still held 39 014 Grade I men, more than 12 500 of them in farming but spread through all manner of occupations from mining and sawmilling, building and transport, to the police and the clergy. [232] Among these, the search for servicemen went on: in the year ending 31 March 1944, 6835 such men were found, singly or in groups. [233] For instance, on 3 June 1943 appeals for 75 Category A wharf workers were dismissed, the appeal board saying that the waterfront, in line with other industries, must contribute its quota to the forces. [234]

From late in 1942 a major question perplexing minds at all levels was, where should New Zealanders fight? Should they beat Hitler first, in the Middle East and Europe? Should they, like the Australians, be sent against the enemy nearer home? Or should at least a proportion of them be released from the armed forces to the production front, increasing the supplies of food that New Zealand was geographically suited to produce and that were urgently needed by

Britain and by Americans in the Pacific? These questions swayed back and forth during 1943, with no clear decision made till March– April 1944, when it was settled that the Pacific Division should return, temporarily; some 12 000 men would be used in food production and supporting industries, [235] while 6000 would remain as cadres in New Zealand from which the Division could be rebuilt for Pacific service in 1945. [236] Finally, on 11 September 1944 War Cabinet decided that the 2nd Division should remain in Europe until the end of the Italian campaign and that the cadres of the

3rd Division should be disbanded and become reinforcements in Europe. [237]

This was hidden in the future. New Zealand's Pacific land force, the 3rd Division, [238] came into being very quietly. On 6 August 1942

War Cabinet finally settled that a division should be established for service in the Pacific, based on the force of about 2350 men who on 24 July had returned from Fiji, replaced by Americans. [239] An original proposal that it should hasten to Guadalcanal in late August having miscarried, [240] the Division was quietly gathered at mobili sation camps. The first public mention of its role was on 27 August when Coates spoke of War Cabinet, with Parliament's secret session approval, having decided to reinforce the Middle East troops and also to supply New Zealand soldiers for any other theatre of war in which they might be required. [241] On 31 August, in America, Fraser said that New Zealand's policy was to attack the Japanese in the

Pacific rather than risk fighting at home. [242] It was from such oblique references, plus information filtering from the soldiers themselves, that New Zealanders first learned of the new enterprise. On 29 October the advance party of Kiwi Force left for New Caledonia and by the end of February 1943 more than 13 000 were there. [243]

Meanwhile, at the end of 1942 the Eighth Army, for the last time, drove west across North Africa with widespread plaudits poured upon its New Zealand Division. The folks at home basked in the achievements of their troops, feeling that they had fairly come into their own at last, shining in the world's eyes as remarkably able soldiers, agile and tough, their fighting style expressing the innate quality of their nation. With the three-year-old North African episode about to end, the question arose: where should the Division fight next?

There was strong feeling that the 2nd Division should stay where it was doing so well, against Germans and Italians. Thus the New Zealand Herald, early in December 1942, looking boldly ahead to the invasion of Sicily, Italy or the Balkans, demanded to know whether it was seriously proposed at the very moment of the opening of the much-predicted second front that New Zealand should ask for the shipping and escort necessary for the safe return of the 2nd Division. It was unlikely that the troops, flushed with victory and expecting to be in the van of the attack on Europe, would wish to turn aside, wasting valuable months in travel and the retraining that would be needed to fit desert shock troops for totally different fighting. [244]

On the other hand many thought that New Zealand should now fight in the Pacific, in order to defend its homeland and to be heard at Pacific post-war conference tables. Early among those who advocated that the Middle East Division should return to rest and then tackle the Japanese were the ex-Labour members J. A. Lee and W. E. Barnard. [245] Lee, on 17 October 1942, said that manpower targets were too vast, New Zealand was going into the war too quickly, soon women would be enrolled for active service and in street after street there would be no married men. The House and the people should know what industries were to be maintained and how this would be done. [246] On 4 December he agreed with Fraser that New Zealand was a Pacific country and said that if good relations were to persist with the Americans it must fight alongside them. [247] Barnard, late in November, urged that in the greatly changed situation New Zealanders were no longer needed in North Africa: after three years they deserved a rest and thereafter their experience would be valuable against the Japanese. [248] In January 1943, he declared that it was no use winning the war on foreign fields but losing it on the home front through lack of foresight: there was a duty to the men overseas to maintain the economic structure. New Zealand was heavily over-devoted to military effort while called on to produce even more food for Britain. After six months' training, newly drafted men should return to industry, and the Division, instead of going on to Europe, should return to fight nearer home. [249]

The Auckland Star in particular campaigned for the Division's transfer to the Pacific, its editorial on 23 November 1942 setting the stage. ‘Without [the New Zealanders] the Afrika Corps would scarcely have been prevented from reaching Suez last July, and without them again General Montgomery [250] might not have won the decisive victory at El Alamein.’ Though none claimed that the Division by itself won these battles, its presence had been indispensable to victory. In Greece, Crete and twice in Libya it had shared campaigns that were disastrous, costly, or at best inconclusive, but now it enjoyed the exhilaration of pursuing the enemy. It was time to consider whether it should be committed to the long, bitter struggle ahead in Europe or be brought home and, after rest and retraining, fight against Japan. ‘There are, of course, arguments against withdrawal, and these will not suffer from lack of advocacy’, wrote the

Star. ‘We are concerned that the contrary arguments shall be heard, and heard in time. Perhaps our Government is even now expressing them; we hope it is. If so, it is voicing the deep conviction of a great body of New Zealanders who feel that the Dominion's war effort to date, and above all the achievements of its Division, have won for it the right to be heard—and heeded.’ It was in New Zealand's interest to shorten the Pacific war as much as possible, by supporting to the utmost the Americans who were bearing the brunt. ‘A country which wishes to preserve its independent existence in the

Pacific must fight for it in the Pacific, and if … too small to sustain indefinitely a considerable effort both in the Pacific and the Middle East, then common sense insists that it should concentrate its forces in the Pacific.’ [251] Repeatedly the Star warned that Japan's strength grew from its conquests, which would enable it to carry on the war for 20 years if need be; that blows at the Japanese heart needed bases from which to strike, and that New Zealand could make a significant contribution if its main force, seasoned and unsurpassed in quality, were not concentrated in the Middle East. [252]

The Star's hint that the government was already moving to transfer the troops was shrewdly placed. On 19 November, Fraser had explained to Churchill the priority of the Pacific offensive for New Zealanders, adding that as most of the Division had been away for well over two years and it had taken very heavy casualties (18 500 out of a total 43 500), there was a ‘general feeling in the country that our men have a strong claim to return’, which would sharpen when it became known that Australia was recalling its last division from Africa. [253]

However, by 4 December 1942, in response to British and American reluctance and to massive shipping difficulties, War Cabinet decided, and Parliament in secret session agreed, that the Division would remain in the Middle East ‘for a further period.’ [254] Fraser afterwards reviewed recent events: the Axis retreat and the Allied landings in west Africa, occupying Algeria and Morocco; the German seizure of so-called Free France and the suicide of the French fleet; Russian resurgence, notably near Stalingrad; America's naval success in the Solomons and Japan's retreat in Papua to beachheads at Buna and Gona. Concluding, he hinted at change: ‘It is, I am afraid, clearer to us in the South Pacific than it is to those in North Africa and in Europe that the war with Japan is going to be a hard and bitter struggle.’ But New Zealand's own defences were much stronger than a year earlier and forward positions had been established in

New Caledonia. ‘It is only right that we should take part in the

Pacific offensive, which will keep the Japanese as far as possible from our own shores. This new forward move necessitates a review of our defence responsibilities and commitments.’ [255]

Ensuing newspaper comment, while supporting the view that the

Pacific war required New Zealand's effort, inclined towards contributing supplies rather than soldiers. The Press said, ‘… if the British and United States governments are in favour of a holding war in the Pacific and Asia they have failed to understand the realities of the war against Japan.’ Japan had already won all the material needed to strengthen its war machine and though this would eventually be outpaced by America, delay meant that the Japanese must be driven from strong bases instead of from outposts. Further, for some time many New Zealanders had wondered if they could sustain two fighting forces plus supply commitments. [256] The Timaru Herald noted that Fraser was for the first time criticising the general direction of the war: ‘he considers, and rightly so, that New Zealand's first war task now is to co-operate in whatever moves are made to keep the Japanese as far as possible from these shores’, which must involve driving them from bases whence they could push south. [257] To the

Otago Daily Times, the situation now called for re-allocation of manpower in the Services and industry, and, ‘as the Prime Minister's opinion that a holding war … is not sufficient may be endorsed’, the government must face up to highly complex problems. [258] The

Dominion foresaw that Fraser's proposed review might alter the channels of effort, concentrating more on production and supply. [259] The

New Zealand Herald, urging strongly that the Division should remain in the Middle East, opposed the idea, underlined by Coates on 7 December, of sending ‘men and more men’ to the Pacific. This would impose heavy, indeed impossible, burdens on one and a half million people. The huge population and wealth of the United States must bear the brunt of the approaching offensive while New Zealand must reduce its home forces, make more use of the Home Guard, reinforce the Division in the Middle East and restrict its service in the Pacific largely to garrison duties. ‘We shall perform our duty better if we cut our military coat according to our cloth.’ [260]

Several factors favoured acceptance of the policy filtered down from Churchill, Roosevelt and non- Pacific military leaders of merely holding Japan in check while concentrating on Germany. The slow, hard fight in New Guinea and Guadalcanal had bred the idea that driving the Japanese north would take years, but that when the full might of the Allied navies and other forces could combine in attacking the enemy mainland, all the occupied lands would fall like ripe plums. [261] Japanese tenacity and the squalor of jungle fighting, the waste of time in retraining and the squandering of lives during apprenticeship to the jungle and the Japanese, were doubly unattractive set against the harvest of golden opinions which the 2nd Division was winning by hard-earned expertise. It could also be argued that if the Pacific offensive were to be long delayed, New Zealand should concentrate on providing supplies rather than soldiers for it.

Further, Pacific-mindedness was far from widespread. The Press, while noting that New Zealand was beginning to discover its environment, reminded that for more than 50 years the South Pacific and its islands had scarcely entered national consciousness. Fiji, the

Cook Islands or Samoa meant less to the average New Zealander than Denmark or Holland or Egypt; six months earlier very few could have located Pago Pago or knew anything of the status of

Tonga or the geography of Fiji. [262] The longstanding preoccupation of radio and newspapers with the European and Middle East war reinforced this remoteness from the Pacific. And behind all the talk and tendencies was the hard military fact that as yet there were not the men and hardware needed for a major Pacific offensive. As the

Press pointed out on 11 March 1943: ‘In spite of American mass production and mass mobilisation, the United Nations have not enough men, aeroplanes, and munitions to stage war-winning offensives, east and west, at once. The decision to concentrate on Germany and Italy and hold Japan was not capricious or short-sighted but inevitable.’

Meanwhile, the ‘general feeling’ of which Fraser had informed Churchill, [263] that the 2nd Division should return, flared up, ranging in its public expression from trade union remits to letters from fiancées and mothers. Thus late in November the New Zealand Federated Labourers' Conference urged that the Division which had served so magnificently should be returned to New Zealand's threatened shores and that other troops could go to the Middle East. If the whole Division could not be brought back, those who had been away almost three years should be returned in drafts for a spell. [264] ‘Wedding Bells’ spoke for fiancées:

The past three years have been long months of anxiety and loneliness, but these last few weeks a ray of hope has crept into our dismal hearts. Surely after all the brave deeds our sweethearts have done they will be brought home for a rest. Surely, instead of always watching the others, we too will be able to wear a frock of white and carry orange blossoms and feel the warmth of a baby's arms. Alas, the ray is soon quenched when we read of the probability of our loved ones being shipped off to Europe to most likely spend another three long years on the battlefront. Bring the division home is our cry. [265]

The cry was echoed with variations in many letters, notably in the

Auckland Star, [266] but also in other papers. One urged that early volunteers, the cream of young manhood, should be breeding the future generation. [267] They could be replaced by others, such as the soldiers then leaning on their rifles at home. Several warned against leaving men at the front too long till they were burnt out and broken as in the last war. [268] As the Auckland Star itself noted on 5 December 1942, its own proposal to bring the Division back for Pacific service was confused, especially by next-of-kin, with the feeling that the men had done their share nobly and should now return to loving arms and well-earned rest, followed by home service or industry. The idea of sending them off again to fever-stricken islands was clearly repugnant to some. [269]

The evolution of the decision to maintain the 2nd Division in the Mediterranean as New Zealand's main striking force, while Pacific troops waned, is lucidly set forth by Professor Wood, [270] but outside

Cabinet and command counsels the issue of whether New Zealand should fight in two theatres was linked with the other question: should New Zealand soldiers fight in the Pacific or would their most useful Pacific service be the production of food and base camp facilities for the Americans? July 1942 saw peak mobilisation: 154 549 men and women, though only 52 651 were then overseas. [271] This drain was accepted during the anxious period from December 1941 to November 1942, though some lifting of the burden had shown since June in the movement of men into and out of the Army, the jostle at the camp gates described by the Press on 5 March 1943. [272]

Obviously it would be more profitable to concentrate on production, and to practical New Zealanders more concerned with post-war trade prospects than with post-war power politics it also seemed more necessary. As 1942 closed, various bodies debated the manpower needs of the forces and of industry, and considered adjustments that would ease the strain. At Christchurch on 25 November, in a conference called by the Progress League, 40 Canterbury organisations and local bodies held that the country had bitten off more than it could chew and called on the government to review manpower. There must be food for the Allies and the oppressed countries after the war, as well as for normal customers but instead manpower shortages were reducing production. Continuous home service was ‘wasteful of manpower, inefficient, costly, tedious, and frustrating to the men concerned’; it was especially demoralising for 18-year-olds. There should be short intensive training, then release to civilian work, and fewer Home Guard and EPS parades. For a few, prisoners-of-war seemed an obvious source of labour, not only for productive work but for land clearing and development; the government should follow other Empire countries in bringing in these prisoners especially Italians who were law-abiding, excellent workers and who would not need much military control. [273] A Press editorial criticised the appeal system, which kept men in suspense for months. [274]

At Auckland, during eight days shortly before Christmas 1942, the local Chamber of Commerce, the Trades Council, the employers' and the manufacturers' associations pondered together, and their findings were endorsed by the executive of the Auckland Farmers'

Union. They agreed that the development of United States power in the Pacific had removed the immediate menace and created new problems. New Zealand should now move from maximum military defence to maximum utilisation of manpower in production for American demands. They had ‘grave misgivings’ about maintaining a large active force in the Pacific; they thought that there could be substantial economy in overseas training and still more in home defence. Military training for all between 18 and 46 years should be accepted, but it should be for limited periods only, while women in the forces could be used both more widely and with more economy. Industrial efficiency should be improved through more manpower utilisation and production committees; those already established had rendered excellent service. [275]

Even as these recommendations were published on 23 December McLagan, advising the just-balloted 41–5-year-old men to stay in their jobs, announced that the government would re-consider the utilisation of manpower early in the New Year. [276] Several newspapers commented on the Auckland conference. The New Zealand Herald remarked that unanimity among such bodies was as rare as it should be influential. New Zealand had reached the end of its military resources and must ask whether the production front was being stripped to man the fighting front which would be disabled without adequate supplies. [277] The Evening Post found the government's decision to review manpower wise and timely. The Auckland conference had rightly pointed to new problems, including production for Americans, and maximum utilisation could be achieved by training intensively as many men as possible, then releasing them to industry. [278] To the Press, these Auckland resolutions were the result that might be expected from the government's indecision, weakness and reticence: unofficial organisations had begun to talk about manpower with great freedom and frankness, and the public listened. ‘Statements of this sort which are growing increasingly frequent, acutely embarrass the government and its military advisers, who cannot reply to them effectively without disclosing facts which the enemy would be glad to know.’ In war, where only the government and its military advisers knew all the relevant facts, the government's manpower policy decisions should be taken on trust, but the public did not have this trust because evidence was accumulating that the government manpower policy was no more than a set of feeble compromises. [279]

This pressure to contribute goods rather than fighting men was reproved by some papers. In the post-war Pacific those who had shared the heat and burden would be seriously heard, while those who had supplied the biscuits and jam would be ‘also present’, warned the Auckland Star of 23 December. The Star–Sun thought that these proposals, to satisfy the manpower needs of production and the commercial sector first and keep the residue, if any, under arms lest the Japanese break through, would ‘shock the community .… This will not suit the Britons of the South. There is going to be no gibe that New Zealanders defended their shores to the last drop of American blood.’ [280]

At least two provincial papers welcomed the ‘strong advice’ of the Auckland conference. The Timaru Herald, with some agility, said: ‘That this country should allow total responsibility for the defence of New Zealand soil to rest with others would be an idea totally repugnant to most New Zealanders. However, such a thought is not even remotely implied.… The question is simply one of deciding what is the most effective contribution New Zealand can make to the war.’ The plain fact was that the Japanese could be driven from their outposts only by stronger bodies of troops than New Zealand could supply; ‘New Zealand will naturally have a considerable part to play in the general Pacific campaign, but that part cannot be exclusively military’. Inevitably New Zealand was a supply base, but recently Service demands had been so tough that capacity in this role had been ‘seriously prejudiced’; large releases from the forces had been necessary, and there should be still more from the ‘standing army’ of thousands unfit for overseas service. The issue was plain, and the government should not need outside advice. The present critical stage, concluded the voice of Timaru, perhaps echoing the Press, would not have been reached if the government had planned the use of manpower scientifically instead of taking a drifting policy which it was not anxious to have discussed in Parliament. [281]

The Wanganui Herald approved the Auckland advice as bold and timely. There was a good case for training every man fit for overseas service, but what could be said for keeping thousands of the less fit in camps, fed, clothed and housed at community expense, their wives meagrely supported by taxation? Most could be returned to civilian life and the Home Guard. ‘Why have a standing army for home defence when it has no battles to fight and looks as if it never will? And above all, why go on extending it, specially when the need for labour in all kinds of civil occupations is desperate?’ [282]

In all, it could be said that the Auckland conference and its reception showed wide feeling that New Zealand was doing more than its share of soldiering, and that it was time to turn to other things. The line of thought that New Zealand could take an adequate part in the Pacific without actually fighting there readily linked into and augmented belief that the Middle East and Europe were the proper theatres for New Zealand's fighting men, a belief firmly held by the

National party, among others. During a by-election campaign early in 1943, Sullivan stated that it was the desire and intention of the government to return the 2nd Division home as soon as possible. [283]

Holland, who had repeatedly said that New Zealand was over-strained and that it was absurd to have two divisions overseas, plus heavy Air Force and Navy commitments, declared this statement to be a great and painful surprise, proof that the government was hopelessly out of touch with public opinion. He could imagine no greater injury to the war effort or anything that would be more bitterly resented by the gallant fighting men than this talk of withdrawal, and nothing would please Rommel more. He added that the home front was not in New Zealand as some might think, but ‘up at Guadalcanar, at Rabaul, at Buna and elsewhere in the disease-infested tropical area’, and that New Zealanders were quite unused to jungle fighting. [284] The Auckland Star commented that New Zealanders would not relish the implication that these dangers should be braved by Australians and Americans but not by New Zealanders. [285]

The government's action amid all this was two-fold: as stated earlier, on 6 March 1943 War Cabinet approved the increase for the 3rd Division, which would convert it from a garrison to a combat force; [286] and on 25 March measures were announced to quicken releases from the Army to industry of men below overseas standard. [287] In a mid-March debate, Holland and Polson strongly criticised the build-up of the Pacific force, saying that New Zealand for its size had too many soldiers and was running out of men. [288] Coates, seeing the 2nd Division as ‘the spirit of the Eighth Army’, said that its recall would be very discouraging to that Army, and he was confident that New Zealand could maintain both forces for 12 months, and provide a net gain to industry of four to five thousand men. [289] Several Labour members, Nordmeyer, [290] Anderton [291] and Frost, [292] advocated the return of the Division as soon as military circumstances permitted, for retraining and Pacific service. Combs, [293] another Labour man, spoke for it remaining where it had done such splendid service, a blow struck in Tunisia being as effective for New Zealand's safety as a minesweeper in Hauraki Gulf. [294] Fraser reminded that New Zealand could not scuttle out of war in the

Pacific now if it wished to be heard afterwards, but promised that at the end of the Tunisian campaign the Division's future would be decided by the House. He also said that everything possible must be done to release some of the longest serving men: a start must be made with the First Echelon at any rate. [295] This was a reference to the furlough scheme then being discussed with Army leaders and with Churchill, [296] a scheme that would soothe at least a section of those calling for the return of the Division.

Soldiers in the 2nd Division also discussed the Middle East– Pacific question and, to judge by scattered letters that reached newspapers and a few references in official documents, they preferred to keep out of the Pacific. On 6 May 1943 Jones, visiting the Division, cabled that while there seemed to be a general desire to return to New Zealand, ‘I formed the impression that there was no desire on the part of the men here to fight in the Solomons.’ [297] Fraser inquired (7 May), ‘What exactly is in their minds if they don't want to go into the Pacific after they return? Do they wish merely to have leave and then return to the Middle East?’ Had it been made quite clear to them that Americans were here not as garrison troops defending New Zealand but were using the country only as a base for training or recuperating after service? [298] Jones replied on 10 May with what Wood has called exasperating but probably accurate obscurity that he had made it clear that there was no question of replacing Americans in New Zealand, but the Division had heard of conditions in

New Guinea and the Solomons, and while he felt sure that they would serve where required, the majority, given the option, would prefer the healthier Middle East theatre. [299] A soldier wrote that men of the 2nd Division had no desire ‘to limp home as worn-out veterans’, to ‘some killing garrison job in New Zealand or the islands’. [300] Another said that there was no wish, after home leave, to tackle the Japanese; it would be ‘better to stay here and finish our part, then return to New Zealand and know that, for us, there will be no more active service, but perhaps a spot of Home Guard, or, better still, a job in “essential industry” making about ten notes a week.’ [301] Such feeling was to harden when the first furlough draft came back.

The 2nd Division was conspicuous in the Tunisian successes of late March and April 1943 and, despite the sadness of heavy casualties, satisfaction in these fighting men was confirmed and strengthened. Indeed, one colonel was later moved to write that, contrary to some popular belief, other divisions also acted as spearheads, and although he was himself a one-eyed New Zealander he knew from experience the fighting qualities of, for instance, the 51st (Highland) Division, the 9th Australian Division and the Indian troops. [302] Meanwhile descriptions of the slow, soggy, slogging struggle of jungle fighting confirmed feeling that the Middle East and Europe were better battle-grounds than the Pacific. There was also feeling that the Pacific war was America's show; America was so much larger and comparatively so much less mobilised than New Zealand. [303] Men of the 2nd Division disliked the idea of starting afresh, overshadowed by the big nation.

Fraser on 4 December 1942 had said: ‘I do not believe in the theory of a holding war in the Pacific while the fullest efforts are concentrated on one second front in Europe. … It is only right that we should take part in the Pacific offensive’. [304] But late in April 1943 he set forth to Churchill a changed policy, based on feelings in the country, with a request that Churchill should smooth the way for its full acceptance by New Zealand's Parliament:

A message from you, which I could read to Parliament in secret session, appealing for the retention of the Division ‘on symbolic and historical as well as military grounds’ would, I feel, have very great influence especially if you could associate President Roosevelt with yourself in the message.… President Roosevelt's name, alongside your own, would powerfully reinforce the appeal, and … I feel that the New Zealand Parliament should be apprised of the United States' view. [305]

Churchill on 3 May cabled back in his fullest style: the New Zealand Division had held a foremost place in the ever-famous fighting march of the Desert Army from the battlefields of Alamein to the gates of

Tunis, a ‘shining place in the van of the advance.… There could not be any more glorious expression of the links which bind together the Commonwealth and Empire, and bind in a special manner the hearts of the people of the British and New Zealand isles, than the feats of arms which the New Zealanders … have performed’. On military grounds, General Alexander [306] and General Montgomery ardently wished that they would maintain their association with the 51st Highland Division, ‘one equal temper of heroic minds’, to the liberation of Europe.

Yet it is not on those grounds that I make this request to the Government and people of New Zealand. I make it even more upon the sentiments which unite our Commonwealth of Nations. I can, of course, replace the New Zealand Division with another well-trained division from the United Kingdom. It is the symbolic and historic value of our continued comradeship in arms that moves me. I feel that the intervention of the New Zealand Division on European soil, at a time when the homeland of New Zealand is already so strongly engaged with Japan, will constitute a deed of fame to which many generations of New Zealanders will look back with pride. [307]

This message did not involve Roosevelt, but a fortnight later, when Churchill was in Washington, Fraser again pressed him to discuss the Division's future with Roosevelt, and received on 17 May a further cable from Churchill, saying: ‘Both the President and I feel very strongly that it would be a great pity to withdraw the New Zealand Division from the Mediterranean theatre where it has given such splendid service. We hope means will be found to sustain both divisions in their present strength and station. If this cannot be done, it would be better when the time comes to accept a lower establishment.’ The cable pointed out that the 2nd Division would not be in action until September or October, and that shipping for its repatriation would entail great loss in the build-up for attacking

France in 1944. [308]

Freyberg on 13 May had pleaded movingly for the Division to remain where it had fought so hard and won such honour. ‘It seems to me that just as Mr Churchill has inspired a nation with words so your Division has been his counterpart with deeds. If the New Zealand Division never fought again it would rank as one of the finest divisions of all times and be spoken of as we speak today of Craufurd's [309] Light Division in the Peninsula.’ The Division itself would welcome remaining in the Middle East, where it knew its enemy and how to fight him, while its presence in a Balkan campaign would greatly encourage the people of Greece and Crete. [310]

Armed with these missives, Fraser on 21 May could steer the issue through a secret session ‘in an atmosphere almost entirely removed from party politics and partisanship.’ [311] The Pacific-minded section of Labour accepted the argument and would remain loyal in any case, while the Opposition was placated and deprived of an election plank. [312] Fraser had shown to the full both his political and military intuition.

It was decided that the 2nd Division would remain in the Middle East and go on to Europe; that both divisions would be maintained as long as possible, with smaller establishments as manpower ran out; that long-service men, beginning with 6000 from the first three echelons, would be relieved, replaced in the first instance by fresh men from New Zealand, later by those returning from furlough, and that the Pacific Division would be re-organised on a reduced scale, with adjustments to its troops then in New Zealand. [313]

Though ground fighting in both Europe and the Pacific was apparently provided for, in reality the implications of these decisions tilted the scales towards Europe. The only men available to relieve the first three echelons were those promised in March to the 3rd Division, which would have made it a full combat force and without which it could be no more than two brigades. [314] Fraser on 30 August 1943 told Admiral Halsey that eventually Mediterranean reinforcements must be drawn from New Zealand troops in the Pacific, and at about the same time, in an election speech, he said openly that within months troops in the Pacific would be used to strengthen the 2nd Division. [315]

The 3rd Division was accordingly of minor usefulness, the tasks given it were minor, and in all eyes it became more an available source both for reinforcing the 2nd Division and for home production. It was the Air Force that bore New Zealand's real share in

Pacific service, with the Navy some way behind. Early in June 1943 Halsey's deputy, Rear-Admiral T. S. Wilkinson, [316] told War Cabinet that in American evaluation of New Zealand's part ‘Air came first, Navy second, production third and Army fourth’. [317] By May 1943 there were 3000 airmen in seven squadrons with 89 aircraft serving in Espiritu Santo, Guadalcanal, New Caledonia and Fiji with plans, depending on the arrival of aircraft etc, to build these up to 14 squadrons and 6600 men. [318] In October 1944 the RNZAF had 7500 men and women in the Pacific zone and their number rose to 7972 in April 1945. [319]

The importance of farm production, even ranged against defence claims, was further measured by the various Army schemes that brought in the sheaves and the hay and potatoes between January 1942 and the 1944–5 season. In the midst of the post- Japan rush to camp Semple, on 16 January 1942, announced that farmers whose lately called up workers were urgently needed for harvesting could have them released temporarily. [320] This worked well, with quick releases, men being out 24 hours after applications went in, while the entrance of others was delayed till the harvest was gathered. [321] Apart from these releases, unit commanders helped local farmers by lending men for harvest work on their own responsibility, an unofficial arrangement with no payment involved. [322]

Though the Army did not ask farmers for money, the soldiers themselves were less obliging, at least in some areas, as D. C. Kidd, [323] member for Waitaki, told the House in May 1942. A Captain Anderson had come to his district to explain how farmers could get men two days after an application. He also explained that the young men released from military duties for essential work had to be volunteers.

These young men held a meeting, and stated that they wanted £3 10s a week for a five-day week, working nine hours a day, or a total of forty-five hours in a week. Just imagine the position facing this essential industry! We must get the crop in. The elements are against us, and yet young men tell us that they will not work more than forty-five hours a week to put in the crop. That sort of thing irritates the farmer. [324]

Next season, with primary production councils pointing out that wheat acreage was increased and labour depleted, [325] the Minister of Defence on 8 December 1942 announced that to make hay and silage and to harvest the main crops, unit commanders were authorised, when convinced of genuine need, to release men from camp for up to 28 days; for longer periods, application must be made through Manpower officers. [326] Then, a few days before Christmas, on 21 December, the Ministers of Defence and Supply jointly stated that this was inadequate. In appropriate South Island areas Army units and sub-units would be moved to improvised camps to do harvesting work under Army control. Military commanders, aided by farmers' organisations, made reconnaissance for camp sites from which to attack the silage, hay, grain and potatoes, working out supply and transport problems. Liaison officers with farming experience were in each group, Army radios and telephones made communication easy, trucks took the men to and from the farms daily, though on isolated farms some were billeted. Farmers provided tools, teas and midday meals, and paid 2s 3d an hour per man to the Army; the soldiers received their military pay, the balance going to camp funds. Normal Army training, it was stated, would continue during any pause in harvest work; Church parades in the stubble were photographed, there were jokes about Stukas and stocking to conquer. [327]

Afterwards, the National Service Department claimed, ‘It is the general opinion that the harvest in the South Island was gathered more efficiently last season than ever before’, and gave full credit to the Army which, besides supplying enough men for peak demands, used its field equipment to keep several hundreds of men in each locality working as one complete body. Field radio stations kept Unit Commanders continuously posted of the latest developments. Army lorries shifted men and supplies rapidly from place to place as crops ripened or work was completed, while local resources of labour, tractors, etc., were in many cases taken over and used collectively in their own locality as the Army organisation moved through the district. Threshed grain was transported to the rail, and transport arrangements were in many cases carried right through to the flour mills themselves. At the peak of the season, some 8000 to 10 000 men were engaged in some phase of harvesting work. [328]

Faithfully, some trade unionists, such as the Kaiapoi freezing workrs, protested against the soldiers not being paid directly by the farmers. [329]

In the 1943–4 season, the Army, much diminished by overseas exodus and by home force reductions, could not repeat this performance with mobilised troops, but Territorials were called up to do a month's work on farms in place of a month's military service. They were not balloted but selected by local committees, consisting of the military area officer, the secretary of the local armed forces appeal board and the district manpower officer. After appeals, 13 240 men were listed for collective harvesting. Single or childless married men of 18–40 were preferred, then married men up to 30 years old, with up to three children. Numerous essential industries, such as railways, butter and cheese factories and electric power, had block exemptions, while the selection committees chose those whose absence for a month would least disrupt industry, and at the most suitable times: for instance, grocery assistants were not called up during December. [330]

Successive drafts lived in temporary camps set up and run by the Army at places chosen in the light of district needs, assessed by primary production councils. They were taken to farms in a 20-mile radius by Army transport, and wore Army denims. [331] This year the scheme applied to the North Island as well, including its large vegetable farms, but about 2400 North Island men went to some of the

South Island's 60 camps. [332] Farmers paid 2s 6d an hour to the Agriculture Department, while the men received the Army's 7s 6d a day, plus 6d an hour bonus and 2s 6d an hour for work beyond 8 hours a day or before 7 am and after 5 pm. [333] There was some hard feeling when Territorials were working alongside civilians who had better pay rates, such as potato pickers doing 80 bags a day for 6d a bag. [334] Some Territorials were sent to the freezing works, but there they received normal rates, £6 4 s 4 d a week, plus any overtime. [335]

Work was needed for a considerable time, from the hay making of December to South Island potato gathering in April and May. [336] Not all the men selected were actually posted and there were complaints that primary production councils had over-estimated farmers' needs. [337] Some farmers were critical that many were lads under 20, willing enough but inexperienced and neither fit for heavy stocking nor worth 2s 6d an hour; consequently demand for them slackened. In previous seasons many had been older men, used to farm work; the younger men found it both hard and dull. [338] There were also reports of splendid organisation and of highly satisfied farmers paying bonuses, one even taking his men to an hotel dinner. [339]

In the 1944–5 season, fewer men were needed: the 3rd Division and other releases were bringing the supply of farm workers nearer to normal, and more machinery was available. The Territorial organisation of the previous year was not repeated, but a limited number of mobilised men were available for more carefully checked requirements, with fewer camps than in the last two seasons. [340]

Inevitably, within the community there were mixed feelings about the men reserved from military service because of their value to industry. Obviously there were some men of far more use to the country in their own jobs than as soldiers. There were also borderline cases: there were government servants, whose value to the nation was not obvious to their neighbours; there were farmers' sons whose fathers had acquired more land and set their sons on it. Though it was no easy matter for appeal boards to decide whether an older or less fit man could be trained in reasonable time for a skilled job, ordinary men and women formed clear opinions on this case or that, opinions in which the term ‘racket’ occurred not infrequently, especially when their own sons, brothers, friends or husbands had forborne to make such appeals, or their employers had been too patriotic to make them. Other employers, keen to retain trained men, single or otherwise, in skilled work, thereby avoiding the mistakes inevitable with change and less experienced staff, made as strong a case as possible. The good pay, augmented by bonuses and overtime, drawn by many reserved men heightened jealousy.

A newspaper letter from an Ashburton farmer's wife, with two sons, one serving his country, the other still at school, shows some of the feelings current.

Certainly farming is hard work, but there are many farmers getting in some cases more than one son off. I agree there are certainly some genuine cases, but the ‘so-called genuine’ cases make it terribly hard for a man with a real case; he is almost ashamed to apply. Provided the farmer has a tractor, he can farm up to 400 or 500 acres with very little outside aid; my own husband does, and our farm is in first-class order. At times, when necessary, I myself go out and do my share in the paddocks, but it hurts when you see others hiding their sons behind a bag of wheat. Most farmers have daughters who can drive a car, so therefore should be able to drive a tractor, milk, etc. 1 do and I find it no hardship, besides doing my own housework. My advice to the Appeal Boards is to get one or two genuine men to go into the different districts and inquire into the cases, especially of some which had been adjourned sine die. [341]

To the men themselves, their friends and families, and to many casual people, it appeared differently: they were working hard, doing necessary things, without the praise lavished on soldiers. Three letters, two written in 1943–4, one a long time after the war, show some aspects of their position and attitudes:

I am sure that I speak for most essential grade I men when I say we have been appealed for on numerous occasions, and our appeals have been adjourned sine die. Many of us have opposed our appeals but to no avail.… According to our employers, we are already in the Army, but ‘on loan’ to the essential industries.… While agreeing that in some cases grade I men may have easy jobs, that does not go for all. My ‘cushy’ job is working every week-night from sundown to sunrise at the most nerve-wracking machinery [342]

Another letter written in September 1969 recalled how a farmer toiled to stay with his land and his young family. He had bought 120 acres just before the war, and was milking 40 cows.

We had 5 young children—a bad season and a big mortgage. On the ‘Day’ my husband's name was listed in the paper … for overseas service, I'll never forget the ghostly look on my husband's face that morning. He said, ‘What am I going to do? I want to do my share, but I can't leave you & the children & the farm, with all this debt.’

His own farm, with its 40 cows, was too small for large crops, but the manager of the local stock and station firm advised that good land nearby could be leased for wheat growing, [343] and advanced credit for a new tractor and plough which made the whole undertaking possible, and the farmer's appeal was granted. ‘My husband would get up at 4 am each morning, milk the 40 cows, feed the pigs; eat a hurried breakfast, and off he'd go to the Plough … until dark, then come home, & milk the cows, coming in to tea most nights 9 or 10 o'clock.’ His wife, with the young children, could not milk, but:

grew vegetables, lots & lots of them, & flowers, & sold as many eggs as I could.… We had one aim, to reduce our debt [to the firm] as soon as possible to prove our worth in the confidence they had in us. The crops were reasonably good … and it was a wonderful feeling to know we were ‘doing our bit’ although there were the occasional few who sort of wondered ‘Why’ my husband didn't go overseas with the rest, in a sneering sort of a way. This hurt both of us, as we were really trying to do almost as much as the ones who ‘went away’. Those few never realised the big effort we were gladly making to help save our Country. The ones behind the lines, as in all things, are often doing as much sometimes more than those in the front lines. [344]

Another man in 1944 regretted his retention, resented criticism, and was aware that the gap between those who fought and those who stayed would persist: ‘It might be a strange fact for the RSA to digest, but there will be many Grade A men like myself who envy the soldiers.… We are aware that we are out of it; and that we will always be out of it.’ He suggested that retained men should form their own association in lieu of Service associations, its coat of arms showing a muscular worker ‘held back by an obvious official with a spool of red tape and the president of the RSA attacking our unprotected rear with an Army boot.’ [345]

It was known that about 40 000 Grade I men were held in Industry, of whom about 13 000 were single. The latter especially were the targets of envy and criticism. Since June 1942 men had been called up in age groups, irrespective of family responsibilities, but uneasiness persisted at this departure from the 1914–18 procedure of taking first those with the least family responsibility. Mothers of young families bitterly resented their men being sent overseas while others, fit and childless, were safe; [346] others shared their feeling. Thus Orr-Walker SM, chairman of an Auckland armed forces appeal board, said it was ‘monstrous’ that men with several children were being sent to camp while jobs that such men could do, given a few months' training, were filled by fit young men on good wages. [347]

An appeal case illustrated at workshop level the conflict implicit in many retentions. The making of munitions was organised by the government, with various engineering firms producing components to order, along with other items for both civil and military use. A government munitions liaison officer, appealing for 12 employees of one such firm, was asked by the Crown representative if he maintained that a Grade I single man who was making ploughs should not have to go to the war, even though a married man with three children might have to go in his place. He replied that it was departmental policy to urge the retention of all engineers, single or otherwise. The Crown representative, asking if this policy was made public, was answered, ‘I don't think so. Why should it?’ and replied ‘Because the public should know that though it is drummed in every mouth by politicians that single men must go there is at least one Department that is not prepared to accept that principle.’ [348]

These many-faceted grievances, probably largely inevitable, smouldered. They flared up when the volunteers of the first echelons, with three years' service behind them, came home on three months' leave, and were expected thereafter to return to Europe. [349]

From the start of 1943, or even earlier, Army Headquarters in

Wellington and the Middle East had considered the possibilities of giving long-service men home leave, replacing the first draft with reinforcements and successive drafts with men returning from leave.

After discussions with all concerned, from Churchill down, [350] this became reality. On the morning of 12 July 1943 (when the invasion of Sicily filled the headlines) the Nieuw Amsterdam, preceded by a deal of rumour [351] and cryptic telegrams to next-of-kin, brought more than 6000 men of the first three echelons to the wharf at Wellington. In a cold southerly drizzle a crowd, mainly women, pressed against the gates. There was no parade—this was left for the home towns—and the men were hastened home, blessed with railway passes for holiday travel and with 10 gallons of petrol a month, the current civilian ration being 1–2 gallons a month. It was firmly stated by various authorities that they were on three months' leave and would be returning. Reports quoted men as saying that they wanted to go back to their mates and finish the job.

Almost immediately, however, feeling against their return to

Europe reared up strongly. The RSA at Oamaru led off on 13 July, remarking that here they had the best argument yet for ‘getting at the shirkers’. A meeting resolved that these men, especially the married ones, should if they wished take positions in the home service army or in industry, releasing Grade I men for overseas. Employers who had had three years to replace such men could now prove their sincerity and those sitting back on ‘cushy’ commissions or as instructors could show their keenness to serve. [352] An editorial approving this ‘thoughtfully worded resolution’ said that it would be widely held that every effort should be made to keep any of those men in New Zealand who wanted positions in home defence or in essential industry not so highly technical as to need a long period of specialised training. [353] The Dominion on 5 August reported endorsement of this idea by the Makara–Hutt Valley Farmers' Union, and on that same day the Director of Publicity ordered that there should be no reference without his permission to soldiers on furlough replacing men in essential occupations or on farms, or to the future composition or disposition of New Zealand forces overseas. [354] Accordingly there were no more published carpings, only reports in various towns of receptions and parades of the furlough men augmented by others who had been sent home earlier.

But such ideas simmered as the veterans viewed what they had been defending for three years. They saw the country on the eve of an election, in no mood of uplifted unity or effort. People had become used to the war, they picked their way through it, fitting normal lives into it as far as they could. Those with men they loved overseas lived in anxiety, deep-seated if not overtly anguished. Some people were working very hard but many merely worked their 40 hours or so, comfortably aware that with labour extremely scarce their jobs were secure despite any slackness. Many jobs offered overtime and a few paid wages above awards; the resultant pay-packets, which probably lost nothing in the telling, seemed very good to men who remembered pre-war wages. Inevitably, with three years of fighting and of North African camp life in their bones, they felt unfamiliar at home, emotionally dislocated in familiar surroundings. This feeling crystallised around resentment of stay-at-home soldiers and fit young men on good pay. They were not soothed by the presence of thousands of Americans and the pre-occupation of many girls with exotic, better-paid boy-friends.

The future of the furlough men did not become an election issue, although reports of Holland saying, at the start of the campaign, that ‘no man should be sent to the war twice before everybody had gone once’ caused the Director of Publicity to remove, on 2 September, the silence imposed on 5 August. [355] The subject was avoided: the men were in the Army and politicians did not encroach on Army affairs; they were part of a scheme, approved by very high command, in which by returning they released others.

The Dominion on 1 October 1943, under the heading ‘Statement Awaited by Men's Relations’, looked all round the question of their return. During the election the Prime Minister had hoped that the married men might be able to remain and that all cases might be considered; although men must return before others could be relieved, the Prime Minister had also said that the government had never claimed that it could maintain two divisions indefinitely and that within months the Pacific Division would be used to strengthen the 2nd Division. [356] Militarily, battle-trained men were extra-valuable, while replacements drawn from industry would need several months of training. There was overwhelming public feeling that at least the married men, especially those with children, should not have to go to the war twice while others went not at all, but there were harder and more practical factors to consider. Men who had gone as early volunteers would not care to go before appeal boards, feeling that this would link them with objectors to service; a line of demarcation by the government, based on domestic responsibilities and length of service, would be preferable. [357]

Also on 1 October, the Prime Minister announced [358] that, except for essential personnel, all married men with children, all men of 41 years or more and all Maoris should return to civil life unless they volunteered to go again to the Middle East. All not medically up to standard would be exempted, also those whose appeals on grounds of undue hardship were recommended by service appeal boards and allowed by the Army. Leave was extended till the end of October.

Medical boarding and the hearing of appeals started on 12 October, and thereafter some bitter letters appeared in the press by or on behalf of those liable to return: they had lived with hardship and danger for three and a half years, doing the spade work in times of inadequate equipment and air support, they had been proud volunteers and were now conscripts, while fit young men sheltered in home camps or on high wages in essential industry. ‘If 6000 cannot be raised out of those we see running around our cities, then I will eat my tin hat.’ [359]

Naturally, the RSA espoused the cause. There was widespread reporting of Auckland RSA speeches about husky young men in and out of uniform who had never seen a day's service, and of virtual conscription after four years in the Army. They believed that the war would last another two years and if men were overseas for six years they would not be fit for civilian life afterwards. The local president stressed this last point and inequality of sacrifice, saying that the Association had already contended that length of service should be a ground for appeal. It would not be satisfied if men with four years' service were sent back while fit single men made £10 or more a week. [360] The Wellington RSA on 19 October, and the national body next day, while recognising that decisions on military needs must rest with the government, that military exigencies might require the return of the furlough men to active service and that some men in other units, such as the Navy and Air Force, had been serving even longer, called firmly for a thorough review of the manpower situation. The remedy was to comb out a division from the 35 000 fit, category A, retained men, and to reduce the industries classed as essential. [361]

Appeal boards were uneasy. The Auckland RSA had protested strongly over board members who had never been soldiers hearing the appeals of returned men. [362] Appeals could be made on hardship grounds only, but board members pointed out that the occupations of some, eg, dental mechanics or fitters and turners, would have kept them in New Zealand had they not volunteered in the first place. Also, appeal boards could not decide cases: they could only discover the facts and submit them to Army authorities which would decide yea or nay. The boards would have preferred to have the last word: one member was widely reported as saying that he would recommend the retention of every man who came before him. ‘When a man has done three years' service he has done enough.’ [363] Sir Apirana Ngata declared that all the furlough draft except key men should be made to stay home. [364]

All these awkward utterances caused the Director of Publicity on 21 October to reimpose silence concerning the furlough men [365] but talk continued, and occasional references slipped into print. For instance, on 20 November in the Auckland Star a letter referred to the RSA proposal to replace with returned men home service soldiers who had ‘dug into soft jobs on the clerical side’, exploiting the war ‘for a safe, tax free, well-clothed job’ which would be ideal for the rehabilitation of returned men. An endorsing letter, three days later, said that seeing idle men, many in officers' uniforms, had a ‘disturbing and unsettling effect’ on the furlough men and ‘when they return to their units (if they do) will have a serious result on the efficiency of the Division.’ [366]

Only 1637 men were due to return after various appeals and after 2664 had been downgraded medically, [367] which number suggested that doctors were not anxious to push reluctant men back to the front. Waiting for a suitable ship delayed their calling-up for nearly two months past the end of October, which encouraged belief that the government was wavering. [368] Finally, when they were called to camp early in January 1944, the majority objected to sailing again while so many fit men remained in industry. After explanations by the Ministers of Defence and Rehabilitation, about 670 sailed with the 11th Reinforcements on 12 January; others later decided to go and in all more than 900 men re-embarked. Further medical downgradings and other changes narrowed the resisting core down to about 430 [369]

Developments in the furlough strike have been described elsewhere [370] and may be summarised briefly here. Despite the ban on publicity there was a sense of public support, and the resisters, in interviews with War Cabinet on 26 February 1944 and with the Prime Minister on 14 March, insisted that they would not go again till most of the Grade I men in industry were combed out. Court-martialled for desertion, they were convicted and sentenced to 90 days detention and lost all rank. Sentences were suspended pending judgment by the Court of Appeal, which on 5 April quashed the desertion convictions but said that the men could have been tried for insubordination, perhaps even mutiny.

War Cabinet then decided that those still resisting should be dismissed for misconduct and directed into essential industry, losing privileges such as mufti allowance, deferred pay, rehabilitation benefits and any gratuity due at the war's end. Legal challenges later caused deferred pay and mufti allowances to be restored. From a second furlough draft of 1900 that returned to New Zealand in February 1944, about 100 similarly refused to return and were also dismissed. A legal part of the dismissal procedure was publication of names in the Gazette; 407 appeared on 20 June 1944 and 143 more on 26 July.

Throughout, the rebels had the silent backing of the RSA and of many others, such as more than 3000 Wellington women who presented a petition to Parliament in August 1944. [371] In January 1945 the RSA decided that the dismissed men might become Association members, and at the war's end all dismissal notices were cancelled and privileges restored.

As Professor Wood wrote: ‘… against a group which was popularly felt to have a good case the legal right to coerce became unreal. No one could well deny that any country which accepted the principle that soldiers could retire on their own initiative after three years’ service would be withdrawing itself from effective participation in the war. On the other hand, any civilian might feel distinctly uneasy in forcing men to return to dangers from which he himself had been sheltered throughout. Cabinet ministers who had emphasised on so many occasions the inestimable debt owed by the country to the men who had fought in Greece and Crete and North Africa found it difficult to treat some of these men as criminals when they argued that what was inestimable was also sufficient. The situation was indeed morally awkward.… Further it was evident that public opinion was in a state not only to appreciate but to exaggerate the force of the men's case for their release.… ' [372]

Freyberg did not ponder moral problems, but recognised battle weariness. Even before the dismissals were gazetted, he wrote on 9 June 1944 to Fraser: ‘Signs are not lacking now that many of the old hands require a prolonged rest.’ If there should be heavy fighting throughout 1945, in the interests of efficiency a replacement scheme, not furlough, was needed, beginning with the withdrawal of 4th Reinforcements; [373] in fairness, men of the First, Second and Third Echelons who had returned from New Zealand would have to be included. [374]

By 13 September 1944 War Cabinet had decided that the cadres of the 3rd Division would be disbanded, and their members, along with those temporarily released to industry and Grade A men held there on appeal, would in succession replace long-service 2nd Division men, beginning with the 4th Reinforcements. Men over 36 years old, or with three or more children, or who had already served three years overseas would not be called on to serve overseas in future. [375]

On 21 September, when the 4th Reinforcements were returning, Fraser announced this publicly, stating that the 2nd Division, thus supported, would continue in Italy till the end of the fighting there. The policy of replacement will take the place of the furlough scheme in future, and as men become available for sending overseas the various reinforcements will be returned in succession, and also the men of the First, Second, and Third Echelons who returned to the

Middle East at the conclusion of their furlough.' [376]

The news was very well received in Italy, reported Freyberg, though pleasure in it was tempered with doubt that the government would actually carry out the scheme, and ‘that its implementation is not likely to be a speedy process.’ [377] Certainly replacements came more slowly than Freyberg had hoped. There were shipping difficulties [378] and men were not easy to extract from production, [379] though the stringency of appeal hearings increased. At the start of February 1945 appeal boards were told that, except from coalmines and sawmills, they should dismiss without qualification 20 per cent of cases reviewed from then until May. [380] Some boards even improved on this: the Auckland board, between 12 January and 6 March, heard 1100 cases, of which 395 were dismissed outright and 172 given short postponement before mobilisation. [381] This intensive reviewing produced 4602 men for mobilisation before 30 April. [382]

Thus it had become generally accepted that three years overseas was all that a man should be required to give. Freyberg perceived that with longer service even troops of the highest morale did less well. [383] Doubtless the men concerned were aware of the same thing, from a different angle; so, too, were Rehabilitation officers. Perhaps the fact that in 1914–18 few New Zealanders went much past this term on active service helped to establish the idea that three years overseas was both inestimable and sufficient service. The recalcitrant volunteers, however, in January–April 1944, rammed the point home.

Munitions work, the classic industrial effort of a country at war, was limited but enterprising. There was no thought of self-sufficiency, but the government, the British government and the Eastern Group Supply Council [384] assessed New Zealand's resources, includeing its intelligent and adaptable work-force, to decide what could be done that could not be done more economically elsewhere, without using too much shipping space for raw materials, components and tools. About 300 machine tools of the latest design were supplied from overseas but machinery which could be used for or adapted to making munitions or allied war stores existed in the heavy engineering works of the railways and in hundreds of scattered private firms. Through the British Ministry of Supply and ammunitions advisory committee, links were established through which selected workshops made parts or stages of items which might finally be assembled in another place. Thus in May 1941 two Invercargill firms were finishing the cases of Stokes mortar bombs, the rough castings were made in Dunedin, and they were filled somewhere else. [385] A

Wellington firm previously working on washing machines turned to making fuses for shells and parts for Thompson sub-machine-guns and aircraft for which it was necessary to design and construct locally 29 entirely new machines; its staff numbered 100, three-quarters being women, their ages ranging from 17 to 63 years. [386]

The only pre-war munitions factory, the Colonial Ammunition Company making .303 cartridges at Auckland, was for security reasons transferred to dispersed buildings in Hamilton, and in July 1942 women aged from 22 to 25 years living in Hamilton and

Cambridge had to register for work there. The plant was expanded to double its output and with overtime and shiftwork produced 257 million rounds of small arms ammunition. [387]

For the precision essential in munitions work a multitude of gauges, both for production and inspection, was needed. The

Dominion Physical Laboratory in Wellington was expanded, with annexes in the four main centres, each equipped with highly specialised machinery which enabled thousands of gauges and precision tools to be manufactured, measured and tested.

New Zealand produced far more than its own requirements of some items, notably 5 500 000 hand grenades and 1 150 000 shell fuses, largely to meet orders from Britain. [388] Among other things some 9500 trench mortars, with thousands of spare parts, and 1 308 000 mortar bombs with fuses were produced; 1000 grenade mortars, 3750 rifle grenade dischargers, 10 000 Sten guns, 1500 automatic rifles; 20 million 12-gauge cartridges for training air gunners and 69 000 aircraft practice bombs; 20 000 anti-tank mines for the New Zealand Army; 50 000 chemical land mines for the United States and 19 million ammunition charger clips; 20 000 jungle and other knives. A new gasolene thickener for use with flame-throwing apparatus proved superior to the standard service types: between 5 and 6 tons were produced for American forces in the Pacific.

The railway workshops and the few motor car assembly plants tackled a variety of war gear, including the assembling of some 1200 tracked Bren-gun carriers and the slightly different universal carriers.

Sub-contracts for the multitude of parts were spread throughout the country. For the New Zealand Army 207 light armoured cars were produced and for the United States forces 2641 motor vehicles were re-conditioned. [389] There was even some aircraft production. At Rongotai, Wellington, de Havilland Tiger Moths, sufficient for New Zealand's own needs in primary air training, were built. Their engines, instruments and wheels were imported, imported woods, linen and steel tubing were used; again some parts were contributed by other firms. [390]

The iron-rolling mills at Dunedin stepped up production, working two shifts from September 1940 to January 1944, to process iron and steel for building for the Railways Department and other users. A second plant, with most of its machinery locally made except for the rollers, worked in 1943 from April until October when improved overseas supplies of finished sections caused it to be suspended. [391] Much material not actually munitions was made, ranging from hydraulic lifting jacks to tent pins and poles.

Radio making was deeply affected. By mid-1940 local makers, using some imported components, were just able to meet civilian needs. For military use, a general purpose transceiver already developed by 1942 attracted large overseas demands, particularly from the Eastern Group Supply Council for military use in India and other theatres. As far as possible locally made components were used to answer delays in supplies from Britain and America, while the production of domestic radio equipment was severely restricted. Full production of the transceiver began in April 1943. In all, 56 factories were involved in the production of some 14 500 sets, judged to be reliable and particularly suited to tropical conditions. The number of persons in the radio industry increased from 475 in 1938–9 to 1300 in 1944–5. [392]

New Zealand's metal-working and instrument-making trades were extended and stimulated by all these demands; they accepted challenges, learnt new methods and techniques, new standards of precision, and acquired some tool-making machinery of persisting value. The work-force was expanded and women were admitted, readiness to make things rather than import them was strengthened. After the war there was scope for the industry and for surplus war stocks in making equipment for UNRRA and other relief organisations, and there was great demand for locally made civilian hardware, such as builders' materials. [393]

Linen flax production was both an agricultural and a manufacturing industry. It was run by a committee from several government departments, topped by the over-busy Minister of Supply, which, though intended to combine talents, proved cumbersome. [394] The British government in 1941 undertook to buy the fibre produced from 25 000 acres during the war period and a year after. [395] The Department of Agriculture sought out areas of suitable soil and climate and supervised farmers who undertook the new crop. In the 1940–1 season nearly 13 000 acres were sown; on about 30 per cent of it the flax was too short for fibre and was harvested for seed only. [396] Improvement followed; in 1941–2, 19 912 acres were grown; in 1942–3, 21 849 acres; in 1943–4, with a substantial carry-over of crop from the previous season, 9854 acres; in 1944–5, 12 599 acres. [397] By 1944 Britain had increased supplies of flax, home grown in Northern Ireland [398] and other Commonwealth countries: during the war period Canada had supplied 14 510 tons of fibre, Australia 6820, New Zealand 7460 and Kenya 3840. [399] In September 1944 Sullivan explained that there would be no overseas market after the war; Britain would take the crop to be planted in 1944, then expected to be 15 000 acres, but would not care if it were less. [400]

Factories to extract the fibre were set up in country towns such as Blenheim, Balclutha, Otautau, Winton, Washdyke, Methven and Tapanui. There were three methods: retting-tanks, which meant high capital costs, straightforward technical processing, and high quality fibre; dew-retting, with capital costs low, labour needs high, and a lower quality product; scutching, with low costs and a like product. Machinery was made almost entirely by the railway workshops, notably turbine scutchers, breakers and tow-shakers, deseeders, boilers, tank reticulation, flax pullers and flax carts. [401] In 1940–1 there were 11 factories with 23 retting-tanks; in 1941–2 17 factories with 99 tanks. [402] Where necessary housing was provided. In February 1943 staff numbered 1105 including 281 women, for whom there were five hostels; by March 1944 there were 723 men, 207 women; a year later 517 men, 102 women. [403]

Apart from export, flax fibre met local needs, for seaming twine and other cordage, fibrous plaster and upholstery. A linseed oil factory opened at Dunedin in 1943, replacing an import no longer available, and by the end of March 1946 had produced more than 1 million gallons. [404] It was decided to carry on reduced production to supply local industry. From March 1946 the New Zealand Linen Flax Corporation took over what plant it required at a price of £162,675; Britain, which had undertaken to pay the whole cost of this war-needed production, accepted a bill of £479,709. [405] Post-war developments are irrelevant here, but flax-growing for linseed oil and its stock-food by-product continues; nearly 9000 acres are growing this crop in the 1980s. [406]

Early in the war New Zealand remembered its shipbuilding tradition. This had begun in kauri forest harbours in almost pre-pioneer days and had persisted both in composite vessels, with steel frames and wooden planking, and in all-steel construction such as the Auckland harbour ferries and the Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu. Now the New Zealand Navy, despite taking over most small coastal ships which could be converted into minesweepers, wanted more.

The first three, built in Auckland, had composite hulls and were powered by engines salvaged from condemned ships in Auckland's ‘Rotten Row’. They served throughout the war and then still had ‘sufficient life in them to permit, if need be, of their transformation as trawlers.’ [407] The Navy then called for nine all-steel minesweepers. Eight of these were not built at Auckland; one, Awatere, was launched from the Patent Slip, Wellington, in September 1942 and was fully operational in May 1943. [408] Seven were built at Port Chalmers, by the Stevenson and Cook Engineering Company in association with the Fletcher Construction Company. Formerly, shipbuilding had flourished at the Port and there was strong local satisfaction that, in the phrase of Sullivan as he drove the first rivet, the clang of hammers and the tattoo of rivetters again rang across the waterfront. Work on these ships began in November 1941; the first two, Aroha and Hautapu, were launched in September and November 1942. [409]

Waikato, launched at Auckland in October 1943, was the seventh of these all-steel units to be completed. [410] The steel for frames and plates came from Australia; prefabricated boilers came from Britain and were finished at the Port Chalmers yards and at the Woburn railway workshops. With engine forgings from Australia, the engines were constructed by A. and G. Price of Thames, who had faithfully built many railway engines, John McGregor and Co, Dunedin, and the railway workshops at Woburn. They were to give war-long, trouble-free service and some would continue in fishing trawlers for years longer. These minesweepers had an overall length of 135ft, breadth 23½ft, moulded depth 13½ft, loaded displacement of 612 tons and powerful, locally-built winches. Their speed was 10 knots and each cost £60,000.

With the minesweeper programme barely under way, the Admiralty asked for 12 anti-submarine Fairmile patrol ships, 112ft long, nearly 18ft in beam and with a 5ft draught; their loaded displacement was 80 tons and speed l8½ knots. The major wooden ship-builders of Auckland combined with smaller companies there on this project. Engines came from England and the Fairmile Company also supplied components for the hulls such as watertight bulkheads and frames of bakelised plywood, which contributed to their positive buoyancy. The keels were of hardwood and the double skin and decks of heart kauri. [411] Each ship took about 14 000 feet of timber and to provide the kauri needed the State Forest Service scoured its resources. Each also had a bullet-proof fuel tank holding 2320 gallons, ‘work on which the shipwright tradesmen of Auckland were in their element.’ [412] Building of these vessels began in January 1942, launchings took place towards the end of the year, [413] and the 12 were at work by December 1943. On average they were each completed in 35 000 man-hours, whereas the Fairmile Company's average time was 40 700 man-hours. They each cost £35,000.

Meanwhile, with steel and auxiliary units from Australia and Britain, two non-propelled steel oil-barges, similar to one already started for the Union Steam Ship Company, were built at Wellington's Patent Slip, one for the Navy, the second eventually for the Union

Steam Ship Company. They were 180ft long, 36ft wide, 15¼ft in moulded depth, carried 1400 tons of oil and each cost £50,000. In addition, for the RNZAF about 27 small vessels, in all costing £20,000, were built through the Public Works Department to serve as refuelling barges, crash launches and flare path dinghies at air bases in New Zealand and in Pacific islands.

Towards the end of 1942 American authorities asked if New Zealand could build small craft for their use in the Pacific. The

Marine Department's 1946 report stated: ‘At that stage, puckered up as we were with our own Navy construction programme, the answer to the question was definitely “No”’; but through the advocacy of James Fletcher, Commissioner for Defence Construction, thought was given to what could be done by combining engineering and shipwrighting firms and hundreds of other small engineering and woodworking workshops into syndicates for constructing these small craft. Fletcher, with the Marine Department at his back, had Controller of Shipbuilding added to his functions. Most of the American project was contrived at Auckland. Executives from shipbuilding firms, in an Allocation Committee, arranged contracts and sub-contracts and at the peak 200 local firms were prefabricating parts. Assembly took place at two new, hastily constructed shipyards, one for steel ships at French Street, one for wooden ships at Fanshawe Street. ‘Diluted’ labour was used extensively: hundreds of housebuilding carpenters were transferred to shipwrighting and in a few months became expert in a quite different trade.

The programme included 50 wooden tug-boats, 45ft long, 14ft in beam and 7ft in depth, with diesel engines from America. The planking and most of the wood was kauri, but frames were of beech, knees of pohutukawa, towing posts and bitts of hardwood, sheathing and false keels of totara. During 1943 about eight of these wooden hulls, each costing £7,250, began to slide down the launching ways every five or six weeks, and by November 1944 all of them were well away on active service. [414]

In the other yard, 22 sea-going steel tug-boats were assembled, each 75ft long with a diesel engine of 300hp. Their all-welded construction encountered a shortage of welders, answered by a training course of three or four weeks under experts and careful supervision on the job. The bow portion, the middle and the stern were prefabricated separately and were brought together in masterly fashion. From May 1944 about two were completed every month; by

15 November, when the fifteenth was launched, 12 were already at work in the Pacific. [415]

The largest vessels were 15 powered lighters, of steel and timber, 114ft long, 24ft wide and 11ft deep, virtually small cargo ships, carrying up to 250 tons each and costing £26,700. [416] Two were built at Port Chalmers, the rest at Auckland; more than ten had sailed off to the Pacific before the war ended and the remainder were completed as handy little coasters for New Zealand.

Need for work to be spread beyond the hard-pressed shipbuilders caused 140 wooden barges, 50ft long, to be constructed by coachbuilding firms in Christchurch and a building firm in Dunedin, at a total cost of £160,000. Sudden demand for 100 non-propelled steel trailers (at £270 each) was met by coachbuilding firms in

Christchurch and Auckland. Sixty wooden dinghies, 12ft and 14ft long, were produced as a ‘side-line’ by Auckland coachbuilders.

When the American programme was thinning out towards the end of the war, the British High Commissioner for the Western

Pacific ordered five general purpose wooden vessels for servicing Pacific islands. They were 60ft long, gross tonnage 58, diesel-engined with speed when loaded of eight knots. When the 50 45ft wooden tugboats for the Americans were finished, the British Ministry of War Transport ordered 24 similar tugs for the use of the Eastern Group Supply Council; 12 were completed by the war's end and the remainder cancelled.

In addition to all this, New Zealand's shipbuilding labour force— about 4000 men—coped with repairs on American vessels, on some units of the British Pacific fleet and on merchant ships. A central Docking and Repairs Committee, drawn from shipping companies and the Marine and Navy departments, arranged dockings to reduce delays. Repairs on American ships cost nearly £690,000, and those on New Zealand Navy and other vessels a little more than £467,500. [417]

In all, achievements in shipbuilding and repairs might be considered a credit to the organisation and labour concerned. They did not draw much publicity although from the start launchings of New Zealand naval vessels, which preceded their active service by several months, were occasions for ministerial inspections and speeches on achievement, pulling together and will to win. After the American base at Auckland was withdrawn in October 1944, reports on American launchings also appeared.

The whole cost of ships built for the New Zealand Navy was £1,270,000, while that of the American programme totalled £2,213,000, a charge under reverse lend-lease on the New Zealand government. [418] It seems good value in money and in organisation, labour, skill and timber.

[1] A to J1943. H-11A, p. 13. In November 1941, J. S. Hunter, Director of National Service, addressing manufacturers on necessary changes, had included the closing down or tapering off of less essential industries, the wider use of women, and prevention of labour outflow from essential industries. NZ Herald, 21 Nov 41, p. 3

[2] Hare, Industrial Relations, pp. 156, 158

[3] Cited in War History Narrative, ‘Notes on Industrial Manpower’ (hereinafter WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’), p. 23

[4] Ibid.

[5] Press, 11 Aug 42, p. 4

[6] ′These occupational registrations revealed 2959 former metal workers, 4944 building workers and 1256 timber workers doing other jobs; while 2447 men of 51–9 years were not employed. A to J 1943, H-11A, p. 54

[7] Emergency Regulation 1942/292

[8] WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’, pp. 5, 9

[9] A to J, 1943, H-l 1A, pp. 46–7; Press, 15, 20 May 42, pp. 4, 4

[10] A to J1945, H-11A, p. 36, 1946, H-11A, p. 32

[11] Ibid., 1943, H-11A, p. 23, 1944, H-11A, p. 24

[12] Ibid., 1943, H-I1A, pp. 45–6

[13] Dominion, 2 Dec 42, p. 4

[14] WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’, quoting instructions, PM 83/4/7

[15] A to J1943, H-11A, p. 44

[16] Auckland Star, 31 Oct 42, p. 6

[17] A to J1943, H-11A, p. 56, 1944, H-11A, p. 41, 1945, H-11A, p. 75

[18] Ibid., 1944, H-11A, p. 15

[19] WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’, pp. 17–18, 30

[20] Baker, p. 451

[21] WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’, p. 55

[22] Ibid., pp. 56–8, quoting Min Industrial Manpower to PM, 30 Oct 42, NS 13/2/68, pt 1

[23] Ibid., pp. 59–60, quoting Sec Ty to PM, 2 Dec 42, NS 13/2/68, pt 1

[24] Ibld., p. 64; Auckland Star, 21 Apr 43, p. 4

[25] A to J1944, H-11A, p. 16, 1945, H-11A, p. 42

[26] Ibid., 1944, H-11A, p. 47, 1945, H-11A, p. 86, 1946, H-11A, p. 147

[27] Ibid., 1944, H-11A, p. 25, 1945, H-11A, p. 13, 1946, H-11A, p. 12

[28] Ibid.,1943, H-11A, p. 44

[29] Ibid., 1944, H-11A, p. 15

[30] Ibid., 1946, H-11A, p. 36; see also p. 1143

[31] A. P.O'Shea, Sec NZ Farmers' Union, Dominion, 16 Nov 43, p. 4

[32] A to J1943, H-11A, p. 44

[33] Ibid.1944, H-11A, p. 15; Hare, Labour in New Zealand1944, p. 14

[34] A to J1946, H-11A, p. 31

[35] Press, 6 Dec 43, p. 4

[36] A to J1944, H-11A, p. 41, 1945, H-11A, p. 75

[37] Ibid., 1946, H-11A, p. 140

[38] Evening Post, 23 Oct 41, p. 11; NZ Herald, 14 Mar 41, p. 8, 30 Mar 44, p. 4; Auckland Star, 9 Nov 43, p. 4

[39] Evening Post, 8 Sep 43, p. 4

[40] A to J1944, H-11A, p. 16

[41] Ibid., p. 20

[42] Ibid., p. 21

[43] Ibid., p. 22

[44] Ibid., 1946, H-11A, p. 33

[45] see p. 670

[46] A to J1945, H-11A, pp. 33–4; Evening Post, 27 Apr 45, p. 8

[47] Evening Post, 27 Jun 45, p. 6

[48] Baker, pp. 507, 508–9

[49] A to J1946, H-L1A, pp. 59–61

[50] Standard, 9 Apr 42, p. 7

[51] Hare, Labour in New Zealand 1944, p. 45

[52] Hare, Industrial Relations, pp. 265–9

[53] Hare, Works Councils in New Zealand, p. 31

[54] War History Narrative, ‘Some Aspects of Labour Control in the War’, pp. 142, 144–5

[55] A to J1944, H-11A, pp. 21, 39, 1945, H-11A, pp. 4, 73; Dominion, 28 Dec 42, p. 4

[56] Evening Post, 7 Sep 43, p. 4

[57] Press, 21 Jul, 11 Sep 42, pp.4, 4; NZ Herald, 26 Sep 43, p. 8; Auckland Star, 1 Apr 43, p. 3 (referring to ‘Westfield Scare’); A to J 1943, H-11A, p. 45

[58] NZ Herald, 16 May 42, p. 9; Evening Post, 21 May 41, p. 9; Evening Star, 26 Sep 42, p. 9

[59] WHN, ‘Industrial Manpower’, p. 28, quoting instructions to Manpower officers, PM 83/4/7

[60] Press, 15 Sep, 14 Nov 42, pp. 4, 4

[61] Dominion, 23 Aug 43, p. 6

[62] NZ Herald, 17 Apr 42, p. 4

[63] Dominion, 27 May 42, p. 6

[64] Star-Sun, 10 Sep 42, p. 6

[65] Information from Mrs S. K. McPherson, Albert Street, Pukekohe

[66] Press, 23 Mar 43, p. 6

[67] Information from Mrs H. Cutler, Stackhouse Road, Christchurch

[68] Timaru Herald, 10 Dec 42, p. 4

[69] Dominion, 17 Oct 44, p. 4

[70] Evening Post, 24 Aug 44, p. 6

[71] Auckland Star, 27 Jan 43, p. 4

[72] Ibid., 15, 21, 22 Jan, 10 Mar 43, pp. 4, 6, 4, 3

[73] Ibid., 7 Jul, 29 Aug 42, pp. 2, 4 (photo), 17 Mar 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 8 Oct 42, p. 4

[74] Auckland Star, 16 Mar 43, p. 4

[75] Ibid.

[76] NZ Herald, 17 Dec 42, p. 2

[77] Auckland Star, 2 Jun 43, p. 4

[78] Dominion, 9 Jul 43, p. 6

[79] Evening Star, 26 Jul 43, p. 2

[80] Press, 18 Sep 42, p. 6; NZ Herald, 2 Sep 42, p. 2; Dominion, 7 Sep 44, p. 4

[81] NZPD, vol 262, p. 258

[82] Star-Sun, 8 Sep 42, p. 2

[83] Evening Star, 28 Nov 42, p. 8; Dominion, 2 Oct 43, p. 4

[84] A to J1943, H-11A, p. 55

[85] Ibid., 1945, H-11A, p. 74

[86] NZ Herald, 26 Sep 42, p. 8

[87] Press, 13 Oct 42, p. 4

[88] The yearly figures are shown on p. 670

[89] A to J1943, H–11A, p. 46

[90] Ibid., 1945, H–11A, p. 36

[91] Auckland Star, 13 Apr 43, p. 4

[92] A to J1945, H–11A, p. 36

[93] NZ Herald, 5 Jan 43, p. 1

[94] Auckland Star, 10 May 43, p. 4

[95] Evening Star, 26 Jan 43, p. 4

[96] Dominion, 19 May 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 6, 27 Aug 43, pp. 4, 8

[97] A to J1945, H–11A, pp. 48–9

[98] Ibid., 1946, H–11A, p. 47

[99] Press, 17 Jul 42, p. 4

[100] Ibid., 21 Nov 42, p. 4

[101] Ibid., 22, 25, 30 Sep 43, pp.2, 4, 4; Dominion, 2, 21, 28 Oct 43, pp.4, 4, 6, 12 Feb 44, p. 5

[102] NZPD, vol 263, p. 149

[103] War History Narrative, ‘Women War Workers’ Hostels', pp. 8–9

[104] Ibid., pp. 24–5

[105] Ibid., pp. 20–2, 25, and appended report by Superintendent M. Sutherland, p. 5

[106] Ibid., pp. 25–6

[107] Ibid., p. 33

[108] Auckland Star, 12, 13 Oct 43, pp. 2,2

[109] Baker, p. 175

[110] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 65; Press, 20 Aug 45, p. 4

[111] Evening Post, 9 Jan 41, p. 8

[112] Ibid.

[113] Ibid.; a comprehensive inquiry by the Otago Daily Times found two factories on war production where employees returned late. In one 112 (17%) were absent on Tuesday, 7 January and 80 (12½%) were still away on Friday. At a smaller firm, a boot factory, 10% were missing when work resumed but production was not seriously affected. Otago Daily Times, 11 Jan 41, p. 6

[114] Evening Post, 11 Jan 41, p. 11

[115] Ibid., 10 Jan 41, p. 6, also 17 Jan 41, p. 11

[116] Otago Daily Times, 15, 20 Apr 42, pp. 4,6

[117] NZ Herald, 6 Nov 41, p. 9

[118] Ibid., 4 Nov 41, p. 6

[119] Ibid., 5, 7 Nov 41, pp.6, 8

[120] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 33

[121] Industrial Absenteeism, Report No 1, Industrial Psychology Division, DSIR, pp. 9–10

[122] Ibid., p.21

[123] Ibid., pp. 40–3

[124] see p. 685

[125] Industrial Absenteeism, p. 30

[126] Ibid., p. 20

[127] Ibid., pp. 9–10

[128] War History Narrative, ‘Women's War Service Auxiliary’, p. 4, quoting report of deputation to PM and others, 11 Jun 40, NS 13/3/9, pt 1; see p. 686

[129] Auckland Star, 3 Nov 42, p. 4, 13 May 43, p. 6

[130] Dominion, 9 Jan 43, p. 4

[131] Press, 24 Sep 42, p. 4

[132] Industrial Absenteeism, p. 39

[133] Dominion, 29 Apr 43, p. 4

[134] Evening Star, 30 Apr 43, p. 6; Auckland Star, 29 Jun 43, p. 4; NZ National Review, 15 May 43, p. 50

[135] Press, 24 Sep 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 3 Nov 42, p. 4

[136] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 44

[137] NZPD, vol 263, p. 22

[138] Press, 2 Nov 43, p. 4

[139] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 44, 1945, H–11A, pp. 42, 82; Hare, Labour in New Zealand

1944, p. 13

[140] Dominion, 16 Oct 44, p. 6

[141] NZ Herald, 13 Feb 45, p. 4

[142] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 20

[143] NZ Herald, 24 Mar 44, p. 2

[144] Dominion, 29 May 43, p. 4

[145] Ibid., 7 Aug 43, p. 6

[146] NZ Herald, 15, 17 Jan 44, pp. 5, 5

[147] Bockett, Herbert Leslie, CMG('61), CStJ('68) (1905–80): Asst Dir Nat Service Dept 1940; Controller Manpower 1942; Dir Nat Service 1944; Sec Labour 1947–64; chmn Conscientious Objection Cmte 1965; member Primary Teachers Appointment Appeal Board, Assessment Appeal Board 1969, etc; chmn Workers' Compensation Board

[148] Dominion, 13 Apr 44, p. 4

[149] NZ Herald, 13 Apr 44, p. 4

[150] Dominion, 17 Apr 44, p. 6

[151] NZ Herald, 12 Apr 44, p. 4

[152] Hare, Labour in New Zealand 1942, p. 36

[153] Munitions Controller, Standard, 18 Jun 42, p. 8; Auckland Star, 15 Jan 42, p. 5

[154] Press, 16 Jul 42, p. 4

[155] Ibid., 25 Jul 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 13 Aug, 26 Nov 42, pp. 4, 2

[156] Hearnshaw, Leslie Spencer (1907–): b UK; lecturer psychology VUC 1939–47; Dir Industrial Psychology DSIR

[157] Press, 2 Jan 43; Evening Post, 24 Feb 42, p. 3

[158] Dominion, 31 Oct, 14 Nov 42, pp. 6, 6

[159] Bevin, Rt Ron Ernest, PC('40) (1881–1951): MP ( UK) from 1940, Min Labour & Nat Service 1940–5, Sec State Foreign Aff 1945–51, Lord Privy Seal 1951

[160] Calder, p. 118

[161] Auckland Star, 31 Jul 40, p. 12

[162] Hare, Labour in New Zealand 1943, pp. 28–9; Press, 21 Mar 41, p. 4; Evening Star, 10 May 43, p. 2

[163] Hare, Labour in New Zealand 1944, pp. 12–13

[164] Dominion, 9 Feb 44, p. 6

[165] Industrial Absenteeism, pp. 20, 23

[166] see p. 685, fn 113. This variation was also recorded in several reports by newspapers and manufacturers on post-holiday absences.

[167] Evening Star, 5 Jan 43, p. 2

[168] NZ Herald, 5 Jan 43, p. 2

[169] Press, 6, 12 Jan 43, pp. 2, 4

[170] Evening Post, 5 Jan 43, p. 4

[171] Dominion, 9 Jan 43, p. 4; quoted by Baker, pp. 156–8

[172] Dominion, 28 Apr 43, p. 4

[173] Evening Star, 30 Apr 43, p. 6

[174] The provisions of these regulations were replaced by permanent legislation in the Annual Holidays Act 1944, dubbed a ‘revolutionary measure’. Yearbook 1947–49, p. 651, 1946, p. 620. see p. 696

[175] NZ Herald, 7 Jan 44, p. 4

[176] Dominion, 5, 11 Jan 44, pp. 4, 4

[177] Ibid., 5, 6 Jan 44, pp. 4, 6

[178] NZ Herald, 18 Jan 44, p. 6

[179] Dominion, 13 Apr 44, p. 4

[180] Auckland Star, 1 Jul 44, p. 4

[181] NZ Herald, 4, 11 Jan 45, pp. 4, 4

[182] Ibid., 11 Jan 44, p. 6

[183] Ibid., 5, 8 Jan 45, pp. 6, 7

[184] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 20, 1945, H–11A, p. 41

[185] Ibid., 1945, H–11A, p. 42

[186] Dominion, 17 Oct 44, p. 6

[187] see p. 705

[188] Wood, pp. 247–8; Baker, p. 482

[189] These figures are taken from A to J 1948, H–19B, pp. 3, 10, 13. Baker, pp. 81–2, 484, says that peak mobilisation was in September 1942, with 107 000 serving in New Zealand and about 50 000 overseas. This follows figures given in A to J 1946, H–11A, p. 15, but the final official tallies of service strengths in A to J 1948, H–19B, are preferred here, and were adopted by Wood, pp. 243, 277, and Yearbook 1950, p. 208, though with some difference in the numbers at home and overseas.

[190] Baker, p. 481. At the war's start the total labour force was estimated at 700 000 men and women. In July 1942 151 073 men, about 43 per cent of the male population of military age, were mobilised. Yearbook 1950, p. 208

[191] Wood, p. 251

[192] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 120; Star–Sun, 21 Jan 43, p. 4

[193] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1941–2’, p. 28, referring to a report to the Min Nat Service, Oct 42, NS 13/2/125, pt 1; Press, 14 Nov 42, p. 4

[194] NZ Herald, 11 Nov 42

[195] Truth, 18 Nov 42, p. 11

[196] Wanganui Herald, 25 Nov 42

[197] Ibid., 24 Nov, 7 Dec 42; Timaru Herald, 5 Dec 42; Press, 21 Jan 43

[198] NZ Herald, 30 Oct 42, p. 2, 20 Nov 43, p. 6; Press, 24 Feb 43, p. 4; NZPD, vol 262, pp.66–7

[199] see p. 712

[200] NZPD, vol 261, p. 976

[201] Press, 28 Nov 42, p. 4, 24 Feb 43, p. 4; Auckland Star, 28 Jan, 4 Feb 43, pp. 4, 4

[202] Wood, p. 252

[203] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1942’, p. 16, quoting report to Min Nat Service, 21 Oct 42, NS 13/2/125, pt 3; see p. 720

[204] Ibid., pp. 17–18

[205] Evening Post, 27 Jul 42, p. 4; also Polson, Min Primary Production for War Purposes,

NZ Herald, 14, 15 Jul 42, pp. 4, 4; Evening Post, 16 Jul 42, p. 6

[206] NZ Herald, 25 Sep 42, p. 2

[207] Broadfoot, Min Nat Service, Evening Post, 8 Aug 42, p. 6

[208] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1942’, p. 19

[209] McLagan, Min Industrial Manpower, NZ Herald, 27 Nov 42, p. 2

[210] NZ Herald, 3, 29 Dec 42, pp. 2, 4

[211] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1942’, p. 33, referring to A to J 1943, H–11A, p. 34, and notes prepared for secret session, 3 Dec 1942, PM 81/1/3, pt 2

[212] Ibid., pp. 19–20, referring to War Cabinet direction, 3 Sep 42, NS 13/2/60; Polson,

Auckland Star, 12 Sep 42, p. 6

[213] Journal of Agriculture, 15 Dec 42, p. 323

[214] Wanganui Herald, 9 Dec 42, p. 8; Press, 6 Dec 43, p. 4

[215] NZ Herald, 25 Sep 42, p. 2

[216] Ibid., 30 Sep 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 8 Aug 42, p. 6

[217] NZ Herald, 17 Sep 42, p. 2

[218] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1942’, p. 21

[219] NZPD, vol 261, p. 529

[220] Ibid., p. 954

[221] A to J1943, H–11A, p. 34. These figures were for releases recommended by appeal boards, of which actual releases would be 90%.

[222] Ibid.

[223] To March 1944 ‘Category A’ comprised all men medically Grade I, of 21–40 years inclusive. Thereafter Category A was revised to mean Grade I men of 21–35 years with fewer than three children and less than three years' overseas service. A to J 1946, H–11A, p. 22; NZ Herald, 13 Feb 45, p. 4

[224] Press, 25 Mar 43, p. 4. Armed forces appeal boards continued to deal with the movement of Grade I men, both into and out of the Army.

[225] Evening Post, 24 Sep 43, p. 5

[226] But such service was commuted to a month at farms or freezing works in 1943–4, and then forgone.

[227] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, pp. 16, 31–2

[228] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 22

[229] Dominion, 28 Oct 43, p. 6

[230] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 35

[231] Ibid., 1946, H–11A, p. 23

[232] NZ Herald, 2 Mar 44, p. 4

[233] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 34

[234] NZ Herald, 3 Jun 43, p. 2

[235] Documents, vol III, pp. 430–44

[236] Ibid., pp. 438, 455

[237] Ibid., p. 456

[238] The popular name is used here, though on 15 November 1942 its title officially became 2NZEF in the Pacific (codename Kiwi Force).

[239] Documents, vol III, pp. 318–33

[240] Wood, pp. 245–6; Gillespie, pp. 72–5

[241] Evening Post, 28 Aug 42, p. 4

[242] Scholefield, Diary, 31 Aug 42

[243] Kay, Chronology, pp. 62, 73

[244] NZ Herald, 8 Dec 42; also letters on 9, 11, 29 Dec 42, all p. 2; Auckland Star, 11 Dec 42, p. 2, 9 Feb 43, p. 2

[245] The idea was current even earlier, expressed for example by a correspondent, GVP, in

Auckland Star, 27 Jul 42, p. 2: ‘… is it the wish of the majority … that New Zealand ignore the Japanese and continue sending against the Nazis the last man and the last shilling?’

[246] NZPD, vol 261, pp. 759–60

[247] Ibid., pp. 971–2

[248] Wanganui Herald, 25 Nov 42, p. 5

[249] Press, 18 Jan 43, p. 4

[250] Montgomery, Field Marshal Bernard Law, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein ('46), of Hindhead, KG('46), GCB('45), DSO (1887–1976): cmdr Eighth Army 1942–4, C-in-C British & Allied Armies N France 1944, cmdr British Army of the Rhine 1945–6; CIGS 1946–8, Dep Supreme Allied Commander Europe 1951–8

[251] Auckland Star, 23 Nov 42

[252] Ibid., 24, 26 Nov, 1, 5 Dec 42

[253] Documents, vol II, pp. 142–4; Wood, p. 248

[254] Documents, vol II, p. 148; Wood, pp. 249–50

[255] Dominion, 5 Dec 42, p. 6

[256] Press, 7 Dec 42

[257] Timaru Herald, 9 Dec 42

[258] Otago Daily Times, 7 Dec 42

[259] Dominion, 5 Dec 42

[260] NZ Herald, 8 Dec 42

[261] Ibid., 9 Dec 42; Auckland Star, 11 Dec 42, p. 2, 9 Feb 43, p. 2

[262] Press, 26 Dec 42

[263] see p. 708

[264] NZ Herald, 28 Nov 42, p. 6

[265] Auckland Star, 26 Nov 42, p. 4

[266] Ibid., 24 Nov–2 Dec 42

[267] NZ Herald, 12 Dec 42, p. 2

[268] Press, 2 Dec 42, p. 4, 22, 26 Jan 43, pp. 6, 6; Dominion, 17 Mar 43, p. 4; Auckland Star, 24 Mar, 12 May 43, pp. 2, 2

[269] Auckland Star, 22, 24 Mar 43, pp. 2, 2

[270] Wood, pp. 247–61, 277–91

[271] Many more soon went overseas, eg, 5500 to 2NZEF as 8th Reinforcements in December 1942, about 15 000 to the Pacific by March 1943, and large numbers in the Air Force. Final figures are given in A to J 1948, H–19B. see also p. 698

[272] see p. 704

[273] Press, 26 Nov 42, p. 3. The only POWs in New Zealand were a few Japanese at

Featherston.

[274] Press, 26 Nov 42

[275] NZ Herald, 23 Dec 42, p. 4

[276] Ibid., 23 Dec 42, p. 2

[277] Ibid.

[278] Evening Post, 24 Dec 42

[279] Press, 24 Dec 42

[280] Star–Sun, 23 Dec 42

[281] Timaru Herald, 26 Dec 42

[282] Wanganui Herald, 24 Dec 42

[283] Auckland Star, 21 Jan 43, p. 6

[284] Ibid., 5 Feb 43, p. 2.‘Guadalcanar’ was an early and incorrect spelling.

[285] Auckland Star, 5 Feb 43, p. 2

[286] see p. 701

[287] See pp. 704– 5

[288] NZPD, vol 262, pp. 423, 427, 433

[289] Ibid., p. 429

[290] Ibid., p. 470

[291] 291 Ibid., p. 489

[292] Ibid., p. 456. Frost, Frederick Ledger, ED (1887–1957): b UK; 1NZEF 1916–18; MP (Lab) New Plymouth 1938–43

[293] Combs, Harry Ernest (1881–1954): MP (Lab) Wgtn Suburbs 1938–46, Onslow from 1946; Under-Sec Min Finance 1947–9

[294] NZPD, vol 262, p. 485

[295] Ibid., p.479

[296] Wood, p. 254; see p. 726

[297] Documents, vol II, p. 193

[298] Ibid., p. 197

[299] Ibid., p. 198 Wood, p. 258

[300] Auckland Star, 30 Jun 43, p. 2

[301] ' Ibid., 9 Apr 43, p. 2, also 24 May 43, p. 2

[302] NZ Herald, 10 Apr 44, p. 2

[303] Auckland Star,8 Dec 42; NZPD, vol 262, p. 433

[304] NZPD, vol 261, pp. 952–3

[305] Documents, vol II, pp. 188–90

[306] Alexander, Field Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis ('52), KG('46), GCB('42), DSO, MC (1891–1969): C-in-C Middle East 1942–3, 18th Army Group N Africa 1943, Allied Armies in Italy 1943–4; Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean Theatre 1944–5; Min Defence 1952–4

[307] Documents, vol II, pp. 190–1

[308] Ibid., p. 210

[309] Craufurd, Robert (1764-1812): UK general, judged the finest commander of light troops who served in the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic War 1803–15; mortally injured leading assault on Cuidad Rodrigo; brilliantly headstrong and unconventional

[310] Documents, vol II, p. 201

[311] Ibid., p. 212

[312] Wood, p. 259

[313] Documents, vol II, p. 214; see p. 726

[314] Wood, p. 260

[315] NZ Herald, 2 Sep 43, p. 4

[316] Wilkinson, Vice-Admiral Theodore S. (1888–1946): USN 1911; Sec Navy General Board 1931–4; cmdr USS Mississippi 1941–2; dep cmdr 5th Pacific 1943; cmdr Amphibious Force Sth Pacific 1943, 3rd Amphibious Force 1944–5; Joint COS 1946

[317] Wood, p. 260

[318] Documents, vol II, p. 215

[319] A to J1948, H-19B, p. 13

[320] Press,17 Jan 42, p. 8; see p. 701

[321] Ibid., 27 Feb 42, p. 4

[322] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, p. 34

[323] Kidd, David Campbell (d 1954 aet 65): MP (Nat) Waimate 1938ff; farmer, member Canty Land Bd 1932ff

[324] NZPD, vol 261, p. 235

[325] Dominion, 24 Nov 42, p. 3

[326] Timaru Herald, 9 Dec 42

[327] Star-Sun, 24 Dec 42, p. 5; Press, 24 Dec 42, p. 4, 8, 13 Jan, 1 Feb 43, pp. 3, 4, 3(photo); Auckland Star, 13 Feb 43, p. 4

[328] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, p. 35, quoting Dir Nat Service to Min Nat Service, 13 Aug 43, NS 13/2/125, pt 2

[329] Auckland Star, 9 Feb 43, p. 2

[330] WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, pp. 33–4

[331] Dominion, 15 Oct 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 18, 19, 20 Nov 43, pp.2, 2, 8; Press, 4 Dec 43, p. 3

[332] Dominion, 23 Nov 43, p. 4, 18 Jan 44, p. 4; Press, 31 Dec 43, p. 6

[333] Dominion, 24 Nov 43, p. 4

[334] Auckland Star, 22 Dec 43, p. 4

[335] Ibid:, Dominion, 11, 23 Dec 43, pp. 6, 4; NZ Herald, 4 Jan 44, p. 2

[336] Press, 19 Apr 13, May 44, pp. 2, 4

[337] Dominion, 8 Feb, 17 Oct 44, pp. 3, 4

[338] Press, 25 Mar 44, p. 6; WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, p. 36

[339] Dominion, 7 Jan, 9 Feb 44, pp. 4, 4; NZ Herald, 18 Nov, 1 Dec 43, pp. 2, 2 & 5 (photo)

[340] Dominion, 17 Oct, 8 Dec 44, pp. 4, 6; Auckland Star, 26 Oct 44, p. 7

[341] Press, 9 Apr 41, p. 12

[342] Evening Star,21 Jul 43, p. 5

[343] There was a special drive in 1942–3 to grow wheat in the North Island. Ross, A.,

Wartime Agriculture in New Zealand, p. 262

[344] Mrs E. Bergen of Palmerston North to author, 20 Sep 69

[345] Auckland Star, 4 Jul 44, p. 4

[346] Evening Star, 28 Jun 43, p. 5

[347] Dominion, 11 Nov 42, p. 4

[348] Ibid.,20 Nov 43, p. 4

[349] see p. 727ff

[350] Documents, vol II, pp. 222–45

[351] Evening Post, 16 Jul 43, p. 4

[352] Evening Star, 14 Jul 43, p. 2

[353] Ibid., 15 Jul 43, p. 4

[354] Wood, p. 267; WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap 9, p. 3; see also p. 954

[355] Wood, p. 267; see p. 727

[356] NZ Herald, 2 Sep 43, p. 4

[357] Dominion, 1 Oct 43, p.6

[358] War Cabinet had made these decisions on 29 August, but publication was withheld awaiting Freyberg's comments. Documents, vol II, p. 253

[359] Auckland Star, 18 Oct 43, p. 2, also 6, 15, 19, 20, 21 Oct 43, pp. 2, 2, 2, 2, 4; Press, 18, 20 Oct 43, pp. 6, 4

[360] Dominion, 16 Oct 43, p. 4

[361] Press, 20, 21 Oct 43, pp. 2, 4

[362] Auckland Star, 12 Oct 43, p. 2

[363] Ibid., 20 Oct 43, p. 4

[364] Ibid.,6 Oct 43, p. 4

[365] Wood, p. 268

[366] Auckland Star, 20, 23 Nov 43, pp. 4, 2

[367] Wood, p. 268

[368] Are we to take casual work … in the expectation of being called-up next weekend, next year or never, or alternatively continue on four or five guineas a fortnight. … Is the Government afraid to send us back?' Auckland Star, 2 Dec 43, p. 4

[369] Figures in WHN, ‘Military Manpower 1943’, pp. 45–6, refer to Army Department's ‘Report on Mobilisation Branch’, unnumbered file, and its ‘Statement on Army Activities since 18 May 1943’ on PM file 81/1/3. Figures in these two reports vary, as they do in other accounts of the furlough affair.

[370] Wood, pp. 268–71; see also p. 954

[371] Auckland Star, 3 Aug 44, p. 4

[372] Wood, p. 271

[373] The first three contingents to leave New Zealand were called ‘Echelons’, thereafter ‘Reinforcements’

[374] Documents, vol II, pp. 348–50

[375] Ibid., p. 358

[376] Ibid., p. 362; Auckland Star, 22 Sep 44, p. 5

[377] Documents, vol II, pp. 374–5

[378] Ibid, p. 378

[379] Ibid., p. 382

[380] Ibid., p. 385

[381] Auckland Star, 6 Mar 45, p. 4

[382] NZ Herald, 20 Apr 45, p. 6

[383] Documents, vol II, p. 366

[384] A civil regional organisation set up to co-ordinate war production in the eastern and southern Pacific, comprising the United Kingdom and colonies, India, Australia, South

Africa and New Zealand, with the later addition of the Netherlands East Indies and Free French island possessions. A corresponding military council served the needs of the armed forces in the Middle and Far East. Elliot & Hall (eds), The British Commonwealth at War, p. 467

[385] Southland Times, 3 May 41, p. 6

[386] NZ Herald, 3 Jun 42, p. 4

[387] A to J1946, H-44, pp. 35–7, a report which is the basic source for this section;

Auckland Star, 18 Dec 43, p. 6

[388] Baker, p. 136; Press, 4 Nov 41, p. 6; Dominion, 4 Feb 44, p. 4

[389] Evening Post, 28 Apr 41, p. 6; Truth, 5 Mar 41, p. 13; Baker, pp. 152 (illustration), 159

[390] NZ Herald, 27 Mar 41, p. 10; Press, 29 Mar 41, p. 12; Evening Post, 23 Aug 41, p. 7; Baker, pp. 152 (illustrations), 224

[391] Baker, pp. 132, 151

[392] lbid., pp. 167–8, 137

[393] A to J1946, H-44, p. 36; Auckland Star, 8 Nov 43, p. 2

[394] Baker, p. 217

[395] A to J1941, B-6, p. 13

[396] Ibid., 1941, H-44, p. 20

[397] Ibid., 1943, 1944, 1945, all H-44, p. 9

[398] Star-Sun, 19 Apr 44, p. 7

[399] A to J1946, H-44, p. 23

[400] Auckland Star, 27 Sep 44, p. 4

[401] A to J1941, H-44, p. 20

[402] Ibid., 1942, H-44, p. 8

[403] Ibid., 1943, H-44, p. 9, 1945, H-44, p. 9

[404] Ibid., 1943, H-44, p. 9, 1946, H-29, p. 39, H-44, p. 24; Evening Post, 23 Feb 43, P. 5

[405] A to J1947, B-l (pt II), p. 27

[406] Yearbook1982, p. 390

[407] A to J1946, H-15, p. 2. Except where otherwise noted, information here is derived from this Marine Department report. Photographs of the five largest types of vessels built appeared in the 1945 report. For security reasons, earlier reports were very reticent about shipbuilding.

[408] Evening Post, 28 Sep 42, p. 4, 19 May 43, p. 4

[409] Otago Daily Times, 6 Nov 41, p. 8, 6 Sep, 20 Nov 42, pp. 4, 6 (photo), 2 (photo)

[410] NZ Herald, 15, 18 Oct 43, pp. 2, 4

[411] Ibid.,30 Sep 42, p. 4

[412] A to J1946, H-15, p. 4

[413] Auckland Star, 29 Sep, 25 Nov 42, pp. 4, 4; Dominion, 26 May 43, p. 4

[414] Auckland Star, 27 Nov 44, p. 6; A to J1946, H-15, p. 5

[415] NZ Herald, 28 Nov 44, p. 4

[416] Auckland Star, 27 Nov, 2 Dec 44, pp. 4, 6

[417] A to J1945, H-15, pp. 5–6, 1946, H-15, p. 7

[418] Ibid., 1945, B-1, pt II, p. xix, 1946, H-15, pp. 4–5

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 16 — The Shoe Pinches

CHAPTER 16
The Shoe Pinches

PETROL rationing was the first dent in civilian life made by the war. With one short break it continued from 5 September 1939 until 1 June 1946. It was re-introduced 17 months later and not finally abolished until 31 May 1950. During 1936–9 car registrations had increased by 42 per cent to make New Zealand second only to the United States in cars per head. In the transport field, although the licensing of motor services, introduced in 1931, had checked their use to some extent on routes served by railways, heavy truck registrations increased by 32 per cent in the same period. Petrol imports went up by one-fifth and by 1939 comprised four per cent by value of all imports, with the private motorist using more than half of the total. It was on him, then, that the main brunt of rationing was to fall. [1]

Britain was anxious to conserve dollars for buying United States war material, and as American capital financed many oil wells even in British or Dutch territories, purchases there still involved some dollar exchange. [2] The Oil Control Board in London, established in November 1939 as a sub-committee of the War Cabinet, exercised overall control of petrol imports by Commonwealth countries, where restrictions varied. Most of these countries, persuaded by the Oil Control Board, had petrol rationing schemes working by mid-1940.

India, which then used no more petrol than New Zealand, argued that rationing would be administratively impractical; the Board accepted that restrictions in South Africa would be impolitic, and not until October 1940 were modest cuts, amounting to about eight per cent, begun in Australia. New Zealand, after close restrictions in the first three months of the war followed by two months' full relaxation, in February 1940 introduced a scheme designed to save

25 per cent of pre-war consumption, in July tightened it to increase savings to one-third and in November relaxed it. [3]

Early in 1941 the London Board, through control of the tanker fleet, introduced stricter economies. Australia, from 1 June, cut consumption back to two-thirds of its pre-war rate and in July aimed at 40 per cent of the pre-war level. New Zealand in May returned to the scale of the previous July, aiming at two-thirds of pre-war consumption and in August increased the saving by another 10 per cent. In that month India began with a scheme to save 25 per cent of pre-war consumption. In July Canada began ‘voluntary’ restrictions, with petrol deliveries to retailers cut by a quarter. By the end of 1941 South Africa was the only major Commonwealth country taking no steps to reduce its use of petrol.

Japan's attack intensified the need for civilian economy, as thereafter more petrol was used in industry, agriculture and defence construction. By mid-1942 New Zealand had a zoning scheme for goods distribution and had made cuts in road passenger transport; basic private car running was cut to 450 miles a year and, with brief summer holiday relaxations in 1943–4 and 1944–5, remained at this level until the end of the war. Australia's ‘basic’ remained at 1000 miles a year but supplementary allowances were cut. In February 1942 South Africa began rationing with a ‘basic’ worth 4800 miles annually but by the end of the year this was reduced by half. In India and Ceylon oil imports fell from 2.1 million tons in 1941 to only 1.7 million tons in 1942, and by May India was trying to use only 50 per cent of normal supplies. In 1943, despite the efforts of governments and the continuance of rationing, civilian petrol consumption began generally to increase, although South Africa in September 1943 made a 25 per cent cut in supplementary rations. India by 1944 was running a third of its commercial motor vehicles on producer gas. [4]

New Zealand had to send regular reports of stocks held before tankers were allocated to the long New Zealand run. Every war crisis meant that fewer tankers could be spared for this, and that arrivals would be more irregular. Uncertainty thus strengthened the need to keep adequate reserves, producing and maintaining cuts in the petrol for private cars, plus efforts to avoid unnecessary running or overlapping by commercial vehicles.

From the outbreak of war, oil fuel regulations rationed motor spirits and power kerosene through the Post and Telegraph Department. Chief postmasters became district oil fuel controllers and about 340 postmasters, already deputy registrars of motor vehicles, became sub-district oil fuel controllers. [5] Local advisory committees, convened by the Post and Telegraph Department from other departments concerned and from trade and transport interests, gave informed, unpaid assistance. [6] Under policy stemming from War Cabinet, commercial licences and allocations were reviewed from time to time, while those feeling aggrieved could appeal through their local advisory committee.

In the confusion of the war's first few days, extra petrol slipped Past the controls: sales for the week ending 9 September 1939 were more than a million gallons above the weekly average. By 20 September essential industrial and commercial licences were issued and the coupon system was established for private cars. Numbered coupons were issued, their value and the dates on which they could be redeemed being stated each month by the central authorities, according to the state and prospects of reserves. [7] Varying amounts were allowed during October and November and, stocks having accumulated, restrictions were lifted on 1 December 1939. [8] New Zealanders had their last summer of unfettered motoring.

On 23 January 1940 it was announced that at the request of the British government, to conserve dollars and save tanker trips, rationing would resume in February. As there was as yet no such proposal in Australia, it was easy to suspect that this was an extension of the unpopular import restrictions imposed in 1938. [9] The announcement stated that the cabled messages from the British government had been made available to representatives of the press, employers and workers, the Farmers' Union and motoring and transport organisations, who fully recognised the necessity. The aim was to reduce normal consumption by 30 per cent while maintaining essential services and production, and avoiding as far as possible domestic hardship and unemployment in the motor industry. Large cars would receive 12 gallons a month and smaller cars 8 gallons, allowing an average domestic running of about 240 miles a month. [10]

Given a week's notice, many people who had containers, storage space and ready money, laid in reserves if they had not already done so, despite statements that such hoarding was sabotage. [11] In the last days of January, long queues at the pumps filled every sort of container from 44-gallon drums down to preserving jars. The 4-gallon tins in which petrol and kerosene had customarily been sold (and which had provided thousands of all-purpose buckets) were prominent, some re-selling briskly at 2 s 6 d each. Unusual containers such as the battered tanks of disused cars appeared, and a Dunedin reporter watched a motor cyclist ride off like John Gilpin with two ‘peters’ (half-gallon beer flagons) uneasily slung behind him. [12] Some retailers made stores of their own for emergency use or future sale to favoured customers, but the beginning of investigations by oil fuel controllers rapidly sent much of this back to the depots. [13] It was legal for private motorists to have eight gallons in store besides a full tank and most had contrived at least this. [14] When cars were re-licensed at the end of May 1940 they were grouped by horsepower: under 9.5, from 9.5 to 14.5, and over 14.5. Basic private car rations were to be 6, 9 and 12 gallons a month respectively, and for motor cycles 3 gallons, [15] but with tankers arriving irregularly these amounts varied from time to time. Less than three months later, following the crisis of June 1940, Nash announced that these amounts would be trimmed by 33 per cent to 4, 6 and 8 gallons, with motor cycles getting 2, to permit about 150 miles of pleasure running a month. [16] Commercial licences were reviewed, resulting in a general reduction of 3½ per cent. [17]

Various devices to save petrol were quickly contrived. For instance, in the Wellington city area refuse collection was made in daylight by horse-drawn vehicles where possible, with a new central incinerator, saving the long hauls to Moa Point and Clyde Quay. [18] The

Railways Department started to reduce its road services, beginning with those between Auckland and Rotorua. [19] Zoning of deliveries was extended, with more trades representatives on the advisory committees and with some reductions in cost. Auckland from 19 July

1940 was divided into 190 milk zones, each vendor delivering to a compact area of about four streets, reducing the use of petrol by 75 gallons a day and the cost of milk by ½ d a quart. [20] The Observer commented that long-distance driving had become an uncanny experience on account of the emptiness of the roads; recently between

Napier and Taupo a driver had seen only two other cars. [21] Meanwhile trains, especially excursion ones, were packed. The Observer on 25 September described a Sunday night train which left Hamilton at 6 pm and at 11.15 pm steamed triumphantly into Auckland, most of its passengers then in a merciful coma. It had stopped at every station and at every station more people piled in. A guard, pushing round and over the bodies, displayed no visible emotion. ‘Yes, it was often like this on the trip back, especially when the troops were travelling.’ [22]

In Australia, proposals for a ration permitting about 40 miles a week to private cars raised storms of criticism [23] and the rationning which began on 1 October 1940 was more generous. [24] The New Zealand motor trade, pleading for an additional million gallons a month, argued that the restrictions arose from financial reasons, not from the war. There were complaints of inconsistency, of waste by government-run vehicles while propaganda was persuading citizens that it was disloyal to use even their meagre ration for recreation. Mechanics were unemployed, trade and business were being depressed, the petrol tax at 1 s 2 d a gallon was unduly heavy. The rationalisation of deliveries was socialisation under the cloak of war emergency. [25] In November an increase of 25 per cent, raising private car rations to 5, 7½ and 10 gallons in their respective classes, seemed a partial but disappointing response to such pressure, [26] but at about this time sinkings of ships in the Pacific made danger more obvious and quietened petrol protests. [27]

The war grew heavier in 1941; New Zealand troops were in battle, apprehension about Japan increased, the skills of motor tradesmen were being used in the forces and in making munitions. In May, after a conference representing most petrol-using interests had declared that a further reduction would be of real assistance to the Empire's war effort, [28] the ration was lowered again to that of July– October 1940: two coupons giving 4, 6, and 8 gallons a month for the three groups of cars. [29] In August 1941 this was reduced by 25 per cent, three coupons used over two months yielding 3, 4½ and 6 gallons a month—that is, just half the rate determined for June 1940. [30] The Auckland Star on 4 August remarked that the owner of a heavy car would now pay £12 a year in various fees for the privilege of buying £9 worth of petrol, nearly enough to take him from Auckland to Papakura once a week; but the latest cut was being met with calm resignation by motorists who had very patiently accepted successive assaults on their petrol tanks.

There was no enlargement of the ration for Christmas of 1941, but the amount due for November to January on coupons 11–13 could be drawn in December and January. [31] On the morning of 8 December 1941, when war with Japan was declared, there was a rush to buy the full three coupons' allowance. ‘Califonts, kegs, kettles, demijohns, vinegar and whisky bottles, tins of all descriptions, and even a new dust-bin’ were proffered at Wellington. At 2 pm the chief Oil Fuel Controller barred all receptacles except petrol tanks and the use of coupons 12 and 13 was cancelled. [32] G. H. Scholefield recorded in his diary that a ‘few bright spirits’ were still carrying petrol away in all sorts of containers till late afternoon, and there was ‘much boasting this evening of smart instances of beating the ban’. Three days later, when the Prince of Wales and Repulse had been sunk, public opinion swung against the use of private cars. ‘Even people who exulted in having drawn their petrol are now bashful about taking their cars out.’ [33] On 13 December all petrol for private cars was suspended indefinitely.

Singapore fell before the private motorist could again buy any petrol. A motor trade official stated on 18 January that in England 8 horsepower cars were getting 4 gallons a month and 20 horsepower cars 8 gallons. [34] The South Island motor interests in mid-February urged that, in view of ministerial statements that petrol for New Zealand was allocated by the British government, New Zealand rations should equal those of Britain for similar purposes. [35] In March

1942 those who had not collected on coupons 11 and 12 in December were able to do so, [36] and No 14 was available for April. Thereafter, from May 1942 until June 1945 one coupon a month at half its face value, yielding 1, 1½ or 2 gallons, was the basic ration for private cars. In the summer holiday periods of 1943–4 and 1944–5 full face value was restored to the coupons of December and January. [37] For men returned from overseas there was extra petrol: those on furlough received 10 gallons a month for three months; those invalided back and discharged, or returned to duty in New Zealand, received up to 20 gallons. Men on final leave received 10 gallons. [38] On 8 May 1945, with the war in Europe ended, War Cabinet decided that the coupon for June would be worth one and a half times its face value, which, with the half coupon already available for May, would give the equivalent of two full coupons for May and June, [39] For July a full coupon was available, and from 1 August 1945 rations were doubled, giving 4, 6 and 8 gallons for cars, 2 gallons for motor cycles, equal to the British ration. [40]

Allowances for commercial vehicles were determined by Oil Fuel Controllers' offices, backed by advisory committees, and at the start not much sacrifice was required, though conservation was asked for. Gradually restrictions were tightened and amounts reduced. For instance, when rationing was re-imposed with comprehensive revision in February 1940, in Auckland's milk and baking industries original petrol licenses were reduced by 20 per cent for one month and thereafter by 33⅓ per cent, when some zoning arrangements had been devised. [41] At first zoning was voluntary, arranged through the co-operation of traders, petrol advisory committees and the Transport Department. Under Delivery Emergency Regulations (1940/176) of August 1940 zoning schemes could be applied to milk, bread, meat, coal and firewood, and groceries in any given area; by 1942, 17 schemes were operating. [42] The daily household delivery of milk was an obvious target. In July 1940, the four milk vendors of Marton had started a scheme by which they saved 69 of the 251 gallons of petrol they had used each month. [43] In metropolitan Auckland by September 1940, allocation of delivery areas to vendors saved some 2295 gallons a month. [44] A year later, Blenheim was divided into eight districts, each allotted to one milk vendor. [45] The Upper Hutt Borough Council, on the other hand, in December 1940, rejected the Transport Department's suggestion that zoning of milk should be adopted, holding that the district was being economically served, that zoning would cause hardship to the consumer and as the district was still growing would be inopportune. [46] In Christchurch late in 1940 a milk zoning scheme was devised, not without protest from consumers' representatives: ‘It's dictatorship. It's just what we're fighting this war against. The people have got to have their say.’ [47] Semple, Minister of Transport, in July 1940 declared that rationalisation not nationalisation was his purpose, while Auckland's Master Carriers opposed a merger proposal advanced by the government. [48]

Early in 1942, when the tyre shortage heavily reinforced the need to reduce commercial mileage, commercial licences were overhauled, aiming at 50 per cent of the former issue. [49] Household deliveries of bread, laundry, meat and groceries ceased or were severely curtailed. [50] Existing zoning arrangements were tightened and many more instituted. The sort of saving intended was shown at Christchurch which from 1 June was to be divided into 211 milk zones, for the most part each being one milkman's round, [51] requiring only 300 instead of 1000 delivery miles daily. The Press on 23 April had remarked that this saving could be gained only by depriving the consumer of freedom to choose and change his supplier, and the Milk Board or Health Department would have to assume responsibility for quality and purity. In the chastened mood of 1942 controls that would have been strongly resented a few months earlier were accepted without much noise. The Press on 16 May said that shortage of petrol, tyres and manpower was so acute that all distribution services had to be cut to the barest minimum, which in turn made urgent New Zealand's need for a protective consumers' organisation on overseas lines.

In June 1942 new regulations gave the Minister of Transport very wide powers, resulting in the setting up of 67 Goods Transport Control Committees and 18 Taxi Control Committees to conserve tyres and petrol by distributing demands fairly, with maximum thrift and eliminating what was judged to be unnecessary. [52] Zoning was progressively extended. For instance: on 11 August 1942, Wellington's bag wash and dry cleaning business was allotted, with no household deliveries suburb by suburb, among four firms. [53] From 1 September 1942 each Auckland carrier had his own area, and could not work outside it without special permission; [54] from 31 October 1942, by a general order, no grocer could deliver in built-up areas more than once a week, while the smallest parcel must weigh 8lb or be more than 3 cubic feet. There were special arrangements to prevent overlapping in rural districts. [55] Further, on 13 August 1942 authority was gazetted to extend zoning over wholesale as well as retail deliveries. [56]

Although the petrol licences of some commercial vehicles were reputed sometimes to exceed their needs, these licences were subject to revision. Thus, when Allied resources were being concentrated for the attack on Europe, the Oil Fuel Controller was directed to make a comprehensive review of licences for commercial and other uses. [57] Early in the war, the average number of trailers in use showed a striking increase, from 7826 in 1939–40 to 11 249 in 1941–2. [58] The numbers of buses and service cars did not vary much between 1941 and 1944, nor did those of taxis and rental cars; motor cycle numbers remained steady, at about 15 500 in 1941 and 1942, dropped to 11 355 in 1943, perhaps because many young men, their usual riders, were in the forces; their number rose again to 13 667 by March 1945. At the end of 1942, 190 002 cars were licensed, about 18 000 fewer than in 1941; this figure rose to 196 804 in 1943, 200 100 in 1944. The number of trucks and vans had, at the end of 1942, dropped by 3380 to 44 217; this rose again by more than 2000 during 1943 as vehicles were released from the armed services. [59]

The rationing of petrol, far more than any other item, produced prosecutions. These covered a wide field: plain theft, forged coupons, selling errors by petrol companies; amounts large and small acquired by fraud; also misapplication, such as a farmer using in one vehicle petrol obtained for another. A few examples may indicate the range. In 1940 intricate false statements over a second-hand car supposedly converted to a hearse resulted in a known total of 974 gallons being improperly drawn; also in an £82 fine and a month in prison. [60] A

Wellington petrol firm which had 11 tanks and only 10 pumps omitted to declare the extra tank's content when restrictions were re-imposed in February 1940; for the sale of 400 undeclared gallons, the sellers went to gaol for terms ranging from one to three months, while more than 20 customers paid fines, mostly of £10 or £15. [61] Two farmers who obtained 88 gallons for a tractor between March and July 1942, during which time the tractor had not been used, each paid £20 and costs. [62] For syphoning 14 gallons out of Army trucks in February, a 19-year-old man spent a week in gaol and an older man got a month. [63] A petrol seller whose returns to the Oil Fuel Controller showed the sale of 1275 gallons whereas the total sold was actually 4193 gallons pleaded inexperience in book keeping but spent a month in prison. [64] Two men found with six gallons of Army petrol bought from a soldier at 5.s a gallon went to prison for two months and Luxford SM said that receiving was worse than theft; paying double the market price encouraged dishonest people in charge of petrol to sell it. [65] There were many other breaches, as when a bus company obtained 153 gallons above its licence, anticipating an authorised increase [66] or when a Hamilton firm, running three petrol stations, sold 46 gallons in May 1941 and 8 gallons in June for which it did not have coupons. [67]

There was frequent newspaper mention of cars apparently exceeding their rations. An article in the Dominion of 15 April 1944 referred, among other mysteries, to more than 1500 cars seen at Trentham during the last race meeting, most from at least 20 miles away: ‘There are suspicions of the sources that amount almost to certainties. There is a black market, the price usually mentioned being 6 s a gallon and probably that market is supplied in more than one manner, straight-out theft and double use of coupons probably being the commonest.’ In double use of coupons, a holder of a licence for essential purposes, finding that he did not need all his allowance, signed the record at the petrol station to show that he had drawn the full amount, obtaining from the station-owner coupons for a corresponding quantity, to sell or give away. Licences were given to people who worked in hours when public transport did not run, but if they cycled or shared cars they would have petrol to spare. There were many others who obtained petrol for essential use but did not need it all. Employees in a business or public service using many cars, or servicemen, might regularly steal from vehicle tanks small amounts that would not be noticed but which could usefully add to private car mileage. [68]

Another supply device was revealed by a Palmerston North builder on defence jobs.

With 3 cars—two on blocks in hayshed—I found enough coupons to keep one car going. Benzine was available, if I kept circulating with plenty of friends—and kept up my tennis!

When gallons of petrol were tipped on air force tennis courts, just to dry off a shower of rain, a civilian became a bit blatant where and how benzine was obtained. [69]

To meet such evasions, more regulations were introduced. After April 1944 the authorities could demand full information on the source of petrol. [70] Also in 1944 it became necessary for motorists to write their names and car registration numbers on the backs of petrol coupons, and for petrol to be placed only in the tanks of motor vehicles. These restrictions were removed in February 1945. [71]

Before the war, a government committee examining petrol substitutes had decided that producer gas was the most practical, and after the war's start worked on details of carbonised coal burning machines. A design was made available to manufacturers, who worked under government licence to required standards of reliability. [72] As petrol rationing tightened after the fall of France, several makes of gas producers were advertised, informative articles appeared in newspapers, [73] and there were burners on the running boards or bracketed on to the backs of some cars. In September 1940 the

Railways Department began installing on its buses 40 large producers made at the Woburn workshops. [74] After Japan's entry, interest increased and by 26 January 1942 about 1800 were in use. [75]

The machines had problems. Gas gave less power than petrol, hence it was more effective in higher powered engines, in buses, service cars and trucks. Its use demanded more skill, both in driving and in engine care; starting could be tricky, as could intersections and traffic lights. One engineer said that this fuel put a driver back to about 1912 as far as the certainties were concerned but there were no insuperable difficulties for drivers with the necessary mechanical sense. Engines using gas required exacting care and the needed steel plate to make producers was not over-plentiful. [76] They were viewed askance by some county and forestry officers because of the fire risk from clinkers and hot ashes deposited by the roadside. [77] The rubber shortage of 1942, by making tyres and tubes the chief problem of motorists, lessened enthusiasm for gas producers. [78] By the end of March 1943 the Transport Department recorded a total of 1773 cars and 507 trucks fitted with gas producers. [79] In May 1943 three manufacturers advertised that producers could then be obtained without a permit, that the rationing of ‘char’ had been altered to allow private motorists up to five hundredweight a month, which was equivalent to about 45 gallons of petrol, and that there was plenty of ‘char’ all over the North Island and in most districts of the South Island. [80] In New Zealand most producers used carbonised coal as fuel; some, as in Australia, used charcoal made from various timbers, but the Australian hardwoods made much better charcoal. [81] In 1942 a Wellington man patented a new type of gas producer burning raw coal. [82]

Another fuel, conspicuous though of limited use, was household gas carried in large roof bags. These held about 50 cubic feet of gas but as 290 were needed to equal a gallon of petrol, they were useful only for small cars on short runs. Some gas works had special installations that rilled gas bags in about three minutes. [83] Lighting kerosene, too, was sometimes used as fuel. A magistrate, fining a man under the regulation which decreed that only fuels subject to tax should be used in motors, remarked that judging by the smell from motor exhausts this regulation was very frequently broken. [84]

After 30 years, several people have offered recollections of the petrol shortage and its stratagems. A woman on a two gallon ration of petrol, who travelled from Wellington to Hastings once a month to visit her elderly mother, wrote of gas producers: ‘I believe they played havoc with the engines but we had many miles of happy motoring with ours…. Sometimes we used to arrive looking like chimney sweeps as every few miles we had to stop and stir up the coke with a long poker. The owners of gas producers were a very close knit community and whenever one stopped to “declinker here” (as the road was marked) a passing gas-producing vehicle never failed to stop and ask if all was well.’ [85] A child of the war years whose father made gas producers remembers many trips with the big burners on the side, and also the family's mortification when other children used to call out, ‘When will the pies be ready, Mister!’ [86]

A number of devices were recalled by Mr J. T. Burrows of Ashburton:

Every few miles on the main road through Canterbury plains there were 44 gallon drums set in the ground so that motorists who had gas producers could stop and take out the ashes and place them in the drum so as not to start fires. All sorts of wood was used and strangely enough willow was about the best fuel and made the most gas from a given quantity of wood. Broom wood was useless as it gummed up the valves of the car and the same could be said of Turps which the painters could get, and used as fuel for their cars. One chap I know had a most ingenious arrangement. He used crude oil. He had a copper pipe wrapped round & round the manifold of his car (an old Dodge). He would start up and run on petrol until the manifold got hot and then switch to oil which would burn well once the old bus got hot enough. Cars ran very well on kerosene once they warmed up and also on the household gas although it didn't have much kick. Three gallons of petrol didn't take one very far in a month and 10/- a gallon on the black market was beyond most people.

I think the air force types were the worst offenders and most chaps at stations had a tank under the dash filled with aviation [fuel] and would switch to kerosene as soon as the motor was warm enough. Both fuels in most cases filched from the air force. Engine oil was reconditioned. Put through a dairy separator it could be used over again and there were ways of removing the colouring from army petrol so that it could not be distinguished from the civvy issue. [87]

Another aspect comes from a woman who served out petrol. ‘As I worked in a garage I saw several of the charcoal burners fitted on the running boards of cars. The mechanics loved to tinker with them. They were rather smelly and the driver had to rake out the clinker and these little piles of coke could be seen on the side of the road. One of my duties was to “dip the tanks”—the underground petrol storage tanks. At the end of the month I would spend some hours balancing the petrol bought and sold and adding up petrol coupons to account for the sales. We did not have electric petrol pumps and I developed a larger muscle on my right arm than on the left….’ [88]

Apart from petrol, paper was probably the first major persisting shortage. Most paper and cardboard came from overseas. Scandinavian supplies were soon cut off, while rising prices reduced imports from North America, for munition-buying dollars could not be lavished on packaging and newsprint. Ordinary grease-proof paper soon became scarce, and though its local manufacture began early in 1940, lunches were repeatedly put in well worn paper, [89] Wrapping paper became and continued to be both expensive and scarce. Grocers and butchers asked women to bring baskets and their own paper, and cotton bags or bits of sacking or linen that could readily be washed were suggested for bread and meat, or even basins for the latter. [90] A Gazette notice on 19 March 1942 prohibited the wrapping of goods already packaged.

Newspapers were reduced in size again and again. The Herald, for instance, from 14–20 pages in 1940 had by early 1942 fined down to 6–8 pages. This remained more or less the standard size for the Herald and other papers till late in 1944, when a very gradual increase began. Stationery was firmly conserved. On 15 August

1940 regulations permitted legal documents such as affidavits to be typed on both sides of the paper. [91] Business firms, local government, the Public Service, practised all sorts of economies. Typing was single spaced, margins smaller, the backs of pages were used, envelopes were re-addressed, senior government officials wrote to each other on small pages, and many returns were made quarterly instead of monthly. For carbon copies, mounting sheets and cyclostyling, the backs of old forms were often used. [92] Alternatively, there was a brownish paper, made locally with salvaged waste paper as a main ingredient. Business people and householders were asked to take clean paper of all descriptions to depots. Government departments added old files, schoolboys collected bundles of newspapers and there were house-to-house drives. The commercial use of paper also was curbed by regulations: the size of business cards, Christmas and other greeting cards, of cheque forms, labels, letter-heads, pads, exercise and account books was limited, while advertising leaflets were prohibited, along with such fripperies as streamers, confetti, table napkins, library book covers, cake frills, hand towels, facial tissues and cardboard for packing shirts. [93]

Corrugated iron, New Zealand's standard roof material, was acutely short by mid-1940, with the frames of many houses waiting for it. [94] By regulations in February 1941 no one, in town or country, could start a building that would need corrugated iron without permission of the Building Controller. [95] Iron could be used, said the Minister of Supply in July 1941, only for essential repairs. Locally made corrugated asbestos cement roofing would be saved for factories and warehouses, but there were plenty of flat asbestos sheets for outhouses and farm sheds, while for all new homes and public buildings with pitched roofs tiles must be used. [96] Tiled roofs were already uniform for State houses. By the end of 1942 the Wanganui Education Board was taking corrugated iron from its fences to meet roofing needs. [97] Spouting and pipes were also scarce and by January 1943 State house builders were using square or V-shaped wooden spouting with square-sectioned wooden downpipes. [98]

Liquor was another early shortage. [99] By December 1940 in Auckland most hotels would sell only half bottles of whisky, the most popular spirit, or gin, though some regular customers could still get full-sized ones. [100] A few months later the drought was much worse, with even half-bottles hard to come by. [101] By July many could buy spirits only in measured nips over the counter [102] and a year later the price of these nips rose from a pre-war 6 d to 10 d to meet increased tax. [103]

Some early shortages, such as artists' materials, [104] musical instruments, [105] prams [106] and lawn mowers, [107] were first felt as intensifications of import restrictions imposed in 1938. China and enamel ware and silk stockings, were other notable examples, drawing on the government many reproaches because wartime scarcity was hastened by low pre-war stocks. Since 1938, imports of fancy china had been severely curtailed and licences were mainly for utility lines, such as plain white cups and saucers with narrow gold rings. Cheap continental supplies had ceased and, with licences buying less as British prices rose, with orders taking longer to arrive and several large shipments sunk, the famine of crockery, along with glass and enamel ware, was sharply felt early in 1941. Even the standard white and gold china was very scarce; there were plain glass tumblers but not much else, and enamelware of all kinds—pots, kettles, pie dishes, basins, mugs and plates—had vanished from warehouses and could be found only in the more remote retail shops where stocks lasted longer. Aluminium had disappeared, diverted to war. [108] In response to scarcity, import licences were increased, but prices were rising faster [109] and English potteries were hard-pressed to maintain supplies. [110] From time to time glass cups and saucers came from Australia and a pottery firm at Auckland, started since the outbreak of war, strove to fill the breach, beginning with massive cups, and proceeding to saucers and plates. [111] Crown Lynn china was cradled by the war, and its youthful form was rugged.

The occasional arrival of imported china and enamel goods caused some of the most strenuous shopping scrambles of the war. For instance in November 1942 when, to celebrate its twelfth birthday, J. R. McKenzie's in Dunedin displayed such wares, the crowd packed so tightly in the doorway before opening time that a plate-glass window was shattered. [112] In Wellington, two traffic officers were needed to control the crowd outside a store in Willis Street before its doors opened on a supply of plain breakfast cups and saucers, combs and wool. [113] When an Auckland store released about 20 gross of assorted cups and saucers they were all sold within half an hour, with women helping themselves from the bins and assistants anxiously collecting the money. [114]

However, as one dealer remarked in 1942, there were large domestic reserves of china: in many homes half of it reposed in china cabinets. [115] There were also reserves of oddments tucked into store cupboards, remnants of dinner sets and tea sets, slightly chipped jugs and dishes. Many newly-weds set up house on contributions from mothers and aunts and friends of china, cutlery and pots.

At a time when nylon yarn was unknown, imports of silk stockings had been much reduced since 1938 and ceased altogether late in 1940 when, said Nash, it was estimated that local mills would produce 289 500 dozen pairs that year. [116] Retail supplies were becoming irregular in both quality and quantity when Nash on 4 December 1940 suggested that women might buy fine woollen ones instead of silk. [117] This triggered off a buying spree ‘like three Christmas Eves rolled into one’, [118] with some women trying to buy 15 pairs at once. [119] In 1940 bare legs were frowned on by most employers, but when some girls, disapproving of the greedy scramble, declared their willingness to wear sandals without stockings during summer, their employers agreed and the practice spread in many factories, offices and shops, [120] particularly among girls with shapely well-browned legs. But though some wholeheartedly relished this freedom under summer dresses, plenty, even among young women, felt slovenly and shabby at work without stockings, while many establishments held that standards and stockings must be maintained. For instance, the Auckland Hospital Board in February 1941 voted 6:5 that stockings must be worn by the kitchen staff, [121] and students working as wardsmaids in the vacation of 1944–5 were sent home if they appeared without stockings. [122] Of course in such areas all thoughts of silk stockings were abandoned: assorted cotton and rayon ones, seldom fully fashioned and much given to wrinkling and sagging, were perforce accepted by working women for both warmth and convention.

It was not only the absence of stockings themselves; there was also the problem of anchoring foundation garments which in the Forties were far more generally used than they became in the era of pantyhose. With the right corsets women were well dressed, without them merely dressed. [123] The Woman's Weekly, scorning the idea of stockings from Japan, [124] suggested stockings of wool or cotton in winter and bare legs in summer. Admittedly with empty suspenders the belt or corset would creep up in a clumsy roll round the waist, skirts would wrinkle and matronly figures show bulges, but the belt or corset could be kept in place by a detachable satin strip buttoned on between the legs: ‘with a few shillings for materials and an evening's work, one can easily make a dozen or so’. [125]

For the pale-limbed there were stocking creams. [126] These illusions did not gain wide acceptance; they could look patchy and they rubbed off on skirts and sofas. Most women stuck to stockings and women's pages repeatedly advised on their care. Usually a few pairs were hoarded for best occasions and the rest patiently darned. During the latter half of 1941 complaints mounted against the government for mismanagement [127] and against selfish women who prowled the shops snapping up far more than their share of stockings as these emerged from the three hard-driven local mills. [128] When churchmen were asked how they would regard bare legs in the congregation, Canon

D. J. Davies [129] of St Paul's, Wellington, gaily suggested that this might largely depend on the legs, adding that the church would take a sensible view and was used to summer sports clothes. The Presbyterian Moderator said that there was no rule: to wear or not to wear stockings was left to the individual. Archbishop O'Shea thought that in necessity the stockingless could come to church: correct attire was not a matter of faith but simply one of discipline and good order. [130]

Nash spoke of additional machinery sunk on the way, of skilled workers in the forces, of shortage in the United Kingdom and of the impropriety of spending dollars on American stockings while local mills were making 250 000 dozen pairs a year. [131] Late in October 1941 he offered to grant licences for British stockings, [132] by which time the British cupboard was nearly bare. [133] Meanwhile, since about August 1941 there had been requests for rationing, by private people, women's organisations and trade unions. [134] Nash on 7 October thought rationing impracticable, [135] but late in November the Auckland Hairdressers Union was told that the government was seeking means for more equitable distribution, and in January 1942 the Women's Institutes learned that rationing was being considered. [136] By February it was expected that stockings, but no other clothing, would be rationed shortly. [137] New Zealand's first ration books (petrol coupons were always separate) were issued in April 1942, and on 27 April rationing began, with sugar and stockings as the first items. Every woman over 16 years was entitled, once in three months, to one pair of fully fashioned stockings, of silk, art silk or cotton.

Rationing, while it curbed greed, did not end the stocking shortage. New Zealand in 1942 had five mills, three of them—one in

Christchurch, two in Wellington—making fully fashioned, seamed stockings, the kind most wanted. Two other mills, in Auckland and in the Manawatu, made circular stockings for which hosiery coupons were not required. These were relatively plentiful but they did not have the fit of the fully-fashioned. The top price for silk stockings was 16 s 3 d a pair while those of a mixture of silk and rayon ranged from 3 s 11 d to 8 s 11 d. [138] Women hunted stubbornly for the rare silk specimens, on the principle that silk stockings were stockings and anything else was merely a leg covering. [139] As Australia's Dame Enid Lyons [140] put it, two years later: ‘There exists in the mind of every woman the belief that the most undistinguished ankle becomes a thing of beauty in silken hose, and that even the most graceful without it deteriorates into a mere joint.’ [141] The Rationing Controller in 1942, recognising this view and the shortage of even non-silk fully-fashioned stockings, eased tension by extending the currency of the second hosiery coupon to six months. [142] Hosiery advertisements in July 1942 explained that hopes of finding pure silk stockings were practically nil: raw silk was unobtainable and in every 100 pairs, locally made or imported, only six were pure silk. Further, fully fashioned stockings were made on heavy intricate machinery which could be handled only by men, who also were not available. Good wartime hose, of necessity not fully fashioned but in fine durable fabric and good shades, was excellent value at 3 s 6 d to 4 s 11 d. Women were entreated to face the facts and adapt themselves to present conditions. [143]

Pressure on so-called silk stockings persisted throughout the war. A report that they were in any shop drew hosts of women, not merely ladies-at-leisure, but girls from offices and factories, their employers accepting their absence as inevitable, some with active good-will. One woman who worked in a dairy company's office wrote later: ‘We'll always remember how the boss lent us his car when silk stockings arrived in town and we all piled in.’ [144] Even when silk was impossible crowds poured in for fully-fashioned rayon or cotton hose. A shipment of these from America in March 1944 drew queues of about 500. [145]

In 1941 shortages developed over a widening range as stocks ran out and replacements became irregular, inadequate or non-existent, or Service demands drained off supplies. Railway tarpaulins were short, [146] so were motor and bicycle tyres in some areas. [147] New cars, even small ones were disappearing.' [148] Tools, household fittings (including baths and sinks), aluminium and enamel kitchenware, cutlery, fountain pens, jewellery, and all but the most expensive watches were a cross-section of shortages by April 1941, [149] while lack of tobacco pipes, made largely from French and Italian briar roots, was promoting experiments with the roots of native trees such as beech and manuka. [150] Blankets became scarce as woollen mills worked on Service orders, and they would be scarce for a long time. [151] The carpet quest was second to the stocking quest, though a long way second, noted the Woman's Weekly of 4 September 1941, with all sorts fetching fabulous prices at second-hand dealers and auctions.

After April when the first £1 million Service biscuit order came from Britain, [152] the chocolate-coated, icing-filled varieties disappeared, leaving only plain crackers, gingernuts, wine arrowroot and malt biscuits with a few chocolate fingers now and then; all were sold loose, not in packets. [153] Meanwhile, with shifts and overtime, production increased from about 9000 tons to more than 20 000 tons. [154]

Knitting wool had been growing scarce for some time. The fine sorts were imported and local mills concentrated on Service needs. [155] By mid-1941 many jerseys remained unknitted and, in particular, many babies lacked their shawls, matinée coats, woolly suits and dresses, widely regarded as their birthright and properly displaying the talents of their mothers, aunts and grandmothers. [156] A cartoon by Minhinnick showed a crowd trailing a nervous, scurrying shopper: ‘They say she knows where there's some wool’. [157] Sullivan, Minister of Supply, on 30 June 1942 stated that defence contracts were being rearranged, so that knitting wool, baby wool and white flannel could be made locally. [158] The wool shortage was to persist for years, claiming special coupons in ration books, while old garments were unravelled and re-knitted, and jerseys and children's clothes were contrived from wools of many colours.

they say she knows where there's some wool!

Dealers in camera film, with at best a weekly quota, took to selling it only at a fixed hour one morning a week, one roll to each customer from long queues, while advertisements explained that film was needed for air reconnaissance. Cameras were also scarce and other advertisements urged people to avoid waste and help themselves by selling old cameras and photographic equipment. [159] Alarm clocks became and remained unprocurable, especially the cheaper ones that had come mainly from Germany and Japan. Imports had been severely cut in 1938, and stocks were already low when Empire clock-makers turned their talents to munitions. [160] Wrist watches, which came mainly from Switzerland, were soon scarce; by April 1941 the cheaper ones had vanished. [161] Demand for repairs increased heavily but lack of parts and skilled labour made these very slow. [162] From late in 1943, at intervals, more Swiss watches, mainly of the military type, were imported through Portugal, their prices ranging from £4 to £15, but repairs, even of utmost priority, took at least six weeks, [163] and one Auckland jeweller in May 1944 displayed a notice that no new work would be accepted that year. [164]

The list of lacks large and small lengthened sharply when Japan entered the war. New telephone installations were banned immediately, conserving equipment for essential uses, and by July 1943 there were 10 000 applications waiting. [165] Demand was particularly keen in Auckland, where population growth outstripped the automatic telephone exchange facilities, and where about 4000 telephones were sought late in 1944 when the whole country's demand was given as 8000. [166] Pressure on the timber industry, plus shortage of firewood, made fruitcases scarce and by regulation in March 1942 apple and pear boxes had to be returned to growers. [167] All sorts of bottles, including small ones for medicine, milk and soft drinks became scarce, [168] and by 1943 it was often necessary to return a soft drink bottle in order to buy one. Lack of hair brushes, late in 1941, was eclipsed by that of combs. Hair styles of the Forties, with curls, waves, rolls and page-boy bobs, needed much grooming, and combs, though cheap, became treasures. Small shipments were keenly rushed [169] and there was ready sale for combs which a few manufacturers began to contrive from native woods. Rata was favoured for the teeth and rewa-rewa for the backs. One Wellington chemist reported sales of 12 gross within a month adding, ‘If you had told me any one-shop chemist could have sold that many combs in a lifetime I would not have believed you.’ [170]

From 6 July 1942, no more radios were made for the public; stocks held out for a year or so longer, but second-hand sets were fetching high prices early in 1944. [171] In June 1942, British and American restrictions on the export of component parts caused prohibition of the manufacture of 28 electrical articles, ranging from hair dryers and bed warmers to water heaters, stoves, radiators, kettles and toasters. There was not an instant shut-down; groups of objects were phased out over several months, and elements were still made for repairing essential items such as water-heaters, stoves, radiators, irons and jugs. [172] Electric light globes were locally made, but their bases required imported metal which became unobtainable. An Auckland firm used bakelite, believing itself the first in the world to do so, while the public was told that after 1 June 1942 it would be necessary to return the base of an old globe in order to buy a new one. Again this edict was phased in gradually. In June retailers had to produce bases equal to 50 per cent of their next order, and this was increased by 10 per cent monthly till by November no base meant no new globe. [173]

Kapok, then the usual filling for mattresses, pillows and cushions, was impounded at the end of April 1942: anyone holding more than 28lb of kapok had to inform the Factory Controller and could not dispose of it without his consent; cotton drill was also restricted. [174]

The government decreed further that all owners of machine tools, even amateur craftsmen, must send lists of them to the Factory Controller. [175] Razors, nail files, needles, shoe polish, washing blue, golden syrup were scarce or made so by greedy buyers. [176] Pencils were worn to stumps. [177] Shortage of imported mustard induced two middle-aged carpenters with clean records to steal a 1lb tin of it, the property of the United States government, for which they were each fined £5. [178] It also induced the planting of mustard on 1000 acres in South Canterbury. The seed went to Australia to be processed and some came back to New Zealand. Meanwhile advertisements encouraged patience and economy. [179]

Cutlery was increasingly short and disappeared rapidly from eating-houses, replacements when obtainable costing 100–400 per cent more than before; little flat pieces of wood, formerly issued with cartons of ice cream, now stirred tea. Much crockery vanished likewise, and plastic substitutes arrived. It was difficult, reported the

Auckland Star, to keep anything on tables except plates which were awkward to steal, especially when dirty: Wellington's railway cafeteria provided bakelite spoons with which to eat pies well covered with gravy. [180] Occasionally concern was expressed about chipped and cracked crockery in restaurants, but little could be done beyond advising the anxious to bring their own cups; even the thick cups, some without handles, that were made locally cost 2 s 6 d each and could not be discarded at the first chip. [181] As for glasses, the president of the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club complained of the widespread belief that a person who bought a drink at the bar also bought the glass. [182]

Torch batteries became so scarce that by mid-1943 the night staff at hospitals were making their rounds with candles and storm lanterns, saving their few serviceable torches for emergencies. [183] Floors and furniture looked less shiny after shortage of beeswax stopped the manufacture of polish. [184]

Some shortages caused administrative changes. In September 1941 Semple announced that no new car number-plates would be issued during the war. Sidney Holland suggested permanent plates plus windscreen stickers to show that the vehicle was licensed, and Semple thought that yearly issuing of plates would never return. [185] By regulations in May 1942 the 17-year-old practice of affixing new, differently coloured number-plates after each annual registration of motor vehicles was indefinitely suspended ‘until new registration plates are issued by the Registrar’. New plates were issued in 1946, in 1951, 1956 and 1961, and the system of permanent number plates began in 1963. Meanwhile motorists were obliged to keep their number-plates clean and legible; if obscured by rust etc they could be repainted, or new ones purchased at the Post Office. [186]

The annual registration issue of dog collars was also checked by shortage of metal for buckles and Ds. This was noticed in September 1941 [187] and in January 1943 regulations provided that any local authority which could not obtain new collars could issue discs that could be attached to the old collars; only for dogs registered for the first time would there be new collars. [188]

Some shortages were answered by local industry. Cardboard making was stimulated both by its own shortage and by the need to replace tin containers. [189] Bell tea moved into 1lb cartons as early as March 1940, and two years later containers for golden syrup had tops and bottoms of tin, bodies of cardboard. [190] Wallboard from wood pulp and various plywoods was developed for building needs. [191] Macaroni was made at Timaru. [192] At Auckland the firm Mason and Porter began making lawn mowers. [193] During 1941 lack of imported oranges deeply troubled Plunket-advised, vitamin-conscious mothers. The Department of Health said that tomato juice was a half-strength substitute [194] but rose hips could provide an extract much richer in Vitamin C than that of oranges, and various recipes were published. [195] Sometimes the hips could be bought cheaply at Plunket Society rooms, [196] sometimes home-made syrup was sold at patriotic stalls. The abundant roadside briars of Otago and Southland were tackled by a Dunedin firm early in 1943 and later that year rose hip syrup was being sold by chemists and grocers. [197]

Pre-war, most of the world's agar-agar, used in meat canning and for bacteriological cultures in scientific and medical work, came from Japanese agar seaweed, and well before Japan's involvement scientists in many countries began testing their own red seaweeds. Dr Lucy Moore, [198] of the DSIR found one, Pterocladia lucida, yielding generous amounts of high quality agar, that grew plentifully on most open rocky coasts round the North Island and the northern parts of the South Island. New Zealand's agar industry was formally licensed in December 1941. [199] Through the Internal Marketing Division, the weed was gathered and dried in tons by local Maoris, by school children and Girl Guides, for about 10 d a lb net dry weight, and processed to supply not only New Zealand but British and Allied needs as well. [200] Another seaweed, carageen, previously obtained from

Ireland, of wide use in industry—for skin lotions and cough mixtures, in brewing, in leather and glue making, and as a food-jelly— grows vigorously on the coast of Stewart Island and Southland. During 1942 collection began, at 1 s 9 d per dried pound, for local manufacture and inquiries for it came from Australia, Britain and

America. [201]

Pre-war the most popular timber for furniture had been Japanese oak, well grained, hard wearing and easily worked; there were few well furnished New Zealand homes without some specimens of it, stated a Dominion article on 10 December 1941. But imports had been stopped in mid-1941, and by the end of that year stocks for only about four months remained. [202] Already in 1940 Auckland furniture factories, busy with increased trade, were making much use of rimu, then in adequate supply at about 5 d a foot whereas the limited Japanese oak had risen from 6l/2 d a foot to more than double that rate. [203] Imports of other furniture woods also practically ceased, leading to the increased production of local plywood, and furniture-makers turned increasingly to three little-used native hardwoods, tawa, taraire and mangeao. The State Forest Service discovered that the widely distributed tawa, when kiln dried and chemically treated, was durable besides being easily worked and attractive. [204] Shortage of labour, added to the shortage of wood, led to a furniture control notice being gazetted on 21 January 1943. This prohibited the making of such non-essential items as plant-stands, standard lamps, cutlery and cocktail cabinets, glass-fronted cupboards and bookcases. To avoid undue demands on materials and manpower, maximum dimensions were set for occasional tables and tea wagons; bedroom suites could not have more than four or five pieces; size, the number of drawers and area of mirrors were all prescribed. Dining suites could not exceed six pieces, and again dimensions were limited. [205]

Smoking, not generally known during the 1940s to be a health hazard, was widely accepted as a prop to wartime morale, soothing and companionable. Cigarettes and tobacco were included in patriotic parcels and sold cheaply in Service canteens. Shortages [206] in civilian supplies in 1943–4, arising largely from diminished imports, lack of labour for processing, and from distribution priorities, were resented by workers with little access to shops, such as carpenters, freezing workers and miners. This led to trade union protest [207] and to the part-time employment of women at tobacco factories. [208]

War reduced fish supplies. In 1940 several big trawlers from

Auckland and Wellington were converted for minesweeping, leaving only the smaller craft which worked nearer the coast and in calmer waters. [209] As with all commercial users, their oil fuel was limited. After Japan's entry, they were prohibited from showing lights or flares on harbours or foreshores. [210] Italians, a substantial proportion of New Zealand's fishermen, especially at Wellington and Nelson, were limited to daylight hours and certain areas. Some Cook Strait grounds and 200 square miles of the Hauraki Gulf were, for defence reasons, barred to all fishing boats. Fishermen were forced to work areas normally avoided, where the sea bottom was rough, with damage to their nets and lines. At the same time, the armed forces were taking large amounts of the diminished catch. [211]

The greatest shortage in 1942 was of rubber, with tyres the major item, for though New Zealand already had a small, expanding rubber industry, until 1946 all tyres were imported. Stocks were low at the outset, especially of some kinds, for the 1938 import restrictions had caused dealers to concentrate on quick-selling lines. Manufacturing difficulties in Britain and enemy sinkings were soon felt. [212]

Japan's early successes captured most of the world's rubber sources, and Allied leaders loudly declared rubber to be the most crucial shortage facing them. [213] New Zealand imports henceforth concentrated on tyres for trucks, and from 1 May 1942 all tyres and tubes went under a rationing system: trucks in proportion to their usefulness were supplied with tyres and retreads while private cars were at the very end of the queue. Service cars, taxis, official cars, doctors and other priority users obtained permits under which approximately 20 000 car tyres were issued in 1942 and 46 000 in 1943 whereas the normal demand was for about 320 000—190 000 imported as tyres and 130 000 already fitted to cars. [214] A trade journal cheeringly pointed out that as the makers claimed that their tyres were good for 18 000 miles, and the private motorist's petrol ration permitted

40 miles a month, a new set of tyres would, save for deterioration from age, last 36 years, and even a three-quarter worn tyre for nine. [215] At first, tyre and retread permits were issued by Transport Department district officers, but after 30 June 1942 they were handled by district oil fuel controllers, [216] who were already handling petrol and who reviewed all existing petrol licences for privately owned trucks and vans, aiming to reduce mileage and save tyres. Zoning schemes, already under way to save petrol, [217] were tightened and multiplied over deliveries of bread, meat, milk, coal and firewood, drapery and laundry: for instance a statement was issued in mid-June on the stage reached by bread-zoning in every district. [218] Zoning officers, seeking co-operation, invited traders to prepare their own schemes, but warned that unless they were almost ruthless there would be no civilian services at all in a few months. [219] By September, War Cabinet's decision that, save for milk, coal and firewood, retail deliveries must cease where possible was generally accepted, [220] though groceries presented problems for which there were special regulations. [221]

Doubling up of taxi passengers, which had been widely practised but which was rebuked by Semple as late as 2 March 1942, was on 1 April officially permitted and regulated. [222] Public passenger and goods services were reduced, with the target of a 25 per cent mileage cut on week days and 75 per cent on Sundays, [223] transport authorities saying bluntly, ‘There is a war on. People will have to learn to stay at home.’ [224] By September, in the Auckland licensing area alone, such revision was saving 2 million miles annually. [225] A dairy company in the South Auckland area made adjustments, including the transfer on loan of 1200 suppliers to other companies, that saved 700 000 truck miles a year, and suggested that similar action should be taken about beer wagons and horse-floats. [226] The Transport Department, in March 1943, claimed that drastic measures saving 25 450 000 vehicle miles annually had been taken. [227]

To save wear on tyres, some bus stops were cut out, [228] while regulations on 30 July 1942 prohibited over-loading of vehicles and imposed a maximum speed limit of 40 mph on open roads, without altering the usual 30 mph urban limits. Permits for retreading were guarded by quotas, priorities and formidable forms. [229]

The humble bicycle shared the tyre shortage. Japan's entry had brought a great rush of bicycle purchases, [230] but Sullivan on 15 June 1942 declared that current tyres would be replaced only for those who proved that the bicycle was their sole means of getting to work or school; there could be none for cycling for pleasure or where other transport was available. [231] Acquiring a new bicycle tyre was a formidable process; a form signed by the applicant's employer or teacher and by a cycle-dealer who had inspected the worn tyre went to the local rationing authority and if approved the dealer would be supplied with a tyre for sale to the applicant. Originally it was prescribed that a police officer must witness the applicant's signature, but this proved too unwieldy and was quickly withdrawn. [232] The limitation at its peak could be gauged by the Auckland area, where between Warkworth and Waiuku there were thought to be more than 50 000 bicycles, but the weekly allocation of tyres and tubes was only about 100. [233] However in some cases at least officialdom was hoodwinked. In November 1943 a Greymouth dealer who was holding about 50 unclaimed tyres, having advised the applicants months earlier that their requests had been granted, concluded that as the worn tyres he had been shown could not have stood up to the intervening wear they had not been in actual use. [234]

Production of cycle tyres, which had been limited to an Auckland factory, increased after November 1943 when a Woolston factory began making them by a wartime formula using a proportion of reclaimed rubber, with a target of 7000 a month. [235] Thereafter, allocations which had already eased slightly [236] became more adequate.

Collection of all waste rubber for salvage was vitally necessary. From May 1942 onward, contributions of worn rubber were constantly besought: old tyres, flooring, hot water bottles, rubber gloves, tennis shoes, crêpe soles, gumboots, galoshes, bathing caps and bath plugs. Garages set up collection bins, chambers of commerce organised drives, city councils attached bins to rubbish trucks. It was noticeable, in this as in other collections, that only small quantities were brought in to depots by people themselves, but big quantities were gathered by house-to-house canvassing. A garage man, surveying his near-empty bin, remarked that the usual excuse about transport did not hold: ‘the people who come here for petrol don't come on foot’. [237] But drives, with scurrying school children and Boy Scouts directed by EPS wardens and with Army trucks picking up the harvest, produced huge piles. [238] In all, 5000 tons of waste rubber, including half a million used car and truck tyres, were returned. Government required that the tyres should be sorted over, and those that could be repaired or retreaded were made serviceable, classified as to possible mileage, and sold second-hand to essential users. [239]

Gumboots were essential working equipment for thousands of dairy farms, in mines, meatworks and dairy factories, and they were accepted winter footwear for children. By 1942 imports had fallen from about 240 000 pairs a year pre-war to 24 000 pairs. [240] In February 1942 a rubber-goods retailer was urging farmers to make their gumboots last much longer than usual by keeping them in a cool dark place and clear of any grease, and having them mended before they were too worn. [241] During that winter many boots that would normally have gone to the scrap-heap were patched and strengthened. [242] For new boots, only some of the most urgent farmers' applications could be granted. [243] Miners were relatively well supplied, the Mines Department having, as its Minister explained to an aggrieved West Coast Primary Production Council, bought up boots well ahead of need. [244] But many farmers, and especially the women who were helping out on the farms, squelched about in leaky boots. [245] Local rubber firms in July 1943 began turning out ‘austerity type’ boots which contained a large proportion of salvaged rubber. [246] By April 1944 they had made 22 000 pairs and in 1945 production was at the rate of 125 000 pairs a year [247] which, with small shipments coming in from America, enabled the most urgent needs to be met. In the autumn of 1944, however, Waikato women were still making do with old sandals and shoes, or bare feet, while the Mayor of Auckland sought government permission to channel some 250 pairs of EPS gumboots to farmers and their wives, through the dairy companies. [248] A sharemilker's wife in May 1944 wrote that she and her husband, milking 60 cows, had not had a gumboot for more than two years: ‘We women in the country do not mind our hands in the mud, but we do object to our knees.’ [249]

Applications for boots, explaining needs, were made through bootsellers to industry controllers and if approved the boots could then be sold. Children however did not qualify and were still in the mud. One such child, who towards the end of the war lived in a cottage on a farm, later wrote: ‘We had no real road in to the house but had to traverse the cowshed race. Because of restrictions only farming families were able to procure gumboots. We had to trek through the revolting mud barefoot and clean ourselves down at the road gate, before we could don our footwear.’ [250]

Although their production had already started in Auckland and was increasing hot water bottles, also imported, were in short supply in the winter of 1940, largely through panic buying. [251] By 1941 cheap Japanese lines had disappeared, but the heavier British ones were more plentiful than in 1940. This plenty ended in 1942. [252] On 1 May regulations ‘froze’ stocks: those held by ordinary retailers were declared to the Health Department and channelled to chemists who were restricted to a fortnight's supply at any one time and who could sell only on a doctor's prescription. [253] As an Opposition member said, ‘Things had come to a pretty pass if one had to pay 7s 6d to get a hot-water bottle costing 4s 6d.’ [254] Two months later, as some doctors were over-obliging, restrictions were stiffened: it was stressed that certificates could be given only to regular patients and only when needed for proper medical treatment. Rubber hot-water bottles, said Sullivan, could no longer be bought just for comfort, all must be reserved for the sick and the injured, but some bottles, locally made of earthenware, were not restricted and their production could be stepped up. [255]

Old fashioned remedies for cold feet were popular that winter, such as a well wrapped and stoppered glass bottle filled with hot water, or a brick or stone warmed in the oven and likewise well wrapped. There were advertisements for at least two innovations. Mason Struthers produced a non-rusting metal hot-water bottle (‘will last a lifetime’) of triangular shape, unlikely to roll out of a bed, 18 inches long, holding more than four pints and priced at 13 s 6 d. [256] A Christchurch chemist advertised that stone hot-water bottles of new, shallow, round design with screw tops were proving a boon to the public at 9 s 6 d each. [257] By 1943 there was a limited supply of locally made rubber bottles, though stoppers were still imported; [258] some local woods, tested by the State Forest Service, made usable stoppers, the best from radiata pine boiled in caustic soda, then soaked in glycerine and parafin. [259]

Except for small amounts now and then elastic disappeared from shops, and factory-made garments had very little of it. Men's underpants had small elastic insets in waist bands which were adjusted by a buttonhole and two buttons or by tapes tying through buttonholes, and measuring of hips and waist was urged in advertisements; [260] women's and girls' had fitted waist bands with side plaquets and a button. Schoolgirls, and others, found that the button could pop in strenuous moments, and many used a safety pin as well. There were stories of lingerie collapsing about the ankles of damsels in public, but tapes and buttons were hardly a joke for mothers with toddlers, especially at the toilet-training stage. ‘Pants took so long to get down that way’, one remembered. ‘We used to use a fair bit of tape to help the precious elastic out’. [261] Men's braces and sock suspenders vanished [262] and when suspenders on girdles expired some women sewed tapes with buttonholes on to their stocking tops linking them to flat buttons on the foundation garment. [263] The little rubber buttons on suspenders, often an early casualty, were replaced by ordinary (if errant) buttons, threepences or halfpennies. In mid- 1944 elastic was still so scarce that oddments 2–12 inches long, discarded by manufacturers as too short to go on the machines, were eagerly bought, and it was realised that several of the thin strands of rubber from the interior of a used golf ball, taken together, made a useful substitute. [264]

Foundation garments [265] maintained their elastic during 1942: ‘sleek as a seal! Elastic roll-ons, corselettes, corsets and panties with not a hook or fastening of any kind … firm, smooth and unencumbering’. [266] Advertisements urged women not to overestimate their strength in their new tasks: ‘Little Amazon take care.… This exacting new life could so easily overtax slender nervous and physical resources.… It isn't so much the longer hours the heavier work that is the danger … but muscles poorly supported, poor posture on the job.’ [267] Or: ‘A man's work to do … and only a woman's strength.… To brace feminine muscles and internal organs against strain, every war-working woman needs a Berlei, and needs to wear it constantly. Correct posture defeats fatigue … you'll do your duty better in a Berlei!’ [268] During 1943 advertisements warned that from lack of materials and skilled workers one might have to search and wait for one's right fitting and to allow more room than usual because there was now less stretch. [269] There were promises: ‘Government standardisation robs your Berlei of beauty (war demands must come first) but the vital support and fit are there intact. No longer a glamorous foundation perhaps, but at least a Victory corset—designed to help you stand the strains of war.… And when, the testing over, your fighting man comes home and beauty comes into its own again—then you shall have beauty without end in a Berlei’. [270] Until such good times came, the Woman's Weekly, with the heading ‘Curing a tired corset’, advised how to cope with bones and busks, and splits in stretch girdles. [271]

Other rubber goods were very scarce, such as the rings used to seal preserving jars. Rubber-selling firms concentrated on repairs: besides doing gumboots, tennis shoes and sandals, boots and shoes were resoled, wringers were re-rubbered. [272] Meanwhile thousands of rubber gas masks had been manufactured in Christchurch, and distributed to the EPS late in 1942. [273] Rubber for sporting gear, such as tennis balls, golf balls and the bladders for footballs and basketballs, which had become very scarce [274] was released fairly generously from mid-1943. [275] Scarcity of labour kept tennis balls hard to get during 1944, though the numbers obtained by clubs increased slightly. In September, the Auckland Lawn Tennis Association's share of New Zealand's total 7500 dozen balls (6000 dozen made locally of rubber, 1500 imported synthetic balls) was 815 dozen, compared to 700 dozen in the previous season, and there were prospects of more after Christmas. [276]

There were shortages of some locally grown goods, of honey, eggs and vegetables. With vegetables, increased production was the answer; with eggs and honey, fair distribution, meeting priority needs first and spreading the rest evenly.

Normally beekeepers could sell their honey as they chose, direct to private customers, to traders or to the Internal Marketing Division. With the honey crop of 1942 unusually low, all the honey sold to Internal Marketing on the growers' option was needed for hospitals, for the Services and prisoner-of-war parcels, leaving none for sale in cities. Thus areas where growers sold through local trade channels had honey, while others had none. To make distribution more widespread, regulations on 9 December 1942 obliged keepers of 20 or more hives in the coming season to sell 70 per cent of their honey to Internal Marketing, but 30 per cent they could sell where they pleased, as could the small producer with fewer than 20 hives, though all prices were fixed and 60lb was the maximum amount of any retail sale to a buyer at the apiary. [277] Among the 8407 beekeepers, with their 133 604 hives, some thought this reasonable, and said so; [278] others, like many producers in other fields, resented the intrusion of regulations, and it was suggested that some with, say, 30 hives, would reduce these to 20 so that they could simply sell to the public, getting about 2 d more per pound than the 7 d per pound paid by Internal Marketing. [279] Despite some opposition and prosecutions, further restrictions were imposed in the 1943–4 season: the sale of all honey produced by owners of 20 or more hives was subject to Internal Marketing direction, although at the apiary sales not exceeding five pounds to any one customer at a time were permitted. [280] In November 1944 beekeepers had to sell to Internal Marketing 30lb of honey from each but 19 of their hives, though if the total yield was as low as 40lb a hive they could also keep ten pounds from each hive after the nineteenth, and they could still sell in five pound lots. [281]

From mid-1941 onward, eggs were scarce in some cities, often very scarce indeed. New Zealanders were used to plenty of eggs and there were frequent grumbles, many directed at the government for interference in what it did not understand. Seasonal variations in production were normal, and for two years before the war the Internal Marketing Division, by exporting and pulping eggs during the flush, had assumed the task of maintaining equable demand. In wartime scarcity its efforts to maintain even distribution, with prices held by the Price Tribunal, were more difficult and less popular.

Pre-war, domestic hen-keeping was widespread. Even in city suburbs, although ‘batteries’ were unknown, the larger sections often had small hen houses where a few hens were fed on scraps and garden greens, with a little wheat and pollard, while farmers' wives were considerable egg producers. With the war fowl-feed from Australia became scarce and dearer [282] and by 1942 was mainly reserved for registered poultry-keepers. [283] Meanwhile as people became more busy fowls became more burdensome, especially as price controls precluded much profit. With backyard keepers giving up or reducing their flocks, many who had kept themselves in eggs and sold their surplus became buyers of eggs. Military camps took large quantities, their demands increasing steeply in 1942, along with those of hospitals, visiting ships and United States forces.

Successive regulations sought to bring eggs at controlled prices from production areas to those in need of them, first meeting Service demands and civilian priorities, then distributing the remainder equitably. These regulations were resented by many producers as bureaucratic encroachments by officials who did not appreciate the problems and costs involved. [284] Meanwhile since stores supplying eggs would increase their overall trade, some shops were willing to pay more than standard rates and contrived to secure more than their share from the producers.

By regulations in August 1940 the four main centres became egg marketing areas in which wholesalers had to be licensed and have proper facilities for grading, storing and pulping eggs. All eggs entering these areas had to go to the wholesalers who, if they had eggs or pulp, must supply any retailer who asked for them but could supply non-retailers only with the consent of Internal Marketing. [285] Directing eggs to wholesale channels would make all producers contribute to non-civilian priorities and as many eggs as possible would go to ordinary retailers; wholesale supplies were not to be monopolised by a few stores, nor were hotels, restaurants, etc, to secure an undue share. Price orders adjusted prices seasonally, with district variations.

In mid-1942 grocers' supplies were markedly short, especially at

Auckland and Wellington, where black-marketing augmented the drain-off to ships and Services. [286] Also, grocers claimed that while prices were stabilised in the main centres, control was less strict in country districts, where higher prices could be charged, so that eggs did not reach the cities. [287] In June 1942 priority rationing began in

Wellington where the Plunket Society, Internal Marketing and the grocers arranged that Plunket chits for young children and expectant and nursing mothers should have first claim on whatever eggs were available to grocers. [288] On the same day a Wellington shop in two hours sold hundreds of eggs, at prices slightly above tribunal rates, to a queue 100 yards long. [289] More regulations on 18 June increased ministerial powers to direct eggs to wholesalers and lessen sales made directly to some retailers at the expense of others. [290]

Regulations could not, however, make eggs plentiful or regular at Auckland and Wellington, though they were relatively abundant elsewhere and though areas of directed selling were extended so that supplies could be pooled for the whole country, ‘We have no eggs. We don't know when we are getting any. We don't care’, a wearied

Wellington grocer wrote on his window. [291] A few weeks later, a

Wellington paper reported that while in provincial districts any reasonable quantity of eggs could be bought in shops, some Wellington restaurants were reducing ‘bacon and eggs’ to ‘bacon and egg’ or even ‘bacon on toast’. [292]

The Department of Agriculture tried to encourage small producers by issuing a leaflet on poultry-keeping and offering consultation with its experts. [293] The price to producers was raised by 2 d a dozen, and organisers strove to persuade country stores to crate their surplus to the cities, although profit thereon, after paying railage, was only about 1 d a dozen. [294] On the other hand, prosecutions for evasions, which would have been difficult and unpopular, were not attempted. In all, eggs reaching official centres decreased by thousands, so that while some chain stores could advertise six dozen lots for preserving, other grocers could muster only half a dozen to a family per week.

In June 1943 at Auckland and Wellington priority rationing was established by regulation, replacing earlier rationing through the Plunket Society and grocers; [295] young children, expectant and nursing mothers and some invalids were to have at least three eggs a week from their regular retailers, and only after reserving their quota could the retailer sell his remainder to other customers. In March 1941 this system was extended over wide areas in both islands. [296] Apart from this, after March 1944 there was comprehensive rationing of eggs not required by priority customers. It was linked to butter rationing, for which each person registered at one shop; the number of eggs available against each ration book varied and was announced week by week. [297] From October 1944 ration books contained egg coupons. In June 1944 government had met the producers' long-standing complaint of inadequate prices with a subsidy of 3 d a dozen on eggs passing through proper channels. [298] Meanwhile commercial cooks were using egg pulp and the less desired egg powder from Australia. [299]

In 1938–9 market gardens totalled 7806 acres, [300] with home gardens making a substantial contribution to the nation's vegetables. Commercial potato plantings and yields varied, from the 20 033 acres of 1939–40 to the 15 200 acres of 1941–2 and the 27 178 of 1943–4. For the four years 1940–4 the yield per acre averaged 5.8 tons. Good crops and low prices were followed by smaller plantings, as in 1938–9 when 18 032 acres gave 87 671 tons (the lowest yield since 1892) and Australian imports were needed. A glut yield of 141 000 tons followed in 1939–40, and as there was no indemnity for wartime over-production, farmers predictably turned away from the laborious potato field: 17 000 acres were planted for 1940–1, and 15 200 for 1941–2, averaging nearly 92 000 tons. [301]

During 1941, complaints of general vegetable scarcity and high prices led to an investigation by the Price Tribunal, [302] which on 9 January 1942 stated that, apart from seasonal difficulties and 250 acres of the Hutt Valley being taken for housing, the shortage was mainly due to both home and market gardeners going into the forces, which themselves devoured large quantities, and to lack of planning among market gardeners. Vegetable growing should be encouraged in every possible way, such as the British allotment system in parks and reserves; planning should be organised among market gardeners, and wherever possible they should sell directly to retailers. [303]

Already a new phase was beginning on the vegetable front, with needs increasing vastly and supplies diminishing. Commercial labour was reduced by mobilisation and by the pull of better paid jobs— even among steadfast Chinese gardeners, some were drawn to the meatworks, [304] while domestic gardening was lessened by mobilisation, overtime and the Home Guard.

In the spring of 1942, while the Eighth Army battled for Egypt and the Americans for Guadalcanal, New Zealand faced general vegetable scarcity and famine in potatoes—though the controlled retail price of the latter, about 2 d a lb, did not rise till new ones came in at 7 d a lb in October. [305] Rice, haricot beans and dried peas replaced the faithful potato on dinner plates, while increased demand for other vegetables led to ceiling prices being placed on kumara, pumpkins, parsnips, swedes and white turnips, [306] On average, New Zealanders each ate 114lb of potatoes a year, something over 2lb a week, but the Army ration was 1lb per man per day. [307] This was reduced to 3oz a day, cooked in jackets, from 21 August to 15 September, when it rose to 6oz. Ministers explained untoward demands and steps that the government was taking towards getting thousands of tons more vegetables, but public irritation was expressed

“come and get it!

succinctly by cartoonist Minhinnick. He showed Barclay, [308] Minister of Agriculture, serving minute potatoes to downcast soldiers, while Polson, Minister of Primary Production, hovered over a steaming boiler labelled Vegetable Production Plan, uttering, ‘Oh boy! This is going to be good—when it's done’, and a large menu listed Vegetable Hash, Potatoes in Greatcoats (3oz), Stewed Stuffed Production Plans, Grain of Salt and Honeyed Words. [309]

To avoid large rises in the prices of basic vegetables, the government bravely included potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, swedes and cabbages in the main stabilisation programme, launched in December 1942, though it was realised that the inclusion of vegetables with their uncertain price structure put the whole scheme in some peril. [310] To learn what supplies were probable in the near future, the government in January 1943 required every gardener cultivating more than half an acre, and all glasshouse growers cultivating not less than 2500 square feet, to send in lists of crops already growing and those to be planted before 31 July 1943. [311]

Although commercial growers were extending their acres considerably, [312] the government, aware that American-augmented Service demands were beyond their scope, introduced its Services Vegetable Production Scheme, [313] which the Department of Agriculture began in July 1942. Within six months 1800 acres, [314] in areas ranging from 10 to 190 acres, had been taken over from farmland, ploughed and planted, with some part-time help from soldiers, [315] and were producing 3 million pounds a month of various vegetables. The basic staff was 350 strong, more than 100 being women. Casual labour—mainly Maori, many women and, during their holidays, students and secondary school pupils–coped with rush jobs, such as pea picking. In addition, commercial growers under government contracts arranged by Internal Marketing were devoting many acres to Service needs. [316] The Commercial Gardens Registration Bill, passed without opposition in March 1943, furthered the contract system. Under agreed prices, growers undertook, in addition to meeting civilian requirements, to grow required acreages for the Services; what they could not supply would be grown by the State farms. [317] These farms continued to grow rapidly; 27 projects were established, some of 500 acres, nearly 5200 acres in all, with peak full-time staff of 1000, plus seasonal workers. At least once American servicemen, about 160, volunteered to fight an invasion of weeds on farms near Auckland, [318] and mothers of school children were asked to give a few hours' work daily, the Army providing transport. [319] Cultivation on the larger areas was mechanised, with garden tractors, tillage equipment, vegetable planters, sprayers and pumps brought from the United States under lend-lease working on both State farms and the commercial growers' contracts. [320]

Apart from those eaten in New Zealand camps, vast quantities of fresh and treated vegetables were going to Americans in the Pacific. To handle these the Internal Marketing Division built sheds at

Pukekohe, Hastings, Motueka and Riccarton and gradually introduced processing machinery which lessened the early demand for land workers. In 1944–5, from the Hastings building alone, more than 29l/2 million pounds of fresh vegetables went forth, trimmed, crated, wired and cool-stored. The Marketing Division, informed on recent British and American developments, established New

Zealand's first major dehydration plants at Pukekohe, Hastings,

Motueka and Riccarton. Also, by arrangement with the American firm Birdseye Foods and its associated New Zealand company Lever Brothers, the Marketing Division in November 1944 began quick-freezing peas and beans by the Birdseye process for American hospitals in the Pacific. Canning, as an economic ancillary to quick-freezing, was also developed; in the 1944–5 season, 192 139 30oz tins of peas and 6386 of beans were produced, and there were small experiments in canning peaches and pears. [321]

During 1944, with troops in New Zealand decreasing and commercial production expanding, State vegetable growing was lessened. By the autumn of 1945, 3495 acres had been re-sown in grass, for return to the owners, leaving 1686 acres for cropping in the 1945–6 season. On about 150 acres wheat and barley were grown instead and when American demands ceased suddenly in 1945, considerable quantities of vegetables became surplus. By September 1946 the remaining acres were returned and the equipment sold off through the War Assets Realisation Board. [322]

There was a good deal of waste in the later stages of production for the Services. From lack of co-operation between the forces, the Agriculture Department and Internal Marketing Division, vegetables were grown for camps already abandoned or were ordered for the same troops from both State farms and commercial contractors, ‘too often to be entirely excusable’. [323] Still, the arrangements produced thousands of tons of assorted vegetables in a hurry, met a major wartime need, and must, says Baker, be rated a success. [324] At the same time, the foundations of a future industry were established.

The Services Scheme was not intended to compete with commercial growers for the civilian market, though some Army surpluses, coinciding with civilian shortages, were sold through Internal Marketing. [325] In the civilian field, vegetable growing became a patriotic effort. Public institutions, such as hospitals, were urged towards self-support, especially in potatoes and root crops [326] and householders were urged to grow vegetables everywhere. [327] Some city councils provided allotments on public land: Wellington, for instance, had about 600 plots. [328] At Auckland the New Lynn borough ran a co-operative scheme: four acres were ploughed and planted with potatoes, peas, beans, etc, residents recording their hours of labour and receiving vegetables in proportion, any surplus being sold at reasonable rates to residents not in the scheme. [329] Mount Eden ploughed three acres of Potter's Park and grew potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, etc, that were sold in patriotic shops for the War Purposes Fund. [330]

In school gardens children grew miles of vegetables; [331] soldiers guarding vital points relieved boredom and improved their quarters, let alone their food, by growing both vegetables and flowers, often in most unlikely ground that needed patient cultivation. [332] Home gardeners renewed their efforts, women often taking the larger part, and in many beds lettuces, beans and beetroot replaced marigolds and mingnonette.

In the winter and spring of 1943 the government launched a ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, along lines taken by Britain since early in the war. Members of Parliament, mayors, councillors were involved: Department of Agriculture and other experts addressed well-advertised meetings, explaining ends and means; committees were appointed; EPS wardens, their original tasks laid aside, again canvassed their districts, to see the land and labour available, to find out who would cultivate vacant ground or help the less muscular to get gardens under way. Home Guardsmen, with invasion no longer considered, turned from rifles to spades. There were demonstrations and lectures and newspaper articles on what to grow and how to grow it; there were record sales of seeds and seedlings. [333] Advertisements exhorted and advised: ‘Make every yard of ground yield. Beg, buy or borrow a spade and Dig for Victory. That section of yours must not be idle. You will need a garden. A garden will feed you. Grow vegetables that will keep your family fit. Give them a balanced diet and greens the whole year round. Help yourself and help your country. Listen to any North Island YA and ZB station every Thursday night for practical instruction.’ [334]

Inevitably, commercial growers were restive under ceiling prices on basic vegetables. They were uneasy about State vegetable farms, uncertain despite government assurances lest these might encroach on the civilian market, [335] while their contracts with the government, in the quickly changing months of 1944–5, were increasingly short term; nor could any one know how much home gardens would actually produce. Given these uncertainties, given also the hazards of weather—the spring of 1944 was late and cold—there were grumbles and minor shortages of various vegetables, but over all there was enough and, at times, fullness.

Delays in hydro-electricity projects and increased industrial demands made electricity critically short at peak-load hours from 1942. First the public was asked to be thrifty, then on 5 June Electricity Control Order 1942/171 decreed that in all shops, offices, warehouses, factories, hotels, theatres and other places of amusement no electric radiator or other electric space-heater could be used between 4 and 6 pm on any day save Sunday during the months May to August each year, and that inspectors might enter premises to check. Householders were asked to stand in line by doing without radiators during these hours, and by switching off hot water systems as much as possible. These two economies would give the greatest relief, but households were also each asked to cook as much at one time as possible and to switch off lights and radios in empty rooms. At first it appeared that banning radiators in places of work and amusement was not having much effect; housewives, with coal and firewood short, made more use of electric heaters. [337] By the end of July, however, regulations and appeals had proved effective: during a cold snap in Wellington the average peak load had been lessened by 10 000 kilowatts. [338] Helped by an extra wet autumn and winter, and by a new power unit at Lake Waikaremoana, 1942 passed without further electrical crises.

The following year, more steps towards reduction were taken. There were voltage cuts, and in crisis times for brief periods all power was cut off in some areas—for instance, on 27 May 1943 the Bay of Islands and half of central Hawke's Bay were without power for 10 minutes before 6 pm. [339] In some towns shopkeepers decided to close half an hour earlier to save peak-hour winter loading. [340] Early in July, regulations empowered any electrical supply authority to require owners to install devices curbing the electricity used for water heating. These included thermostat controls which cut power

[336]

off at 206°–210° Fahrenheit, and brought it on again at 196°. [341] In some places water heating hours were cut: in Wellington, for instance, they were reduced by 11 per cent. [342] At the same time an order prohibited the sale of electric radiators without a permit from the local electrical supply authority, which would grant replacements for broken parts, but would keep unsold radiators for necessitous cases. This measure conserved resistance wire besides checking further demands for power. [343]

To relieve peak load pressure, daylight saving was extended. For years before the war, clocks had been advanced 30 minutes from the first Sunday in September in any year to 29 April following. From April 1941, regulations maintained this half hour advance for all months throughout the war years. [344]

Besides the shortage of labour for all purposes from housemaids to shearers, teachers to undertakers, men in various trades and professions were over-worked and hard to get. Despite the virtual cessation of building, there were not enough plumbers for repair work. [345] The legal profession, late in 1942, was concerned that the drain-off of lawyers and clerks was leaving too much work for those remaining. [346] Dentists, along with dental mechanics and equipment, disappeared into Service clinics: [347] by December 1942 it was estimated that between 30 and 40 per cent of dentists were with the forces and civilians were booking up to three months ahead, many putting up with minor pain until it became urgent. Dentists were thankful that the School Dental Service (established in 1921) was keeping children out of their chairs and also educating them, but extra work came from some American servicemen with ample funds who preferred private practitioners to their own dental units. [348] The Dean of Dentistry assured the Otago University Council that for years to come demand for dentists would exceed the supply. [349]

The doctors left to cope with civilian sickness were overworked and people were urged not to seek them unless there was real need, though with illnesses such as spinal meningitis and infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) about, delay could involve anxiety, if not worse. The doctor shortage was acute in some areas, notably Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hastings; [350] it was less conspicuous in Otago. [351] At Auckland in October 1942, according to the local BMA spokesman, there were 136 doctors in the telephone book, 33 being specialists. Of 103 general practitioners, 13 were aged over 70, nine over 60, ‘six were women’, 16 were overseas and 20 in home service camps. [352] By February 1942 Auckland's Hospital Board refused to supply more medical officers for the Army, claiming that some already called into Territorial camps were wasting their time. [353] In this city a night service was developed in March 1942; calls were made through the St John Ambulance Association, hospital house surgeons did most of the work without extra pay, but two general practitioners were rostered for duty each night; as well many doctors still answered most of their night calls themselves, especially to maternity cases. [354] This night service was maintained until December 1943, but it was not copied in any other centre. [355]

Hospital intake of civilians was also straitened. A Wellington Hospital Board member claimed in January 1943 that citizens had to be acutely ill before they could be admitted. [356] Auckland's medical superintendent explained that the number of servicemen requiring remedial operations restricted bed and theatre accommodation for non-urgent civilian cases. In the ear, nose and throat department the waiting period lengthened, at one stage to more than two years, but by December 1942 this was reduced to 11 months, [357] and by March 1943, when Auckland's Green Lane Hospital began functioning, it was hoped that it would soon be lessened very much more; notably the new hospital would be extracting tonsils ‘by the dozen’, over weekends, with children admitted on Friday nights and home on Sundays, in place of the Saturday ‘shambles’ at the Public Hospital. [358]

When Japan's attack threatened sources, there was widespread panic buying of sugar and tea, some people who normally bought 6lb of sugar trying to buy 70lb bags, despite efforts by retailers to restrain buying and assurances by traders and officials that supplies were normal. [359] To avoid such panic, the censor on 20 January 1942 directed newspapers not to refer to commodity shortages, [360] and on 17 March the Minister of Supply stated that sugar would be rationed. [361]

During March, Australia, which drew most of its tea from Java, imposed severe rationing, while in New Zealand the prudent and the greedy laid in stocks, though articles were published explaining that stocks of tea in New Zealand were very sound, and that tea lost its flavour with keeping. Grocers, their wholesale supplies cut by half at the start of April, rationed regular customers and would sell no more than a pound to casuals and only when buying at least five or ten shillings worth of other goods. [362]

On 9 April it was announced that ration books would be issued the following week, on a family basis, the head of a household applying on behalf of every member and producing social security tax books for all persons over 16 years; catering establishments would make special applications. Books were issued through the Post Office with staff engaged or diverted for the job working overtime from 7 to 9 pm and, for a fortnight, at temporary central offices in the main cities. The public was in no great hurry to acquire the first of the little books that were to circumscribe housekeeping during the next five or six years. [363]

These first books, about 4 by 5½ inches, were flimsy: paper covers stapled together enclosed a page of rules and four thin sheets, each a different colour, with the letters S, T, M and O respectively on their 26 numbered squares. Those for females over 16 years had an extra page of X coupons which obviously concerned stockings. Each cover had a serial number, repeated on the pages, and there was regional variety in the colour of covers and in each area those for women over 16 years were distinct from the rest. There was as yet no indication of what else would be rationed besides sugar and stockings. The T page suggested tea, but what of M and O?

On 20 April people were told to register for sugar with their normal grocer: the heading of the S page, on which the customer's name and address were written, was cut out by the grocer, who wrote his own name and address inside the cover. On Monday 27 April 1942 rationing began very calmly, with 12 ounces of sugar per person per week, and for women one pair of fully fashioned stockings, silk, rayon or lisle, every three months. Clothing came next. In mid-May 1942 there were reports from Australia of frantic anticipation of clothes rationing, with queues disturbing traffic and shopping hours shortened to curb demand. There was wide approval of the suddenness of the announcement in New Zealand on Thursday 28 May that footwear, clothing and materials of all kinds would be rationed forthwith. As in Britain, there would be 52 clothing coupons for a year. During the next six months the 26 on the M sheet must suffice, and they could be used until 31 May 1943; a further 26 would be released towards the end of 1942.

On Monday 1 June, four days after clothes rationing began, tea was limited to eight ounces a calendar month per person; at first this applied to everyone except babies under six months who had no tea allowance, but from 1 November 1942 children under 10 were also excluded. As with sugar, there were caterers' allowances to tea shops and to hotels and boarding houses, which could claim the coupons of only regular boarders or persons staying a week or more. Factories, offices and shops acquired tea and sugar rations for morning and afternoon tea in porportion to their workers, while farmers were likewise entitled to extra tea and sugar for permanent and casual employees. The miners' custom of taking cold tea into the mine with their lunches led their unions to press for extra tea and sugar, and at the end of the year it was decreed that each miner should receive a quarterly permit for an extra half pound of tea and two and a half pounds of sugar. [364]

Tea was increased slightly on 1 November 1943 to 2oz a week, and remained so till its rationing ended on 31 May 1948. There were additional 4oz allowances in December 1942 and in March, April and December 1943. From 1 August 1946 people of 70 years and more received 4lb extra during each year. [365] For some people, particularly those living alone, 2oz of tea a week came close to deprivation, and some very weak tea was drunk, but friends and relatives often helped with savings or with surpluses scrounged from work. It should be remembered that tea was the ‘out-standing necessity of a New Zealander’, [366] with about 7lb a head, counting children, being used each year. [367] Coffee was much less a rival than it has since become. Coffee bars had only a few elegant prototypes in the main centres, [368] though some tea shops and restaurants served genuine coffee. There was no instant coffee at all, and few grocers sold beans as such. It was usually bought ready ground in jars or tins, sometimes mixed with chicory, as an advertisement proclaimed: ‘;Straight from the roaster to the sealed Vacuum Tin is the secret of the aroma and fine quality of Gregg's Club Coffee and Chicory’. [369] This mixture was also widely used in a liquid form as coffee essence, served with hot milk, notably in railway refreshment rooms and in milk bars, to the confusion and distaste of Americans.

Sugar rationing had more variations. The original 12oz per person per week became 31b per calendar month on 1 August 1942, and dropped to 2½lb during October and November, reverting to 3lb on 1 December. From 1 November 1943 to 18 March 1945 it was 3lb every four weeks (ie, 12oz a week); it was reduced by 20z weekly between 19 March and 30 September 1945, then returned to 12oz till domestic rationing ended on 27 August 1948. There were jam and marmalade-making extras, in 3lb issues: 6 in 1942; 12 in both 1943 and the following year; 9 yearly in 1945–47, 6 in 1948.

The ration was quite adequate for most households, especially where tea was not sweetened. Soldiers' cakes were not threatened, but women accustomed to keeping their tins well stocked with home-made cakes and biscuits had to change their ways, or their recipes. [370] The demand for pastrycooks' wares and shop biscuits increased but industrial supplies of sugar were reduced by half; this did not mean an immediate 50 per cent fall in volume, for the lines using most sugar were dropped first and icings vanished, but daily stocks sold out earlier and there was less variety.

In confectionary, chocolate for a while persisted while boiled sweets disappeared, and the popular penny lines, 20 sorts, were soon down to four. [371] At the same time the demand for sweets increased sharply. ‘People have gone quite mad,’ remarked a Christchurch retailer. ‘They don't seem to want to save their money at all.’ [372] He thought that as people could not buy clothes, etc, they were buying sweets instead, or compensating for less sugar in cooking. They also could have been getting what they could while sweets were about, knowing that they would soon be much scarcer. Servicemen, especially Americans, were keen buyers. Quotas were quickly exhausted, some confectionery shops having to close on three days a week. [273] Chocolate became a rarity and in 1943 there were few of the traditional Easter eggs. Some shops improvised paper-covered novelties, but the choice was limited and the prices hair-raising, stated the Auckland Star, a

Queen Street shop displayed ‘what is presumably a chocolate egg’ covered in tinselled paper, about the size of a duck egg, priced at 12 shillings. [374]

In many foods such as condensed milk, ice-cream, jam, jelly crystals and beer, sugar content was lessened or production decreased. Cake shops closed early [375] and soft drinks became very scarce. [376] The laconic notice in a Wellington shop: ‘No gum, no matches, no coca-cola, no cigarettes, no cheek’ [377] briefly suggests much frustration.

Clothes rationing, being fully expected, was well received, especially for its sudden application without an unseemly last scramble. Shopkeepers were relieved that it had begun while stocks were still sound, especially as some women, assuming that rationing presaged scarcity and keen to get the best of what was obtainable, bought heavily in the first day or two of everything from fashion wear to

Manchester goods and eiderdowns, even expensive but unrationed lines such as bedspreads and furnishing fabrics. [378]

As with tea and sugar, clothing coupons had to be cut from books by retailers, except for mail orders where they had to be fastened to slips showing the name and address of the sender. The numbers needed for each garment were published in trade lists, in newspapers, and on cardboard envelopes sold to protect the fragile ration books. For instance, from the yearly 52 coupons a man's three-piece suit took 16, an overcoat for a man or woman, boy or girl, took 12, a raincoat 8, a short coat, jacket or blazer 8, woollen slacks 5, jersey or cardigan 3, shirt or blouse 2, pyjamas or a nightdress 4, while boots and shoes varied according to size from 1 to 3 coupons; a woman's two-piece suit took 11, a fur coat 15, a dress 4, a long dress, dressing gown or housecoat 6; petticoat, slip or corset 3, bra, suspender belt or apron 1, gloves 2, school or woollen stockings 2. For children under 5 years an overcoat took 6 coupons, a jacket or dressing gown 3, rompers, playsuit, frock 2, shirts, shorts, cardigan, jersey, crawlers 1, bootees and gloves ½ a coupon. Material was graded by width so that as far as possible it required coupons equivalent to the garments it would produce. An ounce of wool took half a coupon. Coupons were transferable within a family and certified expectant mothers could claim an extra 26 coupons. The next- of-kin of prisoners-of-war could claim up to 15 a quarter, depending on the garments checked through the Red Cross, and servicemen in New Zealand received 15 coupons half-yearly for clothing not provided by the forces. For industrial clothing, departmental uniforms, overalls, smocks, nurses' uniforms, etc, there were special arrangements that did not encroach on private coupons. [379]

Household linen was rationed. Sheets required from 3½ to 5½ coupons, blankets from 2½ to 8, towels from ¼ to 1¼, all according to size; tea-towels took ½ and a pillowslip 1. In mid-June it was provided that couples married since rationing began could obtain 78 extra coupons, as could discharged servicemen married just before entering the forces and about to set up house. [380]

There was a wide assortment of unrationed goods, ranging from academic robes and ecclesiastical vestments to butter muslin, buckram, canvas, curtain net, curtains, babies' napkins and furnishing fabrics. Some of these took the edge off clothing problems: many an elegant, full-skirted housecoat or evening gown was made from mattress ticking, chintz, furnishing linen, cretonne or plush.

Clothing coupons were counted by retailers and sent into the Rationing Controller each month, while stocking coupons accompanied monthly hosiery returns. [381] In July 1942 widespread complaints that retailers were not taking coupons or taking fewer than prescribed caused the Rationing Controller to announce that inspecttors would be engaged at once with a view to prosecutions. [382] The first such prosecution was not made till June 1944 and was dismissed as trivial, the magistrate being satisfied that it was merely temporary forgetfulness while in friendly conversation with a police inspector. [383] Retailers were concerned lest unlicensed or itinerant sales might detract from their custom, and in July 1943 the police by chance found black-market sheets and materials to the value of £200 in a remote farm house on the Hauraki plains. [384] From time to time there were minor changes in ration values or in the non-rationed list, and there were special arrangements for sales. Originally, secondhand clothing was couponed, but this proved unsatisfactory and it was freed on 9 December 1942.

austerity christmas

After several months clothing retailers' associations expressed approval. The Christchurch body said in September 1942 that its introduction was wise. With rationing, fewer goods arriving and staff leaving for the armed forces or essential industry, the situation in shops was adjusting itself, and the public was more reasonable, easier to serve than ever before. [385] Some materials were still very scarce, notably in Manchester departments, in cotton goods, pyjama cloth and pyjamas. The New Zealand Drapers Federation in January 1943 said that, given the shipping position and shortage of imports, few firms would have remained in business without the coupon system. Rationing had not hindered record sales at Christmas and there seemed to be ample coupons for the stocks available. [386] In October 1943 the Wellington Retailers' Association reported that rationing was operating successfully, the New Zealand scheme as compared to some complicated overseas systems giving minimum inconvenience to traders. [387]

In the first days of June 1942 rumours that soap and cosmetics might be rationed caused a comical rush. Shopkeepers explained that soap shortage in a tallow-producing country was absurd and that most cosmetics were locally made from imported materials of which there was no foreseeable shortage. Some containers were becoming scarce but many lines were sold as refills and customers could help by returning jars and bottles. Such assurances did not check the crowds thronging the counters and defeating efforts to sell limited quantities. Hasty buyers snatched up soap of every quality, lipstick of every hue, face powders and all the adjuncts. Husbands were telephoned into urgent and awkward purchases of lipstick and powder, elderly women bought as much as a dozen girls would use in 12 months. An Evening Post article foresaw that some women might remember 1942 as ‘the year I bought all that carmine lipstick.’ [388]

In October 1942 new ration books were issued. Those for children under ten did not have tea coupons and their buff covers bore a large C; others had blue covers. At the same time a second set of clothing coupons, marked O in the old book, came into action, [389] while those in the new books were not available till June 1943; so for some months there were two books to keep in hand. From January 1943, to meet the needs of growing children, there was a supplementary issue of 26 clothing coupons for those between 5 and 17 years. [390] The new books of October 1942 had two mystery pages lettered E and F, each with an instruction, ‘Do nothing with this page until told what to do’. For F, instructions were never issued, but between July and October 1943 E coupons 1–12 could each be used along with a quarter of an ordinary clothing coupon to buy an ounce of knitting wool, other than baby wool which could be purchased only with expectant mothers' or infants' coupons. Scarce knitting wool, like stockings in 1941, was becoming the monopoly of those with leisure to shop, and the use of these coupons curbed their opportunities. [391] Subsequent books had coupons for wool.

The third set of books, issued in October 1943, contained A coupons, used for butter. [392] From then on books were graded by age-groups, marked on the buff covers: for those of 10 years and upwards there were full rations; no one under 10 received tea; those under 5 had half-sized meat rations, plus eggs; for babies under 6 months there were coupons for eggs, butter, sugar and extra clothing including baby wool, but not for meat.

Covers were now uniformly buff and, from the fourth series, issued in October 1944, carried large numbers, 4, 5, 6, 7; for the seventh and last book issued in October 1947, the near-square shape changed to a larger oblong.

When meat was rationed [393] in March 1944 separate sheets were issued and thereafter, in books 4 to 7, meat coupons bulked large. The books were thicker in pages and in texture. From October 1943 onward each lasted a year. Progressively they became more complicated. There were special coupons for household linen, for wool, for baby wool, for extra issues of tea and sugar. In several books there were spare pages ready should something else be rationed during the year. There were emergency counterfoils allowing occasional purchases of registered goods at other stores. There were separate sheets for hosiery, for the extra allowances of butter, sugar, eggs, tea for old people, young children, invalids, expectant mothers. During 1944 the rationing of eggs apart from long-standing priority arrangements became general. [394] From October 1945 eggs had their pages in ration books, and there were calendars giving the weekly and monthly allocations for eggs, meat, butter, sugar and tea printed on the back covers.

Rationing of clothes ceased at the end of 1947; of tea and sugar and meat during 1948—for tea, it finished 31 May; for sugar, for domestic use 27 August and for manufacturing 29 November; for meat, 27 September. Cream ceased to need a permit after 22 February 1950, butter on 4 June, and motor spirits finally on 31 May 1950. As each item was cleared there was a sense of relief, of being freed from a burden. In a surprisingly short time the limitations of rationing slipped out of consciousness, probably lingering less than did the comparable limitations imposed by poverty, because they were a community experience not an individual one. Many people, especially women, kept a ration book or two as souvenirs of the war, [395] some thinking to enlighten or impress their children or grandchildren.

[1] Baker, p. 416

[2] War History Narrative, ‘Petrol Rationing in New Zealand 1939–45’, pp. 11–12.

[3] These figures are from Payton-Smith, D. J., Oil, a Study of War-time Policy and Administration, p. 205. Sullivan, announcing the restrictions on 22 January, said that the govern ment aimed to save 30 per cent of normal consumption. For July Payton-Smith increases New Zealand's savings to one-third of pre-war use, whereas July instructions in New Zealand reduced existing rations by one-third. Any seeming discrepancies may be resolved in the following pages which give the 1940–5 changes as they occurred in gallons to the private motorist.

[4] Payton-Smith, pp. 41–2, 80, 203–6, 343–4, 349, 451

[5] A to J 1940, F–1, p. 15

[6] NZ Herald, 9 Mar 40, p. 12

[7] Baker, p. 417

[8] Evening Post, 1 Dec 39, p. 6

[9] Truth, 14 Feb 40, p. 1, charged that the government was concealing its need to save sterling funds under the cloak of patriotism

[10] Press, 23 Jan 40, P. 8

[11] Sullivan, Minister of Supply, said that he had heard of one farmer who had 100 44- gallon drums buried round his farm, and of others who had 20 or more. NZ Herald, 23 Jan 40, p. 6

[12] Otago Daily Times, 1 Feb 40, p. 8; NZ Herald, 1 Feb 40, p. 10

[13] Otago Daily Times, 14 Feb 40, p. 8

[14] NZ Herald, 10 Feb 40, p. 8

[15] Baker, p. 472; Evening Post, 12 Apr 40, p. 6

[16] Evening Post, 1 Jul 40, p. 8; 150 miles may have been optimistic

[17] NZ Herald, 3 Oct 40, p. 12

[18] Evening Post, 11 Jul 40, p. 13

[19] Dominion, 3 Jul 40, p. 11

[20] Evening Post, 18 Jul 40, p. 6

[21] NZ Observer, 4 Sep 40, p. 5

[22] Ibid., 25 Sep 40, p. 8

[23] Press, 15 Jul 40, p. 8

[24] Evening Post, 2, 5 Oct 40, pp. 8, 13; Payton-Smith, p. 205

[25] Evening Post, 13, 20, 29, 30, 31 Aug, 5 Sep 40, pp. 5, 4, 13, 5, 15, 6 & 10; editorials in Taranaki Daily News, 21 Aug 40, and Palmerston North Times, 4 Sep 40; NZ Herald, 7, 10 Sep, 4 Oct 40, pp. 13, 8, 9 (ad for petition); NZ Observer, 4, 25 Sep 40, pp. 5, 3 (cartoon). The retail price of petrol was 2 s 6 d a gallon in January 1940 and had risen to 2 s 8½ d by March 1942. NZ Herald, 27 Jan 40, p. 10; Dominion, 20 Mar 42, p. 4

[26] Press, 1 Nov 40, p. 8

[27] Evening Post, 3, 19 Dec 40, pp. 11, 8

[28] Dominion, 29 Apr 41, p. 6

[29] Press, 26 Apr 41, p. 8

[30] Ibid., 1 Aug 41, p. 8; Baker, p. 472

[31] NZ Herald, 26 Nov 41, p. 6

[32] Dominion, 9 Dec 41, p. 8

[33] Scholefield, Diary, 8, 11 Dec 41

[34] Press, 27 Jan 42, p. 6

[35] Ibid., 18, 20 Feb 42, pp. 4, 4

[36] Evening Post, 28 Feb 42, p. 8. For June the only ration was No 13's, held over from December, at half their face value.

[37] NZ Herald, 30 Oct 43, p. 6, 31 Jan, 28 Nov 44, pp. 2, 4; Auckland Star, 27 Nov 44, p. 6, 1 Feb 45, p. 6

[38] NZ Herald, 30 Oct 43, p. 6

[39] Dominion, 8 May 45, p. 4

[40] NZ Herald, 30 Jul 45, p. 4

[41] Ibid., 2, 21 Feb 40, pp. 8, 12; see p. 323

[42] Baker, p. 419

[43] Wanganui Herald, 16 Jul 40, p. 6

[44] NZ Herald, 7 Sep 40, p. 10

[45] Press, 22 Sep 41, p. 4

[46] Evening Post, 19 Dec 40, p. 10

[47] Press, 13 Sep 40, p. 8

[48] Dominion, 11 Jul 40, p. 9

[49] Evening Post, 28 Feb 42, p. 8; see also p. 322

[50] see p. 323

[51] Press, 15 May 42, p. 3

[52] A to J1943, H–40, pp. 2–3; Baker, pp. 419–20

[53] Evening Post, 11 Aug 42, p. 4

[54] Auckland Star, 22 Aug 42, p. 7

[55] Dominion, 31 Oct 42, p. 6

[56] Evening Post, 14 Aug 42, p. 4

[57] Auckland Star, 19 May 44, p. 6

[58] A to J1942, H–40, p. 2

[59] Ibid., 1943, 1944, 1945, all H–40, p. 1

[60] Truth, 16 Oct 40, p. 35

[61] Dominion, 13, 14 May 42, pp. 6, 6

[62] Press, 31 Aug 42, p. 3

[63] Dominion, 29 Feb 44, p. 6

[64] Ibid., 23 Oct 43, p. 7

[65] NZ Herald, 22 Dec 42, p. 2

[66] Ibid., 7 Sep 40, p. 13

[67] Ibid., 9 Aug 41, p. 10

[68] Dominion, 15 May 44, p. 8. H. S. S. Kyle told the House on 24 June 1942 that men in the air force had bottles to fit their hip pockets in which they cook a little home each night. NZPD, vol 261, p. 396

[69] Letter to author, 7 Oct 69

[70] Dominion, 28 Apr 44, p. 4 (1944/63)

[71] Auckland Star, 28 Feb 45, p. 7

[72] NZ Herald, 7 Sep 40, p. 13, describing a booklet produced by the Ministry of Supply;

Evening Post, 5 Oct 40, p. 10; Standard, 29 Jan 42, p. 2

[73] Auckland Star, 29 Jun, 6 Jul 40, pp.3, 15; Press, 10 Jul 40, p. 8; Dominion, 16 Jul 40, p. 3; Otago Daily Times, 18 Oct 40, p. 3

[74] Evening Post, 21 Sep 40, p. 10; Truth, 5 Mar 41, p. 13 (photo)

[75] NZ Herald, 20 Dec 41, p. 14, 6 Jan 42, p. 4; Standard, 26 Jan 42, p. 2

[76] NZ Herald, 21 Feb 42, p. 8

[77] Press, 12 Feb, 5 Mar 42, pp. 4, 6; NZ Herald, 7 Feb 44, p. 2. After February 1944 gas producers were prohibited on roads through the Waiotapu, Kaingaroa and Waipoua State Forests between 1 August and 30 April.

[78] Auckland Star, 11 Aug 42, p. 6

[79] A to J1943, H–40, p. 4

[80] Evening Post, 12 May 43, p. 3

[81] Ibid., 7 Aug 41, p. 10; Standard, 29 Jan 42, p. 2; Auckland Star, 11 Aug 42, p. 6

[82] NZ Herald, 23 Sep 42, p. 2

[83] Dominion, 20 Feb 42, p. 6; NZ Herald, 23 Feb 42, p. 6; Press, 27 Jan 42. p. 4

[84] Dominion, 8 Apr 44, p. 6

[85] Mrs Vida Stace, 28 Forest Road, Raumati South, to author, 17 Oct 69

[86] Mrs Sylvia M. Robinson, Birkdale, Auckland, to author, 23 Sep 69

[87] Letter to Cherry Raymond of NZ Woman's Weekly, 8 Sep 69

[88] Mrs V. M. Bullen to ibid., 19 Sep 69

[89] NZ Herald, 3 Feb 40, p. 15; Evening Post, 20 Apr 42, p. 4

[90] Nelson Evening Mail, 15, 28 May 40, pp. 4, 4; Evening Post, 10 Jul 40, p. 9, 20 Apr 42, p. 4; Press, 13 Jul 40, p. 10, 20 Apr, 18, 30 May 42, pp. 6, 4, 4; Auckland Star, 22 Apr, 31 Jul 42, pp. 6, 6

[91] Press, 16 Aug 40, p. 7

[92] Evening Post, 28 May 40, p. 9; Paper (General) Conrrol Notice, No 1942/126, 1 May 42

[93] Paper Manufacture and Sale Notice, No 1942/127, 1 May 42

[94] Wanganui Herald, 8 Aug 40, p. 6; Press, 14 Apr 41, p. 8

[95] Dominion, 14 Feb 41, p. 8

[96] Press, 30 Jul 41, p. 10

[97] Wanganui Herald, 18 Nov 42, p. 5

[98] Press, 26 Jan 43, p. 4, quoting from NZ National Review

[99] See chap 20

[100] NZ Herald, 21 Dec 40, p. 13

[101] Dominion, 7 Feb 41, p. 5; Evening Post, 10 May 41, p. 8

[102] NZ Herald, 3 Jul 41, p. 8

[103] Evening Post, 12 Jun 42, p. 4

[104] Ibid., 5 Nov 40, p. 8

[105] Press, 20 Sep 40, p. 7

[106] Otago Daily Times, 30 Oct 40, p, 6; Southland Times, 20 Jan 41, p. 4; NZ Herald, 24 Jan 41, p. 8, 12 Jun 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 18 Jun 42, p. 4

[107] Evening Post, 15 Apr 41, p. 6; NZ Herald, 26 Nov 41, p. 8

[108] Auckland Star, 10 May 41, p. 8

[109] Press, 24 Dec 41, p. 4

[110] NZ Herald, 12 Jun 42, p. 2

[111] Auckland Star, 3 Aug 42, p. 5

[112] Press, 27 Nov 42, p. 6

[113] Auckland Star, 13 Oct 42, p. 2

[114] Ibid., 26 Feb 43, p. 4 (photo)

[115] Ibid., 3 Aug 42, p. 5

[116] NZPD, vol 253, p. 480. In 1941 Nash said that production was 250 000 dozen pairs. see p. 760

[117] Press, 5 Dec 40, p. 10

[118] NZ Herald, 7, 21 Dec 40, pp. 10 & 15, 10

[119] Press, 7 Dec 40, p. 12

[120] Ibid., 11 Dec 40, p. 10; NZ Herald, 14 Dec 40, p. 10; Taranaki Daily News, 11 Feb 41, p. 8

[121] Dominion, 11 Feb 41, p. 10

[122] Craccum, 28 Feb 45

[123] Auckland Star, 20 Mar 42, p. 3

[124] To wear stuff made in a hostile country, just for the sake of luxury, was rank disloyalty to England. Japan was a potential enemy, awaiting a favourable opportunity to attack, and buying Japanese stockings would be sending a donation to the Mikado for war purposes. NZ Woman's Weekly, 20 Feb 41, p. 1

[125] Ibid.

[126] Evening Post, 18 Jan 41, p. 15; NZ Herald, 17 Dec 41, p. 11

[127] eg, Dominion, 7 Oct 41, p. 8

[128] NZ Woman's Weekly, 25 Sep 41, p. 1

[129] Davies, Very Rev David Jones (1891–1974): b Wales, to NZ 1924; Anglican, Curate

Gisborne 1924, Vicar Opunake etc 1927–38; Hon Canon 1937, Dean 1948, Wellington

[130] Evening Post, 9 Sep 41, p. 9

[131] Auckland Star, 7 Aug 41, p. 4; NZ Herald, 8 Oct 41, p. 6; NZPD, vol 259, p. 734, vol 260, pp. 980–2

[132] NZ Herald, 22 Oct 41, p. 6

[133] Ibid., 31 Oct 41, p. 8

[134] Evening Post, 7, 9 Aug. 6 Sep 41, pp.8, 11, 8; Press, 9 Oct 41, p. 8 (letter), 22 Jan 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 8 Aug, 8 Nov 41, pp. 8, 10

[135] NZPD, vol 260, p. 981

[136] NZ Woman's Weekly, 26 Nov 41, p. 6, 4 Feb 42, p. 6

[137] Dominion, 27 Feb 42, p. 6

[138] NZ Herald, 29 Apr 42, p. 6

[139] Ibid., 17 Jul 42, p. 2

[140] Lyons, Hon Dame Enid, GBE(37): wife Rt Hon Joseph Aloysius Lyons, PM Aust from 1932; 1st woman MHR (Darwm 1943–51); 1st woman member Federal Cab; newspaper columnist 1951–4

[141] NZ Herald, 17 Mar 44, p. 2

[142] Ibid., 17 Jul 42, p. 2; Evening Star, 26 Jan 43, p. 2

[143] Press, 14 Jul 42, p. 3; Auckland Star, 22 Jul 42, p. 3

[144] Mrs H. D. Mitchell of Hastings to author, 9 Sep 69

[145] NZ Herald, 15 Mar 44, p. 4

[146] Press, 22 Mar 41, p. 10

[147] NZ Herald, 15 Mar 41, p. 10

[148] Star–Sun, 10 Apr 41, p. 5

[149] Evening Post, 15 Apr 41, p. 6

[150] Press, 20 Jun 41, p. 6; Auckland Star, 6 Nov 42, p. 2

[151] NZ Herald, 29 Apr 41, p. 6; 1 Jun 42, p. 4; Press, 4 Mar 43, p. 6; Dominion, 8 Apr, 2 Nov 44, pp. 4, 9 (ad)

[152] NZ Herald, 17 Apr 41, p. 8

[153] Auckland Star, 15 Jul 41, p. 2; NZ Herald, 21 Jan 42, p. 8

[154] Statement by manufacturers in Straight Furrow, 15 Dec 43, p. 65

[155] NZ Herald, 17 Oct 41, p. 8

[156] Evening Post, 2 Jul 41, p. 9

[157] Ibid., 4 Jul 41, p. 7

[158] NZPD, vol 261, p. 433

[159] NZ Herald, 31 Oct 41, p. 6; Dominion, 5 Feb, 29 Oct 42, pp. 3, 3; Auckland Star. 3 Dec 42, p. 6

[160] Evening Post, 18 Nov 41, p. 8; Star–Sun, 1 Apr 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 8 May 43, p. 4

[161] Evening Post, 15 Apr 41, p. 6

[162] Auckland Star, 11 Dec 42, p. 4

[163] Dominion, 24 Nov 43, p. 6, 8 Mar 44, p. 4

[164] Auckland Star, 4 May 44, p. 4

[165] Dominion, 24 Jan 42, p. 6, 28 Jul 43, p. 4

[166] Auckland Star, 10 Oct 44, p. 5

[167] Ibid., 10 Mar 42, p. 6

[168] Press, 13 Jan 42, p. 7; Auckland Star, 10 Mar 42, p. 6

[169] Otago Daily Times, 29 Oct 41, p. 4; Star–Sun, 2 Apr 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 14 Oct 42, p. 2

[170] Auckland Star, 30 Oct, 4 Dec 42, pp. 2, 4

[171] NZ Herald, 6, 17 Jul 42, pp. 2, 2, 9 Feb 44, p. 4; see p. 735

[172] Evening Post, 27 Jun, 25 Jul 42, pp. 4, 4

[173] NZ Herald, 14, 16 May 42, pp. 4, 9

[174] Evening Post, 24 Apr 42, p. 4; NZ Gazette, 23 Apr 42, p. 1166

[175] Evening Post, 22 Apr 42, p. 4; NZ Gazette, 9 Apr 42, p. 976

[176] NZ Herald, 29 May, 17 Jun, 25 Sep 42, pp. 2, 2, 2; Auckland Star, 30 Sep, 17 Dec 42, pp. 4, 2; Press, 25 Jul 42, p. 6

[177] Dominion, 26 Oct 42, p. 4

[178] Auckland Star, 15 Oct 42, p. 6

[179] Dominion, 16 Nov 42, p. 3; Press, 14 Jul 42, p. 6, 25 Jan 43, p. 4; Auckland Star, 2 Mar 43, p. 2

[180] Auckland Star, 14 Dec 42, p. 2, 9 Apr, 11 Nov 43, pp. 2, 4

[181] Evening Post, 5 May 43, p. 4; Dominion, 7 Jul 44, p. 4

[182] Auckland Star, 7 Apr 43, p. 2

[183] Dominion, 24 Jul 43, p. 6

[184] Evening Post, 16 Jul 43, p. 3

[185] Press, 20 Sep 41, p. 10

[186] Ibid., 22 Jan 43, p. 4; Dominion, 7 Jun 45, p. 6

[187] Press, 18 Sep 41, p. 4

[188] Auckland Star, 6 Jan 43, p. 5. The dog population of Auckland city was then estimated at between 4500 and 5000.

[189] NZ Herald, 7 May 41, p. 10

[190] Otago Daily Times, 26 Mar 40, p. 7; Auckland Star, 30 Jul 42, p. 4

[191] NZ Herald, 7 May 41, p. 10; A to J1942, H–11, p. 2

[192] Press, 19 Nov 42, p. 6

[193] NZ Herald, 12 Dec 41, p. 9; see p. 329

[194] Evening Post, 25 Mar 42, p. 6

[195] eg, NZ Nursing Journal, Jan 42; Palmerston North Times, 3 Fep 42, p. 3; Dominion, 11 Mar, 7 Apr 42, pp. 3, 2

[196] Mrs Eunice Robinson of Miramar, Wellington, to author, 14 Sep 69

[197] Auckland Star, 27 Jan, 17 Nov 43, pp. 2, 2

[198] Moore, Lucy Beatrice, MBE(′59): b 1906; DSIR botanist from 1938

[199] Press, 19 Dec 41, p. 6

[200] Auckland Star, 16 Jan 42, p. 2, 9 Feb 43, p. 2; Education Gazette, Jun 42, pp. 136–7; Press, 20 Nov 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 29 Oct 42, p. 5, 19 Apr 43, p. 2;

Evening Post, 11 Dec 72, p. 29 (article by Nancy M. Adams)

[201] Press, 11 Sep 42, p. 4

[202] Southland Times, 20 Jun 41, p. 4; Dominion, 10 Dec 41, p. 6

[203] Wanganui Herald, 18 Sep 40, p. 4

[204] A. W. B. Powell, in Auckland Star, 2 Dec 42, p. 2. see p. 808

[205] Press, 22 Jan 43, p. 4

[206] Before the outbreak of war a move was made to further both tobacco growing and cigarette manufacture in New Zealand. This was accelerated during the war when importation of manufactured cigarettes was progressively curtailed and the percentage of locally grown leaf in cigarettes increased (30% in 1938–40, 35% for the next 3 years, 40% for 1944–6). Production of cigarettes doubled from 600 million a year in the years 1938–40 to 1200 million a year from 1944 to 1946. Baker, pp. 173–4

[207] Union Record, 1 Jul 43; NZ Herald, 21 Feb, 3 Mar 44, pp. 2, 2

[208] see p. 1095

[209] Otago Daily Times, 13 Jul 40, p. 12; Wanganui Herald, 16 Jul 40, p. 9

[210] Dominion, 12 Feb 42, p. 6

[211] NZ Herald, 14 Apr 42, p. 2; Auckland Star, 7 Sep 42, p. 4; Dominion, 10 Jul 43, p. 6;

Press, 27 Sep 43, p. 4

[212] Baker, p. 140; Evening Post, 8 Feb 41, p. 8; Otago Daily Times, 15 Jan 41, p. 6

[213] Evening Post, 4 May 42, p. 4

[214] Baker, p. 140

[215] Auckland Star, 28 Aug 42, p. 2, quoting Radiator, journal of the motor trade

[216] Press, 30 Jun 42, p. 4

[217] see p. 748

[218] Star–Sun, 15 Jun 42, p. 4

[219] Evening Post, 21, 25 Jul 42, pp. 4, 6

[220] Auckland Star, 1 Sep 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 11 Sep 42, p. 2

[221] see p. 750

[222] NZ Herald, 2 Apr 42, p. 6

[223] Ibid., 30 May, 28 Jul 42, pp. 6, 2; Evening Post, 25 Jun, 10, 11 Sep 42, pp. 4, 3, 3

[224] Evening Post, 20 Aug 42, p. 4

[225] NZ Herald, 2 Sep 42, p. 2

[226] Press, 21 Dec 42, p. 4

[227] A to J1943, H–40, p. 1

[228] In Auckland's eastern suburbs 20 were eliminated, leaving 80 on all routes in the area.

Auckland Star, 31 Jul 42, p. 4

[229] NZ Herald, 8 Sep 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 8 Sep 43, p. 3; Dominion, 5 Nov 43, p. 8

[230] Baker, p. 465

[231] Evening Post, 15 Jun 42, p. 4

[232] Auckland Star, 31 Jul, 7 Aug 42, pp. 6, 4

[233] Ibid., 18 Dec 42, p. 2

[234] Press, 1 Nov 43, p. 4

[235] Ibid., 17 Nov 43, p. 2

[236] Evening Star, 9 Jan 43, p. 2

[237] Evening Post, 4 Sep 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 15 Aug 42, p. 3

[238] Dominion, 19, 24, 27 Oct 42, pp. 4, 6, 4; Press, 16 Feb 43, p. 4

[239] Baker, p. 145

[240] Ibid., p. 151

[241] Star–Sun, 20 Feb 42, p. 1

[242] Press, 20 Jun 42, p. 4

[243] Ibid., 11 Sep 42, p. 4

[244] Auckland Star, 25 Mar 43, p. 4

[245] Ibid., 7 Apr 43, p. 4; Straight Furrow, 15 Sep, 15 Nov 43, pp. 51 19; Press, 2 Nov 43, p. 4

[246] Auckland Star, 11 Jun 43, p. 3

[247] NZ Herald, 26 Apr 44, p. 4; Baker, p. 151

[248] NZ Herald, 4, 10 Apr 44, pp. 6, 2

[249] Ibid., 22 May 44, p. 2

[250] Mrs R. G. Spooner of Opotiki to author, 15 Sep 69

[251] Star–Sun, 15 Jul 40, p. 4; Wanganui Herald, 13 Jul, 14 Aug 40, pp. 6, 6

[252] Dominion, 8 May 41, p. 8

[253] Evening Post, 2 May 42, p. 6

[254] NZPD, vol 261, p. 433. The sum of 7 s 6 d was the consultation fee.

[255] Evening Post, 25 Jun 42, p. 7

[256] Press, 17 Jun 42, p. 4

[257] Ibid., 27 Aug. 42, p. 7

[258] Auckland Star, 21 Apr 43, p. 4

[259] NZ Herald, 24 Jul 43, p. 6

[260] Ibid., 25 Mar 44, p. 2

[261] Mrs Eunice Robinson, 14 Sep 69

[262] Auckland Star, 21 Apr 43, p. 2

[263] Ibid., 1 Aug 42, p. 3

[264] Ibid., 1 May 44, p. 4

[265] To the question ‘Do all women wear corsets?’, a corset manufacturer, in a military service appeal for a male cutter on the grounds of public interest, answered, ‘Yes they all wear some type.’ But the appeal was thrown out. Dominion, 14 Mar 41, p. 9; see p. 759

[266] Dominion, 22 Oct 42, p. 3 (ad). A ‘tea rose corselette with dainty lace uplift brassiere’ cost 25-s; a heavy quality elastic corset, 22 s 6 d; a tea rose elastic roll-on corset, 14 s 11 d; aertex elastic panties 14 inches long, 8 s 6 d.

[267] Evening Post, 31 Aug 42, p. 6

[268] Dominion, 17 Nov 42, p. 6

[269] Press, 4 Oct 43, p. 2

[270] Straight Furrow, 15 Sep 43, p. 65; Dominion, 6 Nov 44, p. 8

[271] NZ Woman's Weekly, 25 Nov 43, p. 20

[272] Evening Star, 2 Mar 43, p. 6

[273] See p. 564

[274] Press, 24 Feb 43, p. 2

[275] Ibid., 5 Jul 43, p. 4

[276] NZ Herald, 23 Sep 44, p. 8

[277] Honey Emergency Regulation 1942/331; Dominion, 10, 11 Dec 42, pp. 4, 4; NZPD, vol 263, p. 408

[278] eg, Dominion, 16 Dec 42, p. 6

[279] NZPD, vol 263, pp. 428, 531, 603; Press, 30 Jul 43, p. 4

[280] Honey Emergency Regulations 1943/200

[281] Ibid., 1944/163

[282] Press, 17 Jul 40, p. 4; Otago Daily Times, 15 Jan 41, p. 8

[283] NZPD, vol 262, p. 908

[284] Evening Post, 30 Apr 42, p. 7; NZ Herald, 1 May 42, p. 7; Auckland Star, 11 Jun 42, p. 4; Evening Star, 20 Jun 42, p. 5; Dominion, 22 Oct 43, p. 3; Press, 22 Oct 43, p. 6;

NZPD, vol 263, p. 67

[285] Egg Marketing Regulations 1940/146

[286] Dominion, 10 Jun 42, p. 6

[287] Ibid., 2 May 42, p. 6

[288] Evening Post, 13 Jun 42, p. 4

[289] Ibid., p. 7

[290] Egg Marketing Regulations 1942/179; Evening Post, 19 Jun 42, p. 5

[291] Dominion, 4 Nov 42, p. 6

[292] Ibid., 22 Dec 42, p. 6. On the same page a correspondent wrote that lately in Palmerston North she had bought three dozen eggs, and could have bought twice as many.

[293] Auckland Star, 3 Dec 42, p. 4

[294] NZ Herald, 26 Sep 42, p. 2

[295] Egg Marketing Emergency Regulations, 1943/87 and 1943/88

[296] Ibid., 1944/49

[297] Dominion, 15, 18 Mar 44, pp. 4, 6; Press, 2, 24 May 44, pp. 4, 6

[298] Press, 1 Jun 44, p. 4

[299] Ibid., 3 May 44, p. 2

[300] Yearbook1940, p. 439. A market garden was a holding of an acre or more, outside boroughs.

[301] Ibid., p. 434; 1943, p. 268; WHN, ‘Department of Agriculture’, p. 170

[302] Otago Daily Times, 29 Nov 41, p. 8

[303] Evening Post, 9 Jan 42, p. 4

[304] NZ Herald, 22 Sep 42, p. 2

[305] Ibid., 13 Jun 42, p. 8; Evening Post, 1 Sep 42, p. 3; Auckland Star, 10 Sep 42, p. 2

[306] Auckland Star, 22 Aug, 10 Sep 42, pp. 7, 2; A to J1945, H–30A, p. 8; Baker, p. 463

[307] A Whangarei proposal to use sprouts (rose ends) from the peelings at camps, hotels, hospitals, etc, for seed purposes suggested that a good deal of this ration was pared off.

Auckland Star, 25 Aug 42, p. 4; Evening Post, 13 Aug 42, p. 3

[308] Barclay, Hon James Gillispie (1882–1972): former farmer, Dir Northern Wairoa Dairy Co 6 years, Pres Kaipara Branch Lab party; MP (Lab) Kaipara 1935–43; Min Agriculture, Marketing & Lands 1941–3; HC Aust 1944–50

[309] NZ Herald, 24 Aug 42, p. 4

[310] A to J1945, H–30A, p. 8

[311] Evening Post, 22 Jan 43, p. 4

[312] NZ Herald, 26 May, 20 Aug 42, pp. 2, 2

[313] See Baker, pp. 218, 463

[314] At the same time commercial gardens totalled 9100 acres. Ross, Wartime Agriculture, p. 278

[315] The Dominion, 6 Oct 42, p. 4, reported that 25 volunteers with an officer, NCOs and a cook were planting onions in the Pukekohe district

[316] Statement by Barclay, Press, 19 Jan 43, p. 4

[317] Evening Post, 12 Mar 43, p. 3

[318] Auckland Star, 29 Nov 43, p. 4

[319] Ibid., 7 Dec 42, p. 2; NZ Herald, 23 Nov 43, p. 4

[320] WHN, ‘Department of Agriculture’, p. 209; Ross, Wartime Agriculture, p. 278

[321] A to J1946, H–30A (1945 Report), p. 23; Auckland Star, 6 Sep 44, p. 6

[322] A to J1946, H–29, pp. 42–3

[323] Ross, Wartime Agriculture, p. 278

[324] Baker, p. 218

[325] Ibid., p. 463; Auckland Star, 6 Mar 43, p. 7

[326] Auckland Star, 26 May 42, p. 4

[327] Barclay in NZ Herald, 20 Apr 42, p. 2; see p. 1070

[328] Press, 30 Jan 42, p. 4; Dominion, 6 May, 11 Jun, 22 Oct 42, pp. 6, 8, 4, 3 Aug, 13 Sep 43, pp. 4, 4; Evening Post, 31 Jul 43, p. 4; Auckland Star, 25 Oct 43, p. 2

[329] NZ Herald, 30 Jul 42, p. 2; NZ Woman's Weekly, 6 Aug 42, p. 12

[330] NZ Herald, 11 Nov 42, p. 2; Auckland Star, 14 Jan 43, p. 3

[331] see p. 1141

[332] Auckland Star, 23 Feb 43, p. 6

[333] Evening Post, 1, 10, 16, 21, 27 Jul, 12 Aug 43, pp. 4, 7, 5, 3, 4, 4

[334] Ibid., 15 Sep 43, p. 6

[335] Dominion, 9 Dec 44, p. 4

[337] NZ Herald, 3 Jul 42, p. 2

[338] Auckland Star, 24 Jul, 5 Aug, 42, pp. 6, 6

[339] NZ Herald, 27, 28 May 43, pp. 2, 2

[340] Ibid., 5 Jun 43, p. 8

[336] Evening Post, 15 Jun 42, p. 6

[341] Evening Post, 2 Jul 43, p. 3

[342] Ibid.

[343] Ibid.; see also p. 1234

[344] Yearbook1950, p. 896

[345] Dominion, 3 Aug 43, p. 2

[346] NZ Herald, 25 Sep 42, p. 6

[347] Auckland Star, 31 Jul 41, p. 5

[348] NZ Herald, 30 Dec 42, p. 2

[349] Auckland Star, 15 Dec 42, p. 4

[350] NZ Herald, 14 Oct 42, p. 2 ( Auckland); Evening Post, 23 Jan 42, p. 4 ( Wellington);

Auckland Star, 27 Jan 42, p. 4 ( Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington), 7 Nov 42, p. 6 (Hastings); Dominion, 2 Jul 43, p. 4

[351] Auckland Star, 27 Jan 42, p. 3

[352] NZ Herald, 14 Oct 42, p. 2

[353] Auckland Star, 10 Feb, 10 Mar 42, pp.6, 7

[354] NZ Herald, 2 Mar, 14 Oct 42, pp. 4, 2

[355] Auckland Star, 24 Dec 43, p. 3

[356] Dominion, 29 Jan 43, p. 4

[357] Auckland Star, 15 Jan 42, p. 4

[358] Ibid., 9 Mar 43, p. 2

[359] Press, 10, 11 Dec 41, pp.6, 6; Evening Post, 13 Dec 41, p. 8, 19 Jan 42, p. 6;

NZ Herald, 10, 12, 14, 20 Jan 42, pp. 6, 4, 8, 4; Auckland Star, 15, 19 Jan 42, pp. 10, 6

[360] NZPD, vol 261, p. 686; see also pp. 921, 946ff

[361] NZPD, vol 261, p. 61

[362] NZ Herald, 8 Apr 42, p. 4; Evening Post, 9 Apr, 2 May 42, pp. 7, 4

[363] Press, 11, 15, 21 Apr 42, pp. 4, 3, 4; NZ Herald, 13, 14, 18, 23 Apr 42, pp. 4, 2 (photo), 8, 9

[364] Press, 21 Dec 42, p. 4

[365] Yearbook1950, p. 828

[366] NZ Herald, 2 Apr 42, p. 8

[367] Yearbook1940, p. 887

[368] eg, Blake's Inn at Auckland, the French Maid in Wellington

[369] Evening Post, 8 Jun 42, p. 3

[370] Honey and golden syrup when available eked out pleasantly

[371] NZ Herald, 10 Jun 42, p. 2

[372] Press, 18 Jun 42, p. 4

[273] Dominion, 27 Oct, 6 Nov 42, pp. 4, 4

[374] Auckland Star, 22 Apr 42, p. 2

[375] NZ Herald, 16 Oct 42, p. 2

[376] Evening Post, 20 Jul 42, p. 2 (ad); Dominion, 30 Nov 42, p. 4

[377] Auckland Star, 26 Aug 44, p. 4

[378] NZ Herald, 1, 2 Jun 42, pp. 4, 4

[379] Official 16-page booklet of clothes tationing instructions; coverless copy in author's possession

[380] NZ Herald, 18 Jun 42, p. 2

[381] Auckland Star, 5 Sep 42, p. 6

[382] Press, 10 Jul 42, p. 4

[383] Evening Post, 15 Jun 44, p. 4

[384] Press, 6 Jul 43, p. 3

[385] Ibid., 11 Sep 42, p. 4

[386] Evening Post, 23 Jan 43, p. 4

[387] Dominion, 22 Oct 43, p. 6

[388] Evening Post, 6 Jun 42, p. 6; NZ Herald, 3, 8, 9 Jun 42, pp. 2, 2, 2; Press, 6 Jun 42, p. 4; Evening Star, 17 Jun 42, p. 8

[389] see p. 790

[390] Auckland Star, 17 Oct 42, p. 6

[391] Press, 7 Jul 43, p. 2

[392] see p. 813

[393] see p. 828

[394] see p. 778

[395] When the NZ Woman's Weekly, 8 Sep 69, published for the author an article headed ‘Have you a World War II ration book?’, a veritable rain of books poured in

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 17 — More Shortages

CHAPTER 17
More Shortages

IF men and rubber were the outstanding shortages in 1942 and 1943, housing was probably the most intrusive from 1943 onwards. Building, severely reduced during the Depression, was brisk in pre-war years and continued strongly for almost two years into the war; good cheap homes for workers were a major target of the Labour government. Its housing scheme, begun in 1937, produced thousands of sturdy houses. They were roofed with tiles to promote local industry and save overseas funds and were placed sometimes in large groups in outlying suburbs, sometimes on small pockets of land available amid other development. They were built by private builders under contract to the Housing Division (part of the State Advances Corporation until 1944, then transferred to the Public Works Department), which bought the land and designed the houses. There were two, three and four unit dwellings as well as single ones and, in the cities, a few blocks of flats. The units each had two or three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and laundry; single houses had a living room, usually a meal alcove off the kitchen and two to four bedrooms. They were not for sale but were leased by the State Advances Corporation. Rents, starting at 12 s 6 d a week in a four-unit dwelling, varied according to room space, from 26 s for a standard four-roomed house up to 32. s. Details were standardised and general appearance was fairly uniform, but care was taken not to make this too obvious: there were about 300 type plans in use and individual houses in each group were different. [1]

The government held that the war did not lessen the need for houses, rather that it was an added reason for them; the shortage after the last war had been a tragedy. The State scheme would close down only if this would help to beat Hitler. [2] For the first two years of the war, house building continued buoyantly. During 1937–8 399 State dwellings were completed; 2665 in 1938–9, 3395 in 1939–40, 3966 in 1940–1, 3208 in 1941–2. [3] At the outset, materials were plentiful and heavy defence construction demands did not suspend civilian building. [4]

Costs of private building soon began to rise but not prohibitively: in May 1941 some Auckland architects gave the average current cost as 22 s 6 d a square foot compared to 20 s before the war. There was ‘keen demand for a good type of house’. Some cost between £2,000 and £4,000, but the majority cost less than £2,000. In those of larger size there was a tendency to prefer the ‘Georgian period of architecture’ to strictly modern design, and Auckland appeared to be evolving a home which could be described as English domestic, with larger windows appropriate to the climate. Modernistic planning appeared most often in houses of medium size and cost, their streamlined effects achieved with concealed roofs and rounded bays and sun porches. Stucco finish had been improved and was expected to lessen both fire risk and painting while promoting new ideas in construction. The trend towards simplicity helped to offset diminishing supplies of imported materials: ceilings were plain, there were flush doors, and often one-colour interior paint and paper schemes— cream was very popular and correct. There were many built-in cupboards, sometimes built-in dressing-tables and tallboys, even beds. Many roofs were tiled, and local factories were producing baths, sinks and other fittings of good quality but limited design. [5] Among the informed, new ideas were arriving and people were becoming more critical of house design. A European architect wrote: ‘The modern house has arrived, though sometimes not at its best. As everywhere else, the first superficial approach towards modern housing seems satisfied with a flat roof instead of a tilted roof and windows a bit larger than previously.’ [6]

During 1941 shortages began to pinch. In mid-June the Director of Housing (G. W. Albertson) said that shortage of material was not sufficient to have a pronounced effect on the building programme, but shortage of labour was troubling contractors throughout the country and was most noticeable at Auckland and

Wellington; 4300 men were employed on State houses in place of 6000 two months earlier. Since January, as Building Controller, he had faced the task of supervising the distribution of labour and materials to ensure priorities: defence, primary production, factories making articles that could not be imported, hospitals, housing. It was necessary to obtain his consent for the erection of any building which would cost £2,000 or use more than half a ton of steel. [7] By the end of the year a number of houses could not be finished for lack of items such as electrical cables and equipment, baths and piping. [8]

With Japan's entry, defence construction thrust all other demands aside. Local bodies now had to submit every building application to the Building Controller, who from 1 June 1942 was supported by an active committee and numerous sub-committees. [9] Electric cables were acutely short. [10] Labour for private building was unobtainable, and from mid-April State housing contracts, which had already slowed very much, were suspended. [11] Towards the end of the year the exclusion of labour from private building, alterations and repairs was eased slightly in some areas, including Auckland, [12] but in the Wellington–Wairarapa area the earthquakes of 24 June, 2 August and 3 December 1942 were a further cause of diversion and delay. Thousands of chimneys were wrecked and roofs damaged, cracks in some city buildings called for complicated and extensive repairs, while from some apparently sound buildings parapets were removed.

Meanwhile, full employment with higher wages and overtime meant increased demand for existing houses. In 1942 the shortage was officially estimated as 20 000. [13] Workers came to the cities for war jobs, wives came to be near their husbands in camps. With prices rising and expected to rise still further, house buying was both a sound investment and a tempting speculation, though rent controls curbed quick fortune-making to some extent. [14] At Wellington, where sites were limited, building costs high and where government employees had multiplied rapidly during the past few years, the demand was particularly strong. As early as February 1941, a Wellington land agent stated that flats had come to stay, that but for the Fair Rents Act [15] land agents could sell 70 per cent more houses than they were selling and that low deposits of £200 or £300 were becoming scarce. [16] In November 1941, an agent declared, ‘We are not facing a first-class housing crisis. We are past that stage’; another spoke of an avalanche of buyers and of house dealers buying for cash, renovating cheaply and making £400 to £500 on each deal. [17]

In July 1942, another agent said that if he had them, he could let 30 houses or flats in two or three hours, a state of affairs which he feared was going to be chronic. [18] Already, those concerned with the rehabilitation of servicemen were troubled by the gap of several hundred pounds between the value of a house and its inflated ‘scarcity value’. [19]

At Auckland in May 1942 there was talk of a boom; land agents for several weeks had been exceptionally busy and house values were rising. A suburban home, which 12 months earlier would have changed hands at £1,300, sold for £1,525 within 24 hours of being placed on the market; a house sold by the builder for £1,750 was sold again six weeks later for £2,500. There were many cash sales and otherwise the minimum deposit was often one-third of the purchase price. [20] In Dunedin sales were brisk, with houses long regarded as unsaleable changing hands. [21] At New Plymouth, prices which 12 months earlier would have been far too high were paid without hesitation; 60 persons had applied to rent one house; 46 wanted a small house at £1 5 s a week, 16 applied for another at £2 2 s a week. [22]

By 1943 the Auckland boom was called ‘fantastic’. Houses a few years old were selling at 50 per cent above their 1940 price. One, built for £2,000 in 1936 on a £725 section, sold for more than £5,000; for another, which cost £1,600 to build on a £400 section, a £4,000 offer was rejected. The big money was along the eastern waterfront and the hills above—St Heliers, Mission Bay, Kohimarama, parts of Orakei and Remuera—but substantial margins were paid in other districts also. [23] At the same time an agent recorded 300 applications for half a house (three rooms and use of a kitchenette), some offering a £20 bonus; another agent said that he had not had a house to let for nearly a year. [24] There were many complaints of houses inadequately converted for rooming, and of over-high rents: for example, two rooms, a kitchenette and shared conveniences cost from £2 5 s to £3 10 s a week; [25] an airman on £9 a week paid £3 16 s for a flat for his wife and two children [26] and a serviceman's wife with two children and a third expected paid 22 s 6 d for one room. [27]

The Fair Rents Act of mid-1936 affected only dwellings let between 27 November 1935 and the date of its passage and it did not apply where rent exceeded £156 a year. It held rents to those payable at 1 May 1936; change was achieved through landlord or tenant appealing to a magistrate. In 1939 it was extended to flats and apartments. [28] In October 1942 a further extension tried to close avenues of exploitation. For every house or part thereof let as a separate dwelling, the basic rent was that paid on 1 September 1942 and for those let for the first time after that date it was the amount first paid. Rents could be raised only by appeal to a magistrate or by agreement, approved by a factory inspector, between landlord and tenant. It became an offence to refuse a would-be tenant because he or she had children. [29] However, the Act did not apply to rents that included payment for food, such as a breakfast tray. This exposed many of the poorly paid to exploitation: for example, an apprentice paid 30 s for a bed and morning tray in a room with eight beds. [30] Returning soldiers, single men, found that many boarding houses had changed expensively into bed-and-breakfast establishments. [31]

Overcharging was linked with overcrowding. Background standards were not high. Traditionally, many workers in rural areas were used to fairly primitive accommodation and in town many lived in cheap houses built by speculators. Again by tradition, each family desired its own house. Flats were a relatively new conception; they had not been built extensively and were mainly in small blocks. Rooms with meals included were often let, mainly to single persons. There were many boarding houses taking permanent guests at fairly modest rates. Sub-division into agreeable flats of larger, older houses, where families had shrunk and servants departed, was going on modestly. But the biggest pressure for housing came from people who could not afford such accommodation. For them, subdivision often involved merely the installation of a stove, cooker or gas ring in the general kitchen, in the rented room itself or in a hall, passage, landing or laundry. Some owners and tenants let a room or rooms, nominally as separate apartments, with common use of totally inadequate cooking, bathroom, lavatory and washing facilities. Very high rentals were obtained from the cumulative effects of sub-letting. [32]

This situation was well established long before the war. In 1935 the Housing Survey Act was passed as a preliminary to planned reform. Local authorities in all boroughs and town districts with populations of not less than 1000, two suburban Road Boards, and any other authority named by the Governor-General in Council, were required to make housing surveys. By March 1939 these had been made in 115 of the 119 areas concerned and they covered 225 363 dwellings where 901 353 people lived. Of buildings used as dwellings, 31 663 were classed as unsatisfactory but repairable; 6827 were totally unsatisfactory. In 23 768 dwelling units equipment was only partly satisfactory, totally unsatisfactory in 20 096. There were 9835 overcrowded dwellings with 14 761 surplus persons in them, surplus in terms of the rooms and space occupied. In 27 214 dwellings accommodation below the defined minimum standard was provided for 68 405 surplus persons. [33]

During the Depression many people had perforce accepted deplorable conditions. With the war, although money was more plentiful, the housing shortage intensified. A number of city boarding houses were closed, being taken over by the government as Service, Fire Service or departmental hostels. [34] Shortage of manpower and building materials made renovations more difficult. People, realising that there was no alternative, simply packed in.

‘Under existing by-laws’, stated an article in the Dominion in November 1943, ‘no minimum requirements are laid down for a dwelling house for use as a family unit. It might be a single room, and often is, in which a family sleep, cook, eat or work. There are in Wellington hundreds of houses [ie, dwelling units] without a bathroom.’ [35] Another article stated that large rooms had been divided, sometimes by box-like partitions, into four separate rooms. Married couples with two or more children, were living in one room, in the same building as single men, with only one bathroom and water closet for 15 to 19 persons, some with no cooking facilities. [36]

These evils were not ignored. In Wellington, where pressure for rooms developed earlier than in Auckland, [37] a committee of eminent citizens, [38] looking into social and moral problems, notably prostitution and excessive drinking, in August 1943 found that bad housing was a ‘foundation problem’. An official survey in 1937 had reckoned Wellington's shortage of dwellings as 7000; this had grown to 10 000, which led to the ‘grossest over-crowding’, and in some cases to social and sexual immorality. Rack-renting of girls on low wages, combined with the flood of servicemen, was producing malnutrition, bad health and prostitution. In some two-storeyed houses, of good appearance, let as rooms or so-called flats, the ‘normal amenities for domestic decencies are crude or are absent altogether’ and cooking facilities were often missing. Girls coming to Wellington could take rooms in apparently decent houses, then find themselves in a semi-brothel, where from force of circumstances they might stay and soon accept prevailing conduct as the way things were. It was not suggested that such conditions were general but the committee had evidence of ‘20 premises where to unprincipled greed are added immoral influences.’ Several had been placed out of bounds to servicemen on account of disorderly behaviour, ‘wallet rolling’ and venereal infection. [39]

In November 1943, Wellington's Hospital Board called the housing situation ‘shameful’, bad for the health and morale of the people, and began to prepare a report. [40] At about the same time 26 organisations, including the Association of Scientific Workers, the

National Council of Women, the Business and Professional Women's Club, the Federation of University Women, the Vocational Guidance Centre, the YWCA and the student associations of Victoria University and the Teachers' Training College, formed the Citizens' Housing and Accommodation Investigation Committee. It aimed to co-operate with the committee already working under Councillor Nimmo, and with other concerned parties, investigating thoroughly various aspects of the housing problem, including the working of the Fair Rents Act, bath and laundry facilities and the availability of meals, in order to publish reports which would move the City Council and the government to action. [41]

Wellington was not alone in such investigation. Early in 1943 a Christchurch City Council survey of 4122 dwellings, 639 apartments, 97 boarding houses and 394 combined dwelling and business places found 49.35 per cent to be satisfactory, 45.9 per cent unsatisfactory but repairable, 0.7 per cent overcrowded and 4.13 per cent due for demolition. Many houses which looked attractive enough from the street were divided into rabbit warrens, and rents for rooms containing a bed, small table, chair, sink and cooker ranged from 6 s to 27 s 6 d. A single block of apartments contained 99 units housing 116 people; they had eight lavatories, five wash-basins, seven baths and two wash-houses; one room measured 8ft by 7ft 3ins. This survey deduced that many recently built flats were too expensive for men with families on £4 to £6 a week, who perforce had to share dwellings. [42]

Drive towards improvement was impeded as building and renovation became impossible, while many felt that the pressures would ease with the end of the war. Armstrong, Minister of Housing, said in mid-1942 that, but for the war, legislation on rents and conditions of flats and rooms would have been passed already: people were being ‘unmercifully exploited’, there were houses without bathrooms and with appliances 20 years out of date. A Housing Improvement Bill was being drafted which included provision of government loans, at very low interest, to owners who could not afford necessary renovation. [43] The draft bill was available to the bodies which would administer it, whose suggestions were considered before it was re-introduced during the 1945 session for its second reading. [44] It became operative from 1 November 1945 and thereafter, with advice from the Health Department, regulations implementing its provisions were devised. [45]

Senior Labour member of Parliament, James Thorn, in the New Year of 1944, wrote that the housing shortage was one of the gravest internal problems facing the government. In the previous September there had been 28 031 applications for State houses, of which 11 955 were assessed as urgent, some very urgent, ‘indeed, desperate and tragic’. Many of the others were not urgent but resulted, claimed Thorn, from the excellence of State houses and their reasonable rent. Many people who might otherwise have thought themselves satisfied, on seeing these houses and finding the rents to be 10 to 20 shillings a week less than their own, immediately applied. Applications came from 140 towns and smaller places, but 22 273 were from the three main cities: Auckland, total 11 575, urgent 3068;

Wellington, 8698, urgent 5002; Christchurch, 2000, urgent 1282.

About 16 000 State houses and flats had been completed since 1936: in Auckland 5422, in Christchurch 1488 and in Wellington, which had been distracted by preparations for the Centennial, 2741. Between December 1941 and November 1943 only 507, a ‘tragically inadequate’ number of State house units, including the 116 Dixon Street flats, had been completed in Wellington. [46]

In May 1944 the city engineer reported that Wellington's housing shortage was going from bad to worse: the total number of new houses erected during 1943–4 was 142, well below the normal average of 700 residential buildings a year. [47] There were, however, complaints from several parts of the country, including Christchurch and Taranaki, when Semple as Minister of Works proposed to bring in 350 carpenters and others in building trades to hasten the 800 State houses contracted for in the Wellington area. [48]

From 1943, with men released from the home forces for industry and returning soldiers righteously demanding homes, the problem grew worse, especially at Auckland and Wellington where industrial growth was largest. The population of the Auckland district, said Mayor Allum, had increased by 25 440 between 1940 and September 1944. [49] There were then 1375 ex-servicemen and 13 776 civilians in Auckland wanting State houses, while Wellington had 1243 house-hungry ex-soldiers and 10 808 civilians, Christchurch 503 ex-soldiers and 2578 civilians, Dunedin 206 and 975 respectively. [50] Servicemen had a 50 per cent preference in allocation and the RSA wanted 75 per cent. There were distressing cases. A woman, her three children and husband returned after five years in the Air Force, were living in one room. A returned soldier, whose wife was pregnant, was paying 25 s for a room 10ft by 12ft, up two flights of stairs, the bathroom shared with 12 other tenants. Another, whose four years in the Army had included Greece and Crete, was living with his wife on the sunporch of a five-roomed house occupied by four families totalling nine adults and two infants. A couple lived in a basement flat with no fireplace, poor ventilation, continual dampness and a bedroom 6ft 6in high. An ex-serviceman was living in a ‘garage’. [51]

Auckland's problems were enhanced by the increasing urbanisation of Maoris. For years they had been coming in from country areas, drawn by better pay, more varied jobs and the idea of city life, but this movement had accelerated with the war. In 1935 there had been 1800 Maoris in the metropolitan area; in 1943 about 10 000 lived there, more than one-tenth of the whole Maori population of 97 000, while more than 30 000 lived north of Mercer. [52] More than 2000 Maoris were employed in Auckland's essential industries, with the girls doing notably well in boot and shirt factories. [53] There was strong reluctance to let houses and rooms to Maoris, who then inevitably crowded into the slum areas, accepting dismal conditions and thereby augmenting the idea that the worst would do for them. No one favoured the idea of setting up a Maori quarter in the city, said George Graham, [54] secretary of the Te Akarana Maori Association, but Public Works Department hutments near work places would be better than Auckland back streets; the suburban Orakei block could be developed to house the whole Maori population of Auckland and keep them, especially the women, away from the temptations of the city. A residential area there or elsewhere was urgently needed. [55]

When A. S. Richards, Labour MP for Roskill, visited some Maori housing, the disturbing reports that he had heard were confirmed. For 30 s a week, a family of eight (six children) lived up a narrow staircase in dingy rooms sub-let by a Maori tenant who paid 10 s. In a basement room 10ft by 20ft three men, three women and four children lived, for £1 a week; since the men were in essential work, sometimes on night shift, they could afford a house but were refused one because they were Maori. Two men slept on a table in a cellar without a window. Ten adults and two babies lived in two rooms, five people cooked and slept in a room 15ft by 12ft; seven adults and five children lived in three rooms, one only 8ft by 9ft; there were 14 people in two rooms; a family of 11, three children, three older girls and five adults, lived in one room. There was evidence of much effort to make the best of wretched conditions; Richards noticed the pervading smell of boiled clothing, and white linen hanging on the lines. Facing the obvious need for action, the Health Department said that Maori housing was the responsibility of the civic authorities, who said that it was a task for the government; meanwhile three times as many Maori as white people had tuberculosis. [56] A supporting editorial declared that there was a need for all to help, as all had helped with defence needs a year earlier. [57]

Little, however, was done except that an Army camp was taken over and improved for about 200 men from Rotorua and other districts. There was an overseer to supervise, catering was done by contract, there was a large recreation hall, and social life was run by a committee of the Maori War Effort Organisation. The men, with a very low rate of absenteeism, went in trucks to and from the freezing and phosphate works in Westfield and to tanneries and brickyards at New Lynn. [58] Again in Auckland a few small hostels for Maori girls were set up [59] and, in a temporary building in Airedale Street, a Methodist-run club for young Maoris. [60] By August 1944 Auckland Maori leaders, including returned soldiers, despairing of government taihoa (procrastination), decided to raise £7,000 by asking Maoris in the city to donate £1 each as a start towards creating a Maori centre on a large suburban site where buildings to accommodate a number could be provided. This self-help, declared the

Auckland Star, should be no substitute for action by the Rehabilitation Department but should supplement it to meet a growing evil and to find temporary homes for returned men; positive and earnest assistance was needed in the acquisition of a site and the planning of buildings. [61]

In the election campaign of 1943 both parties promised houses. Labour reminded that it had built 15 000 State rental homes before the war closed in, and promised expansion at the war's end which would complete 16 000 dwellings a year. [62] Holland declared that houses would be priority number one if the National party were returned. He held that rents were too high and proposed that tenants should be able to buy State houses. [63]

During 1943, the inflation of house prices was curbed by the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Act, which established the Land Sales Court, a court of record, the consent of which was necessary for all land transactions. It worked through local Land Sales Committees which settled prices of house properties based on the value in December 1942, increased or reduced to a fair value according to improvements or changes. These bodies had a restraining effect on property prices generally, though on a sellers' market vendors could arrange for the fixed prices to be recorded and extra sums to be paid secretly. Some cases came to light and others were suspected. [64] At a Christchurch RSA meeting in June 1944, for instance, it was said that there was a ‘fair amount of razzling going on’. Sellers were asking buyers to backhand the difference between their prices and those fixed by the committees. [65] Open charges about such demands were not often made; pay up and shut up was the style.

Prices for newly built houses were also rising. The Associated Chambers of Commerce called a conference of building organisations which reported that a standard house, privately built but very similar to a government house, which in 1939 would have cost £1,400 would in November 1944 cost £1,800; to this increase materials contributed £126, labour £200 and sales tax about £52. [66]

After the slowdown of 1942–3, it was not easy to get housing under way again: skilled labour was short and so were materials, timber shortages being added to the lack of piping, electric cable and fitments which had already delayed the finishing of many houses. War had exhausted timber stocks. Wooden ships had been built for American use in the islands and, apart from New Zealand camps, enough timber for 2200 houses had been built into Pacific camps. [67] So many boxes and crates were used for sending foodstuffs to the

Pacific and elsewhere that the need for radiata pine exceeded the supply and considerable quantities of rimu and matai, normally building woods, were used for packaging. [68] There were competing demands. Farmers required timber to maintain or further production; with Australian hardwoods unobtainable, deferred bridge repairs needed rimu, matai or totara; shortage of bricks and bricklayers increased builders' calls on wood, while supplies of rimu, etc, from the South Island were often delayed by shipping. [69]

The earlier cutting off of Japanese oak and lessening of Australian imports had turned attention to native hardwoods, notably tawa which when kiln dried and treated with Pentachlorphenol was found suitable for finishing, interior fitments and furniture. Tawa was the only native timber of which production notably increased over the war years, from 116 534 board feet in 1938–9 to 5 327 046 in 1945–6. [70] Totara production remained fairly constant, at about 11 million board feet in each year of the war; beech increased slightly from 9 million in 1938–9 to 12 million in 1945–6; matai dropped from more than 22 770 000 board feet in 1938–9 to about 19 million a year during the period 1941–6. [71] Radiata pine was beginning its march towards being New Zealand's leading timber. In 1938–9, 41 867 513 board feet of it were sawn, 13 per cent of all wood cut; in 1945–6, 96 819 028 board feet, 28 per cent of the total. When kiln dried and treated, it served well in furniture, joinery and building, but in 1945 the trees, though they were beginning to produce large quantities of flooring, were not yet big enough to yield many weather-boards. Rimu, growing not in convenient plantations but in forests more and more remote, remained the essential building timber. The 1945–6 production of about 175 million board feet was nearly 13.5 million less than in 1938–9. [72] War Cabinet in September 1944 directed that all experienced timber-mill hands or bushmen serving within New Zealand should be released immediately to their trade. [73]

There were a few moves towards hurry-up building and prefabrication, but no major departures from the standard house. Armstrong said in September 1942 that the Housing Department had designed a house smaller than usual but convenient and fully equipped, which could be built for about £800, using prefabrication in a modified form. [74] In February 1944 Auckland's first prefabricated State houses, which could be erected more rapidly and with less skilled labour, were begun at Mt Albert. [75] Similar houses, it was claimed, had been built for £675 in 10 days at Hamilton by private enterprise. [76] At Naenae in the Hutt Valley in April 1943, experimental prefabrication methods produced five dwellings in days instead of weeks. [77] Some two-storeyed flats built in February 1945 near the corner of the Great North and Western Springs Roads,

Auckland, were designed to save timber and time by using pre-cast reinforced concrete columns, beams and floors. [78]

The Director of Housing Construction reported in 1944 that to increase house production, reduce costs and relieve the demand for timber, the Department had erected a number of experimental houses and would erect more. These experiments were in three groups: prefabricated wood units; prefabricated concrete units; concrete in situ and block units. Already the Department was constructing the bulk of wooden houses in Auckland and Wellington on a modified prefabricated system and, in view of the many suggestions received, more experimental buildings would be erected. Early trials in prefabricated concrete had warranted further constructions to try out various systems in this material. [79]

A few non-traditional houses appeared, such as one built at Ellerslie, Auckland, in five days, using plastic-bonded plywood on the structural principle of ‘stressed skin’ as in aircraft. Apart from the foundations, painting and papering, the five-roomed house with French windows and a concrete terrace was erected in five days and cost about £1,300. [80] Another model, by Christchurch architects, was completed on its prepared foundations in nine hours' work, except for its roof-covering, gutters and plumbing. [81] But such departures were rare.

An example both of prefabrication and of the special demands made on the Housing Department was the township of Benneydale, [82] south of Te Kuiti and three miles from the railway at Mangapehi. This was built after the government took over a failing coal mine, and in two years raised its production threefold. To the original village of about 20 prefabricated houses there were added, by November 1943, a hostel, a co-operative store, a recreation hall and about 50 houses incorporating successive improvements in prefabrication. About 20 of the latest sort were also built at the Tatu mine near Ohura. [83]

There were a few proposals for temporary housing. A Wellington Hospital Board member suggested that Public Works buildings might be transferred to city reserves, matchlined and given plumbing; he claimed that they would last for four or five years and be habitable even if unsightly. Another held that additional housing must be temporary as many people would be returning to the land after the war and there would be a slump in town properties. [84] An

Auckland City Council proposal to build small, temporary, wartime houses on vacant lots for necessitous cases, with the government sharing the cost, met no encouragement. [85]

In March 1944 Churchill promised to bridge the housing void for the people of Britain with, among other measures, half a million prefabricated houses. [86] Not surprisingly, some New Zealanders hoped for a similar solution to their own immediate problem. At a meeting of South Island local bodies, the Mayor of Christchurch urged, in view of the likelihood of science in the next few years producing cheaper and better building media, that the government adopt a scheme like Britain's for cheap houses that could be erected quickly even if they would have but a short life. Other speakers also favoured factory-built houses in the emergency. [87] In July there was further thought in Christchurch of ‘Churchill houses’ being adapted for New Zealand, using wood and asbestos board instead of pressed steel. There was talk of relaxing building standards, but only for houses which belonged to local authorities. [88] The Press on 10 July warned that the question of temporary houses must be approached with the utmost caution; even if they were built only on city council land, ‘the proposal is a dangerous one’. Their life might be extended for 25 years or longer, just as condemned houses were occupied, because there was nowhere else to go. At Hamilton a local firm proposed, given loan money and priority in men and material, to erect 50 houses for £647 each, or £800 with paths, fences, etc. This was treated cautiously by the Council, which said that housing for the people was the concern of the government and would do no more than submit the loan proposal to ratepayers. [89] The Wellington Housing and Accommodation Committee advocated small temporary units costing about £300 each; rent at £1 a week would cover interest and maintenance and return capital within eight years. [90]

There would be no temporary homes erected to become permanent slums, declared Semple: temporary buildings were about double the cost and less than half the remedy. [91] However, some military camp buildings became transit housing, with the government and local bodies co-operating. An early example was Western Springs,

Auckland, which had been built as a rest-home for the United States Army Air Corps. It housed about 300 adults and children, some in flats, some in units with communal facilities and with caterers supplying the main meals. [92] Transit camps, where the government supplied and reconstructed buildings while local bodies provided land, water and drainage systems, became fairly widespread. In some places local authorities decided who might enter the camps, but in general the State Advances Corporation, which handled the letting of State houses, shared in allocating this temporary relief until families could be granted State houses. In March 1948 nearly 800 transit units were occupied by families urgently in need of help, while about 950 former tenants had progressed to State houses. The camps were not closed until the mid-1950s. [93]

Besides houses and flats let to the general public through the State Advances Corporation the Housing Division, beginning in 1940, built houses required by the government for development, as for mines, electricity, railways, rehabilitation (where houses and farm buildings were put up on land prepared by the Lands and Survey Department for returned servicemen). In 1942–3, 1259 State houses were completed including 165 for other government departments. In 1943–4 only 880 were completed, 24 of them for departments. By March 1945 strenuous efforts had produced 1969 houses, 52 for departments, but there were 38 388 applicants waiting with 5860 ex-servicemen among them. In the next year 2985 were finished, 129 for departments, while 3400 others were variously incomplete. [94]

Meanwhile building in the private sector was reviving, or at least the number of permits issued revived; [95] there are no figures on the completion of such houses, but they too were subject to the paralysing shortages lamented in Housing Division reports. An Auckland Star editorial on 13 December 1944 described one project. About a year earlier it had been announced that 440 houses were to be built on a block of land. Though many had been started, not one was finished and scores of foundations stood amid grass-covered wastes in formed and sewered streets. Shortages of materials accounted for delays.

Official reports on State housing in 1946 and 1947 explained that supplies of timber, cement and bricks were persistently inadequate, while lack of roofing material, baths, electric ranges and water pipe fittings caused frequent delays. Standard practices were modified, there were substitutes and experiments. Pinus radiata, specially treated, was used for framing. Concrete and asbestos products and bricks replaced timber sheathing or construction in about a third of the houses built in 1945–6 and in nearly three-quarters of those built in 1946–7, when only 2595 were completed. Beginning in 1946, portable, prefabricated houses were designed for timber workers, to increase timber production. [96]

A long battle lay ahead; in 1947 52 759 names, 15 278 those of ex-servicemen, were on the lists for State houses. [97] In 1944 the Director of Housing Construction had written that nearly 25 000 houses had been provided during the war; without the war the number of houses built by private and State enterprise would at a conservative estimate have reached at least 9000 per annum, or 45 000 over the five-year period. ‘The minimum number lost through the war is therefore 20 000, which would have overtaken any serious needs … it is estimated that the timber and materials used for defence construction purposes in all its ramifications would have been sufficient to erect 20 450 houses—that is to say, the number of houses lost to New Zealand by reason of the war is almost exactly counterbalanced by defence construction.’ [98]

Tea, sugar and clothing were rationed in mid-1942 because supplies from overseas became scarce. The next items, butter in October 1943 and meat in March 1944, were rationed because of overseas demands for more of New Zealand's plenty. Yet in 1940 there had been surging desire to help Britain by producing more, and spontaneous proposals to send more farm produce, even as gifts, even by curbing local consumption. [99] Reasons for the change and delay were complex. There were shipping limitations and war-shaped shifts in demands for butter, cheese and meat which had blunting effects on effort and sentiment. By 1943 production was falling owing to poor seasons, reduced labour and fertiliser, and farmers' desire for the incentive of higher prices. The government, with an election due late in 1943, was sensitive about farmers' complaints of its mismanagement; it shrank from adding the grumbles of a public losing some accustomed foods, and feared a black market.

Pre-war, average annual consumption of butter in New Zealand over 10 years was 31 300 tons, of cheese 3600 tons. [100] In 1938–9 148 000 tons of butter and 85 000 tons of cheese were produced; 116 000 tons of butter and 80 000 tons of cheese went to the United Kingdom. [101] In 1939–40, original contracts for 115 000 tons of butter and 84 000 tons of cheese [102] were exceeded: 130 400 tons of butter were exported from 160 800 tons produced, 91 700 tons of cheese from 97 600 tons produced. [103] Initial arrangements for September 1940 to August 1941 were for 120 000 tons of butter and 107 000 tons of cheese. When supplies from the Low Countries were cut off in June 1940 Britain asked for 15 000 more tons of cheese. With willing farmers and a good season 118 899 tons of cheese were exported, while butter exports totalled 139 444 tons. [104]

In 1941 Britain strengthened its preference for cheese, asking that for the duration of the war and one year after New Zealand should limit butter supplies to 115 000 tons annually but increase cheese to 160 000 tons. [105] So far, prices had not increased since 1939: top grade butter was 112 s 6 d sterling per hundredweight, cheese 63 s 3 d and 62 s 3 d for first and second grades. [106]

The change to cheese meant much reorganisation: thousands of large cans were made or mended, motor transport was provided, cheese factories were extended or re-opened. Withal 153 074 tons of cheese were graded for export in the 1941–42 season and 103 000 tons of butter. [107] Government and farmers could feel that they had nearly met Britain's request for cheese and that their butter offering was still substantial.

Early in 1942 Japan cut off margarine materials while unexpectedly large amounts of cheese were available by the short haul from

Canada. In June 1942 Britain asked New Zealand to revert to butter-making: the new targets were 115 000–200 000 tons of butter and about 90 000 tons of cheese. [108] Britain increased its prices to pay for the change: butter rose by 4 s 6 d to 117 s sterling per hundredweight, cheese by 3 s to 73 s. [109] In 1942 military service drew off or disrupted farm labour; fertilisers, with Nauru Island phosphates cut off, were scarce; farmers were impatient because they were expected to produce more with less labour, less fertiliser, less petrol and with prices which seemed inadequate against rising costs. [110]

In 1942–3 export gradings of butter were 106 947 tons, of cheese 96 837; in 1943–4, 101 992 tons of butter, 85 473 of cheese. [111] Production was falling and from 1942 a good deal of dairy produce was going to the American forces in the Pacific and in New Zealand. In March 1943 London suggested that butter could be rationed in New Zealand. [112]

The Prime Minister hinted at rationing in a speech on 17 April 1943: New Zealanders might have to make more sacrifices, forgoing things they hardly dreamed of being without, such as butter and cheese, in order that the people of Britain might get enough food. [113] A few days later a Dairy Board member, speaking of the fall in production, suggested that rationing of butter and cheese might be needed. Replying on 25 April Barclay, Minister of Agriculture, said that the government had not definitely considered such rationing but if it were necessary it would in no way be related to the fall in production, for which climatic conditions were mainly responsible, but to the needs of Britain. [114] If rationing had not been considered, questioned the Press on 28 April, why not, and why had the Prime Minister mentioned it? The New Zealand consumer could do with less if Britain needed more, and the fall in dairy production clearly showed that if shipments to Britain were to be increased or maintained, local consumption must be cut. Barclay had, chided the Press, come close to describing his government in four words: ‘It is the Government of not yet and not definitely.’ The Dominion commented that if shipments were lessened by causes outside the control of the dairy industry, there would be few complaints should the deficits be made good by reducing domestic consumption, which averaged more than 401b per person yearly. It urged that the government should speedily take producers into its confidence. [115] In Dunedin, where these exchanges gave rise to rumours that butter was about to be rationed, there was a notable rush on supplies. [116]

On 10 May, Barclay, speaking at a small town near Whangarei, said that the British government had asked that butter should be rationed in New Zealand so that the British 2oz a week could be maintained. He added, ‘I think that the people of New Zealand will be behind the Government if it accedes to the request.’ [117]

Barclay's kite-flying had a mixed reception. The Dominion was surprised that no government action accompanied revelation of Brit ain's request. Canada had led the way on 21 December 1942 [118] with a ration of 8oz weekly, reduced for a while to 6oz: here, where a poor season plus American demands had reduced exportable surplus, rationing would be readily accepted to keep up shipments, even if it meant hardship. It would be valuable to have Britons retain a taste for butter after the war, but the reason dwarfing all others was their present need. The disclosure of this important matter to a small country meeting gave ‘the impression of timidity, of a trying-out of public opinion, with its strange qualification “if the Government accedes to the request.”’ Had the British government been left in doubt about the response of the people of New Zealand? How could the request possibly be refused? [119]

Quite a different sound came from the New Zealand Herald. Rationing in New Zealand, if needed to maintain the 2oz ration in

Britain, would be accepted with good grace, but people would have to be convinced of the necessity. They were not persuaded that the present famine in civilian eggs was unavoidable. The Minister was more ready to regiment producers than to encourage them to greater output, and he seemed intent on making a case for butter rationing rather than on seeking ways and means to avoid it. ‘New Zealand is capable of producing enough butter ro fill Britain's need and have sufficient left over to make domestic rationing unnecessary. If, instead of antagonising the farmers, Mr Barclay sought their co-operation and gave them the help required, the double goal would be reached— full supplies for Britain and plenty at home.’ [120]

A Dairy Board member, early in June, said that farmers owed a great debt to Britain and to the merchant navy; food needs in Britain must be met. If farmers were given the necessary labour he was sure that output could be increased to meet the full requirements of both

Britain and New Zealand. [121] The Auckland Farmers' Union showed its general irritation at this time by adopting a Waikato remit for direct action after the war: the time had come to announce that injustices should be ended and steps taken to show the determination of the industry, though it might be necessary for dairy companies and other branches of farm business to close down. [122] A Wellington correspondent asked why the government did not explain that because of its lack of foresight and its mishandling of manpower, the country could no longer produce enough food for its own people while exporting pre-war quantities. In war the most important thing was food, both for workers and the Army, and New Zealand could have been in the unique position of supplying all that was required both now and for war-torn countries afterwards. ‘It is still not too late to put more men and land into full production, so that even though our sons are overseas, neither we nor they need go without butter.’ [123]

Presumably such criticism encouraged government silence when

Australia on 6 June 1943 followed Canada into butter rationing, at half a pound a week. [124] At a dairy conference in June Barclay, while appealing to farmers to produce as a minimum 120 000 tons of butter and 100 000 tons of cheese for Britain, said that rationing was under consideration. The Dominion wondered at the ‘incomprehensible delay’, contrasted New Zealanders' 42lb a year with British citizens' 6½ lb, pointed out that while it took time, manpower and fertiliser to increase production, rationing would increase exports immediately, and concluded that a frank statement on the needs of the Mother country would draw ready support. [125] Government speakers might have answered that the needs of the Mother country were already well known: a British Ministry of Food mission was currently explaining them, but it had induced no spontaneous profferings of butter as in 1940. There were even expressions of reluctance. Mary Dreaver, [126] Labour member for Waitemata, on 6 August in the House asked Barclay to allay the fears of housewives that butter rationing was to be introduced. The Minister replied that rationing was under consideration'. [127] Truth, in September, expressing concern for the diet of New Zealanders, claimed that they, unlike the people of Britain and other European countries, had no substitute fats for milk and butter: in Britain, though the butter ration might be small, ‘the fat consumption may be very high.’ [128] This argument ignored the well-known facts that the total weekly British margarine-butter allowance was 6oz, along with 2oz of cooking fats. In the Evening Post on 6 October, while one correspondent wanted rationing and increased shipments, another claimed that cutting down New Zealand's butter eating would make very little difference, per person, in Britain: ‘How can so few give more to so many?’ [129] The Social Credit journal Democracy on 17 June 1943, noting the advent of rationing in Australia, had said that though it sounded ‘a little absurd’ rationing of dairy products in New Zealand had been sug gested, and there was also a distinct possibility that the requirements of the fighting services in the Pacific would overtake the supply.

Democracy saw little hope of policing any attempt at rationing dairy products in a country which had more cows per head of population than any other, with thousands of families besides registered farmers owning at least one cow. ‘The Black Market would be liable to turn white—or at least Cream.’

As the months passed, several bodies publicly pressed the government towards rationing. The Northern Dairy Association in July urged that every effort should be made to supply the quantity of butter asked for by Britain, even if this required local rationing. [130] The Chambers of Commerce at both Wellington and Dunedin said that limiting each New Zealander to half a pound a week would Add more than 10 000 tons annually to the meagre British supplies And they believed that the country would gladly support the decision.

Wellington members declared that it was a plain duty though they realised that it would not be simple to arrange equal sacrifice in town and country. Dunedin members wondered why rationing had not been effected already; did this timidity come from fear of offending a section of the community before the general election? [131] Early in October a New Zealand Dairy Board member told a Farmers' Union meeting that the Board, consulted by the government on the matter, had already advised immediate rationing of butter and regulation of the sale of cream, but the government had not yet taken action. [132] The

Dominion [133] continued to contrast New Zealand's luxurious plenty with Britain's poverty, as did the Press on 4 September: ‘New Zealanders who think they are enduring great hardship are in serious want of nothing but a sense of proportion.’

During the election campaign apparently few questions were asked about butter rationing and these were answered warily. Barclay said that it was being considered and he thought that it would come but there was great difficulty because it was not possible to ration farmers or prevent them from supplying their friends. [134] Sullivan said that no official approach had been made by the British Ministry of Food in regard to butter rationing, but on such an approach

buttercuts and dazes

Cabinet would immediately deal with it. [135] In September, the Grocers' Association paper published an article showing that it had dis cussed a butter rationing scheme in detail with the government. [136] ‘On good authority’ the Auckland Star announced on Tuesday 5 October, 10 days after the re-election of Fraser's government, that rationing at 8oz a head would be introduced the next week, [137] while butter merchants complained that they were still in the dark and had no half-pound wrappers. [138] Butter sales, especially at Auckland, rose steeply, as they had in several centres at various times during the previous few months. [139] Minhinnick cartooned a housewife, a merchant, a retailer and a farmer capering on a field labelled ‘butter rationing’, plucking at daisy petals ‘This week, next week, sometime, never’—while Fraser piped the tune on two pipes, Nash leaned on a cow and Sullivan smiled. [140]

Finally, on 28 October 1943, just after the third series of ration books had been issued, with new pages, it was announced that people must at once register with a grocer or dairy for 8oz of butter each per week, infants under six months excluded. Unrationed consump tion was reckoned to be 13oz. [141] Supplies to hotels, manufacturers, etc, would be reduced by one-third. Farmers would obtain their butter like everyone else; where normal supplies were too remote they could make butter for their own use or for sale to employees, but must cut coupons from the books of people using the butter. The sale of cream for domestic or manufacturing purposes was prohibited except with special permits. Permits for cream and extra butter could be obtained on a doctor's certificate. Perplexed doctors, [142] seeking guidance from the Health Department and the BMA, were told to give butter and cream only to diabetics, active tuberculosis cases, nursing mothers who needed it, aged people and convalescents from long illnesses. [143] To provide for casual or seasonal labour, farmers and contractors could obtain permits giving 8oz per worker for one week but thereafter the workers' coupons must be produced. [144] Supplies to service canteen suppliers were cut by a third; clubs providing suppers on dance evenings were allowed ⅓oz per serviceman. [145]

As it was clearly announced that rationing was imposed to maintain the dismal 2oz British allowance there was no general grumbling, though the government was criticised from several angles. Rationing must be obeyed in letter and in spirit, said the Auckland Star. Those who could evade the law, notably farmers, must voluntarily refrain from doing so; otherwise there would be a black market in butter, official attempts to smash it, and all the attendant ills. But there was ‘widespread and justified feeling’ that the 11.7 per cent drop in the volume of dairy exports in the season just ended had occurred primarily because of the government's disposition of manpower and failure to understand the nature of farming; shortage of labour, even of hope for labour, and of fertiliser, had caused production to fall. The government must decide on priorities; ‘while too many things are attempted some are going to be done less well.’ [146] The Press censured delay:

The Government began six months ago to talk about this extension of the rationing scheme, has talked hedgingly and uncertainly about it ever since, has prompted selfish persons to stock their refrigerators, and has lost, in the six months, a cargo of

5000 tons that might have been saved and shipped. It is inconceivable that the reasons on which the Government has acted now were less decisive in April than in October. [147]

The Dominion said that New Zealand, as the Mother country's largest supplier of dairy produce and also the unit with the greatest domestic consumption per head, should have led the Empire in butter rationing instead of bringing up the rear. ‘There can be not the slightest doubt that the delay was purely political…. The right thing has been done, but very, very leisurely. All the excellent reasons now given existed months ago, but were set aside until domestic political matters had received attention.’ [48] The Evening Post referred to ‘exceptionally long dilly-dallying’ in introducing a ration to which few if any would object. [149] The New Zealand Herald, from which a broadside on mismanagement might have been expected, spoke of the pitiful 2oz a week in Britain, exceeded daily by many in New Zealand. The only proper criticism of the decision was that it should have been made earlier, as a voluntary gesture instead of in response to a request; now Canada and Australia had set the example, leaving New Zealand a bad third. [150]

Many people had stocked up in advance, though refrigerators were still luxuries. The Internal Marketing Division, surveying holdings in cool store found large quantities placed there by manufacturers and some for private use. The manufacturers were allowed to draw only their weekly quotas from these reserves, and those held by private persons were taken over, only one flagrant case being prosecuted. [151] In this instance a soldier had during September bought 20001b at the retail price of 1 s 6 d a pound, expecting the price to rise, and was still holding it in January 1944; the butter was taken over at cost, and later a £10 fine was imposed. [152]

Uneasiness about farmers' reception of butter rationing had been a factor delaying its introduction. Government spokesmen, such as the Food Controller, hastened to point out to farming audiences that if Britain did not get the tonnage of butter requested, British authorities might find it impractical to implement the 2oz ration and take butter off the civilian market. If the United Kingdom were diverted to margarine for the duration, it might be very difficult for the New Zealand producers to recapture their British market after the war. [153] Barclay had admitted publicly that it would be impossible to ration farmers or prevent them from supplying their friends. [154]

Farmers are and were independent people, and the idea of measuring their cream and butter was rather like proposing to count their cabbages. Undoubtedly many a bowl of cream was whipped up, many a churn that had been out of regular use now made extra butter for farming households, hospitality or friends. This, however, was not the same as diverting a substantial portion of the cream normally destined for the factory into black-market butter. A woman who ran a grocery recalled that people who milked cows used their butter coupons and sent all the cream to the factory because they were paid more for the cream than the butter cost. [155] The regulations provided that farmers who supplied cream to factories should now register with retailers and obtain rations like everyone else, save where distance made this difficult, but in any case they should not make for themselves more than the amount of the ration, surely a forlorn counsel of perfection. Wherever possible, all cream should be sent to factories but, to make good use of farm butter, in areas outside cream collection rounds wholesalers and retailers could accept such butter and supply it to manufacturers and collective consumers at 20 per cent discount on their quota. Thus a baker or a hotel could get 121b of farm butter for every 10lb of creamery butter allowed. [156] But grocers who used to buy a few pounds of home-made butter, used mainly for cooking, from customers with two or three cows, now rejected it as people would buy only creamery butter with their coupons, refusing to expend them on butter of uncertain quality [157] Some wholesalers who accepted farm butter found themselves loaded with unsaleable quantities. In this area, advised the Press, the regulations were self-defeating: ‘those who cannot conveniently change their practice, sending surplus cream to a factory instead of surplus butter to the shop, and many cannot, will cease to produce a surplus or will waste it. Otherwise, it must tend to find an outlet in black market trading.’ The regulations were not working smoothly because, as too often, ‘they were framed by men who know desks and paper better than they know farms and shops.’ [158]

There was talk of quantities of farm butter being wasted or sold without coupons. At Nelson in particular, suppliers and grocers carried on as usual for a month or so: some 4000–5000lb were sold over grocers' counters without coupons, while about two tons that accumulated in a wholesalers' store was finally cleared when Internal Marketing shipped it, somewhat mature, to Wellington manufacturers. It was arranged that future surpluses in the district should go to Service camps. [159]

Many non-dairy farmers' wives were accustomed to offsetting grocers' bills with butter sales. Where the cream could not be conveniently collected, it became official policy to continue this practice, with the grocer handing the butter on to an agent who, after meeting district manufacturing needs, would send any surplus on to the main centres for manufacturers there. [160] Some Primary Production Councils suggested that to encourage backyard production of separator butter from a few cows, its coupon value should be half that of factory butter. [161] The Rationing Controller replied that while this solution to the serious problem of utilising farm butter had been carefully considered, it had been found quite often that cream collections could have been extended and that in other cases, through retailers and wholesalers, this butter was going to manufacturers as part of their quota. [162] There was, he also explained to a Tolaga Bay resident, no objection to the owner of a few cows supplying butter to neighbours, provided they registered with him and he cut the relevant coupons from their books; local rationing committees were being formed to cope with special cases. [163] Obviously in such cases the neighbours would not be limited to 8oz a week. On the other hand, petrol rationing limited access to such supplies. No doubt there were evasions, but they were not so widespread as to induce much cynicism.

In July 1944, rationing for hotels and restaurants was tightened. Instead of receiving two-thirds of their normal supply, for casuals they were allowed ⅓oz per person, for each of the three main meals, while permanent guests' own ration books would determine their ration. To makers of sandwiches, etc, butter rations were based on the amount of bread used, ¼lb being allowed for each 4lb sandwich loaf and ⅓oz for each three scones, gems or pikelets. [164]

Many workers who relied on cut lunches felt that their living standards were eroded unfairly compared with those who could buy sandwiches or pies or a restaurant meal. Timber workers claimed to have a special case. Some lived in rugged camps, remote from wifely ministrations, and were used to plain fare but plenty of butter; even those in their own homes thought that their heavy work in all weath ers demanded double the fats adequate for men in less strenuous or exposed occupations. The West Coast Sawmill Workers' Union, at its annual meeting, stated that unless each member's ration increased to lib per week by 20 November the men would cease work. Possibly this strong resolution was pushed by a militant few. [165] The union secretary explained that timber workers were not prone ‘to just going on strike any old time’ but they believed that with less butter they would be physically unable to cope with the work and weather. [166] The timber workers' national secretary made less peremptory demands [167] and North Island men confirmed that the ration was quite inadequate, citing one bush cookhouse that normally used 32lb a week, now reduced to eight, which would last for three days' lunches. [168] Sullivan stated on 12 November that prior to the West Coast meeting the timber workers' national secretary and the Fed eration of Labour had made ‘representations in the normal way’ for more butter for groups in heavy industries. The government would decide these claims without being influenced or diverted by threats or inflammatory language. The Auckland Star reproved all concerned: workers in heavy industry overseas received extra rations, and while the timber workers' talk of direct action was demoralising they were justified in seeking more, though not a full double ration; it was not to the credit of the administration that they had had to wait for it. [169] The West Coast union secretary's comment, that no New Zealand government could fool all the workers into believing that strikes or threats of strikes did not get results, persuaded the Director of Censorship and Publicity that the jostle for extra butter was damaging morale, and he requested newspapers to eliminate any suggestion that only by striking or threatening to strike could those with legitimate grievances in rationing obtain redress. [170] This request was stiffened into a directive on 3 December. [171] As Baker puts it, ‘Discussion then became much less public’, [172] and on 26 November it was quietly announced that an extra 4oz a week would be granted to miners and to sawmillers and bushmen in isolated districts. In December the Freezing Workers' Union also pressed for extra rations for the whole industry, but it was granted to freezing chamber hands only, on 20 January 1944. [173]

The heavy-work allowance was maintained when, between June 1945 and October 1949, the general butter ration was reduced to 6oz a week, although expectant mothers and persons of more than 70 years still received 8oz. Manufacturers and collective consumers were then reduced to one half their pre-rationing norm. [174] Butter rations were restored to 8oz at the end of October 1949 and abolished on 4 June 1950. Annual consumption in New Zealand fell from 481b a head in 1942–3, to 361b in 1944–5, and to 36lb in 1945–6. [175]

At the outset it had been clearly estimated that rationing at half a pound a week would save between 10 000 and 12 000 tons of butter a year for Britain. [176] Some early post-rationing estimates came near these claims. The 1944 annual report of the Internal Marketing Division stated that for the year ended 31 July 1943 butter sales in New Zealand through the Division (less purchases by the United States) totalled 32 066 tons. In the 10 months from 1 November 1943 to 31 August 1944, these sales totalled 19 018 tons, the equivalent of 22 822 tons per annum, thus saving about 9200 tons or about 30 per cent. [177] In May 1944 Sullivan claimed that saving at the rate of 14 000 tons a year, about 37 per cent, had been effected. [178] The Yearbook of 1945 estimated that the 6oz ration would leave 15 000 additional tons for export. [179] Later figures were more modest. The Yearbook of 1947–9 estimated that the 6oz per week ration permitted a saving of about 8000 tons of butter per annum, ‘although this figure may be slightly high because of a possible insufficient allowance for the increase in farm-made butter, and also because of the greatly increased use of industrial margarine which may to some extent become a permanent feature of New Zealand's economy.’ [180] Baker has: ‘It was estimated that restrictions on the use of butter by consumers and by manufacturers reduced per head consumption in New Zealand by a quarter, and made available an extra 8000 tons a year for export or supply to the United States Forces.’ [181]

Butter rationing modified housekeeping substantially. With unlimited butter at l s 6 d a pound, many women were used to ‘slapping a bit of butter into almost everything’. [182] They now had to practise restraint, saving to make their soldiers' cakes and family treats. [183] Those who cut lunches felt the pinch most. There were letters of complaint to newspapers, such as one claiming unfairness to workers. Professional business men and women could buy hot lunches, and timber workers, being organised, had made their stand. Other workers relied on cold lunches, often without even a cup of tea, ‘yet a Government calling itself “Labour” would cut out their bit of butter.’ [184] An irate mother wrote:

If it [butter rationing] is a necessity, it jolly well shouldn't be! Our Government knew we would have to produce more food, but did they organise the armed forces to keep the farmers on the land? Not they! Thus a bigger butter rationing than need be. This is the first time I've been thankful that my elder, growing son is in the Air Force, as he will then get all the butter he needs, but what of my other three children? By the time their school lunches are cut there is nothing at all for breakfast and tea. It is bad enough to be without or very short of sultanas, bananas, raisins, baked beans, dates, honey and eggs for school lunches, but without butter, too, it is a bit too much. [185]

There were various butter-stretching devices: for instance, equal quantities of warm milk could be worked into butter, and softened butter into which gelatine dissolved in milk was skilfully beaten would spread over a lot of bread.

By late 1942 in daily newspapers, women's pages had shrunk to a few inches, usually reporting weddings and meetings, but the

Woman's Weekly, which since 1941 had advised copiously on saving all sorts of materials and effort, proffered recipes using minimal butter, sugar and eggs, as did women's columns in weeklies or periodicals such as Truth or the New Zealand Exporter. The virtues of good dripping and of cod fat, supplied by the butcher and rendered down in the oven, became widely known. Women exchanged recipes in which dripping, golden syrup, vinegar, glycerine, lemon juice and custard powder replaced butter and eggs. On weekday mornings, over the commercial radio, ‘Aunt Daisy’ [186] broadcast. While advertising, this remarkable woman contrived, through homely warmth, great practicality and a touch of Providence, to achieve wide rapport with housewives and she gave national publicity to recipes and improvisations sent in by contributors. This ‘Daisy Chain’ was printed in the New Zealand Listener.

Cook books, produced sometimes by commercial concerns, sometimes by local organisations for patriotic purposes, appeared advising how to get the most out of one's rations. Self-Help Wartime Cooking Suggestions listed its puddings, cakes, breads and biscuits in groups such as ‘no butter, no eggs’ or ‘one oz. butter, one egg’. The diet-conscious Red Cross Wartime Rationing Cookery Book [187] concentrated on ‘the Lunches, High Teas and intermediate meals so popular in New Zealand’ amid its biscuits and cakes and puddings. The foreword, dated November 1943, spoke only of sugar and butter shortages, most of it having gone to press before meat rationing was announced, but that event was hailed on an early, altered, page [188] with thrifty advice. Many meatless or nearly meatless dishes, using vegetables and cheese, and others with liver, sausages, rabbit, tongue, etc, were included, but ‘Fish, as an alternative in price or availability we are almost afraid to mention.’

Margarine had become unavailable to housewives. It had proved the most suitable cooking fat for the United States forces in the tropics, and to meet resulting contracts it was decided to withdraw domestic pats from the shops, concentrating on bulk production. [189] All buyers and retailers were fully supplied during November but thereafter margarine for bakers and cake manufacturers was, like butter, cut by one-third. [190] In cake shops the most butter-demanding items disappeared; there were more sponges, more scones, rock-cakes, buns, cheese muffins and doughnuts adorned with dollops of mock cream. Trays under counters held less, though window displays were bravely maintained. [191] Supply routines developed, such as that in a

Remuera cake shop which each morning before a certain hour filled with women awaiting the arrival of sponges, and filled again in the afternoon as they waited for hot scones. [192]

Cheese was rationed only to the extent that supplies on the local market were restricted to the level of the 1942–3 season. [193] During the war cheese in New Zealand was almost entirely cheddar, mild to tasty; the many varieties available today were to appear gradually in the post-war era, beginning with blue-vein. Much less cheese was eaten. Statistics in 1942 showed the average annual consumption per head as five pounds, compared to 42 pounds of butter. [194]

Another shortage which affected cooking may be mentioned here. Early in the war, cream of tartar, the base for most rising agents used in cakes, scones, biscuits, puddings, etc, disappeared. It was replaced by phosphate baking powders which, unlike cream of tartar preparations, did not begin aerating when cold liquid was added; the process began only when heat also was applied. Cooks, both domestic and commercial, had to adapt to this change, along with using wartime flour from which less bran and wheatgerm had been extracted. Mixtures needed to be rather moister than of yore, needed less initial heat, and benefited from a pause before baking. [195]

The risk of finding his produce surplus to the market is the farmer's ancient dread. At the outset of the war, when Britain contracted with the New Zealand government to buy all the country's exports in meat, wool, butter and cheese, farmers were confident that all they could offer would be needed by Britain; ‘increase production’ was a prevailing slogan, ‘farm or fight’ another. [196] These were comfortable words for those remembering the struggle to sell meat and butter and wool in the Depression, still not a decade away. There was special pleasure in the early clearance of 1 million ewe carcasses, comprising much of the more than 40 000 tons accumulated in store. [197] Loss of ships, a major feature of the early war, pressed particularly against the meat trade, supplies from South America being so much closer to the United Kingdom. There was no arrangement to idemnify farmers who could not sell their stock to companies whose stores bulged with meat that could not be shipped, and the prospect of unwanted mutton plagued 1941. [198]

In the contracts for 1941–2 canning was stressed: originally there were contracts for 37 150 tons of meat in cans, the equivalent of 111 500 tons in carcasses, along with 190 000 tons of frozen meat. Actual liftings of frozen meat were larger than expected, totalling about 297 866 tons. [199] In October 1942 Britain undertook to buy during the calendar year 1943 meat totalling 328 000 tons, but by April 1943 the shipping situation was improving and meat targets rose: Britain wanted all that New Zealand could export.

The public was aware of these arrangements, but did not know that the British government in April 1943 also suggested that any increase in exports from control of consumption in New Zealand would be very welcome. [200] As with butter, the New Zealand government found this proposal inopportune before the election, though inevitably the idea grew in responsible minds. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture mentioned in the House on 29 July 1943 that meat rationing might become necessary, and Opposition member W. Poilson, while saying that New Zealand would tighten its belt if necessary to help the Mother country, reminded that in 1914–18 farmers were enticed to greater efforts in beef production by increased prices. [201] Occasionally press and primary production leaders spoke of Britain's needs and New Zealand's plenty. Thus the Press on 2 August 1943 stated that the New Zealander who every year ate 421b of butter, 140 to 150lbs of beef, 85lb of mutton and lamb and 221b of pigmeats, ‘will not look without a sort of shame at the British ration scale—a dab of butter, a morsel of cheese, a scrap of meat.’ A Dairy Board member in October claimed that if meat consumption were reduced by one pound per person per week, 34 500 additional tons would be available for export. [202] As with butter, some farmers complained that falling production was due to the government's not recognising the place of farming in the economy and the war effort. [203] Others spoke of the need for heavier beasts and higher prices. [204] Bankes Amery, [205] assistant secretary of the British Ministry of Food, visiting Australia and New Zealand late in 1943, broadcast his confidence that these countries, regardless of hardship, would see that Britain's weekly meat and dairy rations— 1 s 2 d worth of meat, 2oz butter, 3oz cheese—were maintained. Nash, as Deputy Prime Minister, hoped that the people of Australia and New Zealand would think out and decide what was the maximum they should do to sustain the people of Britain in health and strength till the enemy was defeated; he would make no comment on the question whether such considerations would imply meat rationing in New Zealand. [206] There were newspaper references to meat rationing in the United States and Canada [207] and at the end of October

Australia announced that its meat rationing would begin in the New Year. [208]

Meanwhile, there were increasing demands from United States forces, especially for beef and for diminished pigmeats—the check to meat shipments in 1941, the change from butter to cheese (using whole milk) and shortage of labour had set back the pig population. From May 1943 all pork sales on the civilian market were prohibited, bacon was limited though not rationed and there were no hams at Christmas. [209] Beef was sometimes short in butchers' shops on account of price pressure, for while retail prices were fixed wholesale prices were not, and many butchers could afford little of it. [210]

In the inner councils, on 15 November 1943, the British Ministry of Food representative was blunt: the British meat ration, 1 s 2 d worth a week, less than a pound weight, was in danger unless Australia and New Zealand could increase their exports. Meat consumption in both countries was higher than that in the United States, Australia was to begin rationing in January, and the United States would undoubtedly expect New Zealand to contribute to the British ration.

War Cabinet decided on 13 December 1943 to introduce meat rationing. [211]

This was not made known until details were worked out, though hints were dropped. For instance, a member of the Meat Board on 17 December, in talks with the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the only way to maintain Britain's meat was to ration New Zealand's. [212] Sullivan, Minister of Supply, on 26 December talked of Canada's 2lb a week and of American and Australian rationing. [213] The Prime Minister, when visiting Australia in mid-January, said that there was every likelihood of New Zealand following suit. [214]

Sullivan on 28 January said that plans for rationing on a value basis as in Britain, but more liberally, would soon be completed, [215] and there were further statements to this effect in the first days of February, along with propaganda items. [216] On 16 February when it was announced that meat rationing would begin on 6 March 1944, New Zealand was not surprised.

It was intended that civilian consumption should be reduced by one-third. Everyone over five years old was entitled to 1 s 9 d worth a week, rising to 2 s in seasonal price fluctuations, which meant about 2½lb or rather less of more expensive cuts. Children under five years had half rations, and babies under six months had none. Sheets of coupons were issued and pasted into current ration books. For each week there was a row of five coupons valued at 3 d and an H coupon for the balance of the ration, worth 6 d in the cheaper season, 9 d at other times. Each new row became available on a Monday and was current for two weeks. Farmers could kill and share as usual, but could not sell without a permit. The only workers to get extra rations were underground miners and bushmen and timber workers in back country districts, who received additional coupons worth 10½ d a week, [217] but some groups, provided with meals by their employers when working overtime, refused to use their coupons for rationed meat and objected to mince. [218]

Sausages, mince, oxtail, heart, liver, kidneys, brains, tripe, assorted hocks, shins, trotters, flaps and cheeks, and bones were not rationed, nor were poultry, rabbits (which were plentiful), bacon or fish. Makers of pies would get two-thirds of their usual supplies. Restaurants had difficulties. They had to collect coupons for each serving of rationed meat, and were allowed 50 per cent more rationed meat than their coupon returns. Thus for an average meal a 3 d coupon was collected and 4½ d worth of meat served. Grills which by price regulations were supposed to be 80z of raw steak were plainly impossible and reduction to 5oz was authorised. [219] Previously, most of the restaurant trade was in now-rationed meats, but customers now concentrated on non-rationed lines: during the first three weeks the face value of coupons collected was about 10 per cent of pre-rationing meat purchases. Not surprisingly, restaurants wanted two-thirds of their pre-ration supplies and no coupons, [220] but this would have been highly unfair to those who did not eat at restaurants. The challenge was met in various ways, sometimes on the lines suggested by an advertisement: ‘No coupons … Chop Suey and a variety of special Chinese dishes prepared by first class Chinese chefs’. [221] For the more conservative majority, the undefined braised steak, the haricot mutton, the colonial goose, etc, helped to eke out the 41/2 d average.

Butchers also had their problems. Coupons were no mere façade and bank tellers, skilled in counting notes and coins, and in making rigid balances, gave authority to the scheme. Each day's coupons were placed in an envelope with a coupon deposit slip and handed to a teller, who checked them and gave the butcher a credit slip. This banking had to be done at least once a week. The bank's credit slips, with other supporting evidence, accompanied the butchers' four-weekly returns to rationing authorities. [222]

Most people tended to use non-rationed sausages, mince and offal early in the week, saving their coupons for week-end roasts etc; because retailers' supplies were reduced by one-third, on Saturday mornings it was impossible to meet all demands, some shops being cleared of roasts, joints, etc, by 9 o'clock. [223] The demand for mince became so heavy that on 12 May mince and its making—thin flanks, ox and mutton skirts, trimmings, skins, etc—moved on to the rationed list. Demands by restaurants, boarding houses and hotels for unrationed meats were so large that from 17 April the Food Controller directed that these could be no more than one-third of their whole supply. These steps were necessary because the total quantity of meat used was not being reduced: in fact there was, in the fourth week of rationing, an increase of 3.36 per cent. Some butchers said that interest in meat seemed heightened by rationing: people were buying up to the limits of their coupons, and all their usual unrationed lines as well. [224] In July, after four months in which some idea emerged of average retail demands, the system was tightened towards achieving the desired one-third reduction: already, reported the Auckland Star, it was increasingly difficult for even long-standing customers to get rationed meat without the prescribed coupons. Henceforth butchers were to receive 100lb meat for every £2 15 s 10 d of coupons banked in the preceding fortnight. [225] Already there were reports of some people getting rid of their cats and dogs, amid the anguish of animal lovers. In September a line of evasion was closed when regulations stopped hotels and other institutions from augmenting rations from their own farms. [226]

Official estimates after a year made the rate of saving about 22 000 tons annually, [227] but the Yearbook in October 1945 reckoned that savings would yield an additional 35 000 tons for export. [228] Later the same authority stated that as pre-rationing consumption was not known precisely, only rough calculations were possible on savings, which were probably about 10 000 tons in the last year of rationing, which ended on 27 September 1948; [229] Baker adopts this figure. [230]

The ration, with all the supporting odds and ends, was large enough to avoid any real sacrifice, but more skilled and varied cooking was needed. Traditionally, roasts and joints were served often; now women looked up recipes to see how casseroles and stews could be varied or improved, what one could do with liver or sausages or mince or rabbit or fish, how to keep chops from shrinking. Those given to entertaining had to plan ahead, saving coupons over a fortnight for special occasions. Families with strenuous meat-eating men, hungry lads or sudden visitors came to know the solid virtues of pies, and dumplings, of various meat loaves, of rich gravy and meat-flavoured vegetables, the stretching powers of beans and breadcrumbs. Cheese, costing about 1 s a pound, was more widely used, especially in cooking. Booklets appeared, with recipes and general advice, such as Stretching the Meat Ration in New Zealand: 150 ways to make your coupons go further, ‘substantial meals from cheap cuts, unrationed meats and satisfying substitutes; also recipes to save sugar, butter and eggs.’ [231] It could probably be said that meat rationing helped towards liberating New Zealand dinners from the dominance of the roast.

Related to shortages and rationing were austerity clothing measures, which followed overseas patterns. In Britain, to conserve labour and materials austerity regulations were brought in during the first half of 1942. These reduced variety, to encourage long, economical runs in production, especially for underwear. In women's outer wear the numbers of pleats, seams and button-holes were fixed, as were the widths of sleeves, hems and collars. Trimmings such as embroildery and appliqué work were banned. For men, the tails of shirts were shorn off two inches, pockets were limited, trouser turn-ups and double cuffs were prohibited, and legs of socks could not exceed nine and a half inches. [232] There was plenty to trim off pre-war fashions in women's clothes, both in material and in the skill and energy needed to make them: they were ‘dressy’, lavish in details and in cloth and there were firm distinctions about what was appropriate for times and occasions. In New Zealand an article in December 1939 foresaw change but did not welcome it:

If we're in for a long, long war, we'll all come sooner or later to the tight split skirt that saves material. But that's a distant date. There are oodles of material about just now, so for just a little longer we may play with it. For just a little longer we may plan vacations, buy all the bits and pieces that go with them, and have our fun in the buying and planning. [233]

Even in Britain curtailment was not officially imposed until early 1942. Australia soon followed: in July, ‘Victory’ styles were introduced by regulations which aimed to make 113 men's suits from material which formerly produced 100. Men's coats and jackets were to be single-breasted, with fewer buttons; waistcoasts and trouser cuffs were abolished; socks would be in one of three colours only, with no patterns. Women's clothes were simplified, though within limits their makers could devise individual styles. No pleats, tucking or shirring were allowed, and leg-of-mutton sleeves were abolished, as were long evening dresses, wide belts and double-breasted coats. [234]

At the same time New Zealand manufacturers announced that in August simplified styles in women's and children's clothing would appear, designed to reduce the material used; they hoped that if they took action themselves, regulations such as those in Britain,

Canada and the United States might be unnecessary. [235] Two weeks later Sullivan, Minister of Supply, announced that to save materials and manpower clothing would be simplified though ‘nothing so drastic as is implied by the term “austerity clothing”’ would be required as yet. [236]

On 29 October 1942, however, regulations were gazetted for austerity clothes, on specifications prepared by the Standards Institute, which in theory at least pruned manufactured outer garments for everyone except brides, mothers-in-waiting and children under 11 years. Women and girls could not have balloon or leg-of-mutton sleeves, [237] capes or hoods, or double yokes (except on school tunics) and for those over 16 years hems could not be more than two inches deep. For the slimmer sort with hips of up to 42 inches, skirts should clear the floor by 15 inches; the more matronly could have theirs five inches longer. Slacks would not have cuffs or pleats, or legs wider than 22 inches at the hem, which could not be deeper than one and a half inches. Manufacturers must not make bridge coats, wraps or coateés, suits of more than two pieces or with coats more than 10½ inches below the waist, full-length frocks or any beachwear except bathing costumes, shorts and shirts. Dresses could not have matching long coats, boleros or jackets.

For men and boys, shirts must not have double cuffs, nor pockets, neck reinforcements, slide fasteners, laced fronts or more than five front buttons. Their coats could not be double-breasted, could not have belts or half-belts, pleats or yokes, unused buttons, more than four pockets (and these without flaps or tabs) or hems greater than one and a half inches. The same held for sports coats, though these could have only three pockets. Blazers could not have linings or ornamental braid. Waistcoasts were not to be double-breasted or to have backstraps. Trousers could not have cuffs, pleats or extended bands or ankle width exceeding 20 inches. Restrictions would not apply to clothes already ordered if they were completed within three months. [238]

Though a few fashion experts deplored the extinction of the dress and coat ensemble—‘the basis of the well-dressed woman's wardrobe’ [239]—the female curtailments produced no outcry. Embroidery, braid and pin-tucks were not proscribed. The regulations did not order skirts shorter than was currently fashionable, said a Wellington draper; bridge coats, playsuits, and evening gowns taking eight yards of material were really luxuries. He added that the regulations would divert business from clothing factories to drapers, for women would make what they could not buy. [240] But in New

Zealand, as in England, there were ‘howls of dismay from men deprived of their turn-ups.’ [241]

The Minister of Supply, who claimed that no sacrifice was called for that would not yield a corresponding gain to the war effort, cited one leading manufacturer as saying that the regulations would enable him to increase his output of men's trousers by 6 per cent while reducing his price by 7½ per cent; another said that 5 or 6 per cent of material would be saved. [242] It was agreed that manufacturers, cutting from bolts of material could, by carefully arranging their restricted patterns, save considerable material, besides labour and buttons. Bespoke tailors, however, resenting intrusion on their craft, pointed out that they worked from suit lengths of 3¼ yards, whatever the size of the suit. Under the regulations two handfuls of scraps would go into the waste bag instead of one handful. [243] Eliminating cuffs would make no effective saving. If the government wished to save material, wrote a correspondent to the Press, let it start on the uniforms of the Army, Air Force and WAAF, whose ‘flamboyant pockets' required nearly half a yard of cloth. To ask an already depressed and worried male population to wear depressing clothes, in the name of economy, while thousands of yards of material are being needlessly wasted on these unnecessarily large pockets smacks of inefficiency.’ [244] This criticism was also made by an Auckland tailor who said that bellows pockets on officers' dress uniforms were wasteful and that they had been done away with under new British regulations; he further suggested that double-breasted military greatcoats could well be abolished. [245]

By March 1943 in Australia trouser cuffs and double-breasted coats were again permitted in tailored suits. In New Zealand, wholesalers who made about 95 per cent of the suits worn had adopted austerity designs; with bespoke tailors the legal necessities were more honoured in the breach than the observance. [246] The manufacturers, harassed by requests to ignore the regularions, wanted them to be enforced on the tailors. [247] The tailors saw in the regulations and the manufacturers' attitude a conspiracy to crush the individuality and high standards of their craft. On 18 March, in conference with government officials, their representatives were willing to concede all the limitations suggested except pocket flaps and trouser turn-ups, but no agreement was reached. [248] Some claimed that returned men deeply resented having to buy odd-looking suits—‘is that what we've been righting for?’—and the general public, especially those taking big sizes, wanted normal styles. [249] Dunedin tailors held that the regulations had been framed by certain clothing manufacturers—‘at one time called “slop-suit makers” … from the North Island’— who themselves evaded the restrictions by making trousers too long so that cuffs could be made later. ‘The cuff is the thing’, said one; if a customer could get his cuffs and trousers a little wider than 20 inches he was willing to do without pocket flaps and other non-essentials. [250]

Amending regulations compromised: in April 1943 mock cuffs, using one and a half inches of cloth instead of four, were permitted, and coat pockets were to be jetted, looking as if the flaps were pushed inside, instead of welted like a vest pocket. Sullivan admitted that the long-established trouser cuff was apparently more than just a fashion; expressions of opinion, widely representative, had shown that the total abolition of the cuff had caused more feeling than the saving warranted. [251] The Auckland Star commented that New Zealanders were docile, usually accepted any ukase which authority imposed without questioning either the authority or the necessity. ‘But once every so often they show an unexpected and exasperating streak of stubbornness, and then authority, after it has kicked them around a little, graciously gives way and the people, satisfied with a temporary triumph, slip back into the yoke again. We have just had one of the few instances of their obstinacy since the war began.’ [252] Trouser-makers in general restored cuffs, true or false.

Authority did a little kicking towards the end of 1943. Sullivan explained that as it was necessary when seeking material overseas to show that conservation measures were in full force, there would be prosecutions for breaches. [253] Soon after, the first prosecution was taken against a strong-spirited Dunedin merchant tailor who on 30 January had told an Industries and Commerce officer that short of not making double-breasted suits he did not intend to comply with the restrictions. [254] Other warning prosecutions, originating in September, followed, with £3 fines for trousers cuffs, pocket flaps, buttons on sleeves and more than four pockets on a coat. [255]

When Britain's austerity suits were abolished early in February 1944, tailors hoped that the ‘farcical situation’ in New Zealand would end. [256] The New Zealand Herald thought that if Britain could do without these suits New Zealand should be able to, and the authorities would be wise to take this step at the earliest possible moment. ‘The war effort will not suffer noticeably.’ [257] Sullivan explained that enforcement must continue. On manufacturers' suits the saving was considerable and though he realised that with bespoke tailors austerity meant actual waste, if they were exempt trade would go to them from the manufacturers, reducing saving. He added that Britain exported suiting, New Zealand was an importer. [258] Less than two months later, on 21 April, some relaxations of austerity were gazetted. These permitted double-breasted coats where there was no waistcoat, flaps on pockets, trousers with waist pleats and full cuffs, their width not exceeding 22 inches. [259] The Auckland Star at the end of 1944 reported that suits were once more appearing with pocket flaps, trouser cuffs, coat sleeves with the little useless slits at the back, sometimes adorned with a couple of buttons, and more pockets than a year ago. [260] Not content with these concessions, some Auckland manufacturers, claiming that the best use of the material was in the double-breasted coats for which the public was clamouring, produced large stocks of double-breasted overcoats, which they were not allowed to sell. [261]

The regulations of October 1942 had sought economies in outer wear and in men's and boys' shirts and pyjamas. Three months later, in January 1943, the Factory Controller sought also to simplify feminine underclothing and nightwear. Lounge pyjamas and evening-length slips were prohibited, dressing gowns and housecoats could not be made in certain materials. [262] There could be no hand embroidery, hemstitching, appliqué work, lace or frilled edges, pockets, superfluous fastenings, or ‘other features which call for excessive processing or make undue demands on materials.’ Manufacturers realising the need to make the maximum quantity of clothing from the limited material available had co-operated with the Standards Institute in devising measurements for three basic sizes of pyjamas and nightgowns to avoid waste. [263] Six weeks later ‘The new Interlock Nightdresses … cut with beautiful clinging lines’ were being advertised. [264]

That there was room for such curtailment during the fourth year of the war was indicated by advertisements for luxury nightwear appearing in September 1942:

It's a woman's way to sacrifice willingly and generously, to forgo, without murmur, those countless luxuries that make her days more pleasant—but to cling tenaciously, to scheme and devise by hook or by crook, to keep a modicum of elegance in her life— for without this she knows that she can never be her imperturbable, most efficient self. So it is that, with daytime clothes of more uniform severity, women seek out lingerie more entrancingly feminine than ever. To witness—the night gown illustrated—in heavy dull silk in the delicate shades—Peach, Sky, Magnolia and Cream—with self scroll braiding and fine rucking—57s 6d The same advertisement also featured a ‘Rich Satin Robe in tailored style with quilted revers, cuffs and pockets’ in seven colours, at 63 s. [265] A year later, despite the simplifications gazetted in January, a very similar robe was advertised: ‘… Well cut and finished, with delightful quilted Collar, Cuffs and Pocket. Shimmering Satin in lovely clear colours’, at 64 s 3 d. [266]

Many day clothes sketched or described in advertisements showed no signs of wartime austerity. A frock of black jersey crepe, pleated back and front, the belt and neck trim of open roulette work, cost 8 guineas. [267] Much less expensive but hardly austere were frocks ‘specially cut for the petite figure’ in grosgrain silk marocain and crêpe, with full swing skirts. ‘Some have bodices trimmed with pin-tucks or hand embroidery, others are studded with novelty metal effects … from as low as 79s 6d.’ [268] A distinctive afternoon frock in moon blue moss crêpe, with fine tucking trims on back and front of the bodice, a skirt of knife pleats, and tucked bias pockets, sold for 10 guineas. [269] A two-piece black silk suit with an almost wrist-length coat, self-material embroidery and pin-tucks cost £10 19 s 6 d. [270] A frock in dull black crepe, its eight-gored skirt topped by a hip-length tunic, was trimmed with self black braiding and stain applique, at 10 guineas. [271] For younger wearers there was ‘the Short Dress for impromptu night life, … Swishing taffetas allied to silk nets, queenly velvets enriched with gold and georgettes dense and black … at 4 to 6 guineas’. [272] Frequently the elaborately trimmed frocks and suits were in large sizes. ‘For the mature figure … velvet appliqued Silk Crepe with flattering bodice treatment, gathered bracelet sleeves and a slim skirt knife-pleated in back and front’, in black and navy, about £6 10 s. [273] ‘Dressy afternoon frocks’, in satin back silks, bodices gathered and tucked, finished with applique and fancy stitching, priced from 5 to 8 guineas, were for leisured women. [274] But ruffles and sequins appeared on some youth-style dresses: ‘… twilight blue sequins on sheer black crêpe … cleverly shorn of unnecessary details. … It is not just another street length frock but, in reality, has the dignity and charm of a full length evening dress …. a year round asset for gala occasions,’ at £7 18 s. [275]

There were many advertisements for frocks much less elaborate, in wool, linen, nearly-linen, so-called silk, in spun and sheer fabrics, and cottons, in plain colours, florals, spots and stripes. Advertisements not infrequently stressed that they were easy to wash and iron. Simplification without meagreness was their main feature. Many were variants of a few basic patterns. The shirtwaist style was prominent, often with pleated skirts, fullness at waist and shoulders accommodating a range of figures. Frocks buttoning right down the front, again often with pleated skirts, were popular, as were cross-over bodices, another shape admitting fullness. The ‘diamond’ midriff with a tie belt also accommodated a range of sizes. [276] Pin-tucks often decorated sleeves, pockets and bodices. Thrifty pinafore frocks appeared in 1944. Prices ranged according to fabric and style; there were many between £3 and £5, with cottons often between £1 and £2. [277] There was more variety available than the above might indicate: not all dresses were advertised, and for dressmakers and women who made their own clothes there was no limitation in style. Classic suits in tweed or worsted appeared regularly, single-breasted, with close fitting jackets. Coats grew plainer; by 1944 the ‘camel hair’

coat, in fawn colour, with three buttons and a tie belt, was widespread. [278] The short ‘reefer’ type saved material. ‘Coats take a short cut this year,’ announced a 1944 advertisement. ‘They favour the jacket length—perfect for topping a slim skirt.’ [279]

There was a widespread tendency, encouraged by advertising, to oppose the dreariness of war with glamour. Advertisements persuaded that one would boost morale, comfort and reward the fighting men, sustain one's own usefulness, by wearing this lipstick, hat, frock or housecoat. There was also, as prices gradually rose, as material declined in quality and coupons imposed caution, a drive to conserve and to make over, encouraged by reports of such exploits in England. According to an Auckland Star article in March 1943, women's clothes were not shabby, but in mass they looked more sombre than of yore and were more practical. Women were achieving smartness and originality through ingenuity plus careful planning. Coupons were adequate for all but the extravagant or brides-to-be, who were usually helped out by family and friends. Coupon-free hats could brighten outfits and lift morale. [280] Helpfully, fashions had changed very little in the last three or four years. There was not the variety of rich and colourful material that there used to be, but attractive materials were still displayed and could be made up at home. There was something of a cult in brightening up dresses with new belts, embroidery, changes of collar. [281] Both home and professional dressmakers were making smart new clothes out of old ones, cutting up, turning, dyeing and joining new material to old. [282] Home dressmaking classes, with special advice on using remnants, were popular. [283]

One notable change was the increased use of slacks by women. At the war's start, these were considered rather daring or for home Use only. Their practicality made them highly respected in England's Blitz and New Zealand opinion followed faithfully. In December 1942 a Wellington store with ‘an enormous stock of slacks of all kinds’, priced between 25 and 30 shillings plus 5 coupons, declared: ‘Everyone is wearing slacks these days. Everyone knows how comfortable they are, either on or off duty. Wherever you are, or whatever you are doing, a well-made pair of slacks is an essential item in your wardrobe.’ [284] Almost no one would have thought of wearing slacks to an office but they eased the stocking problem at weekends and evenings at home and, worn with thick socks, helped to offset the shortage of firewood, coal and electricity. But even at the war's end, slacks were not considered proper for women in public. In 1945 a woman in immaculately tailored slacks was turned away from a beach dance although men, ‘in shorts, displaying braces and wearing their shirts hanging out’, were admitted. [285]

The contrivance of new clothes from old ones or from bits and pieces was prominent in children's wear. ‘You wouldn't dream of buying new material for crawlers,’ writes a wartime mother, ‘but old shirts and coats were unpicked and made up to keep the little ones warm. I used to cut the tops off men's socks, when the feet were worn out, herring-bone the raw edge and pull them up on the sleeves of the children's jerseys and cardigans. They kept the sleeves clean and kept their hands warm too. A stitch between thumb and first finger made the sock into a mitten if you wished. I used them on my own jerseys to keep them clean and stop them wearing out.’ [286] Mothers contrived both warmth and style from old material and odd skeins of wool. A thrifty practice was to make the skirt and bodice of a girl's frock from winter material with knitted yoke and sleeves, giving the effect of a pinafore-frock over a jersey. ‘A similar idea was used for boys' cardigans—back, sleeves and front strapping all knitted, but the fronts were from the legs of Dad's old greys. These old greys also furnished pleated skirts of small girls—two legs from the knees down were joined together and pleated on to a bodice.’ [287] With wool hard to buy in any quantity, jerseys and cardigans were knitted with colour contrasts; often the tops of sleeves and the welts on cardigans were a different colour from the main part. Factory ends of khaki and air force blue woollen material came into many families and were dyed navy for boys' pants. [288]

School uniforms were modified slightly by war shortages. Pre-war, secondary schoolgirls usually wore pleated gym tunics and long stockings. A few private schools, some drawing staffs and standards from England, had in the late Thirties introduced ankle socks for summer, with unpleated cotton tunics and collarless blouses, though stockings were worn for any appearance in public. Black stockings became scarce during 1940 and in October the headmistress of Nelson College for Girls, following British wartime precedents, led the way into liberalism and economy by permitting bare legs and tennis socks. [289] At about the same time the principal of Wanganui College for Girls stated that the black socks and sandals then worn within the school grounds would soon, if black stockings became scarce or too expensive, be permitted in the streets. [290] At Auckland, the Takapuna Grammar School Board decided that in summer boys would go sockless in sandals or tennis shoes, while girls would discard their long stockings for white socks with sandals, pointing out that both stockings and socks were quite unsuitable for hot weather. [291]

In Christchurch during March 1941, at the Technical College, Rangiruru and three girls' high schools, it was decided that girls should don stockings to go to and from school, but leave them off within the grounds to save wear. At St Margaret's College, with the consent of parents, girls could wear their socks in the streets, and gloves were not worn with short-sleeved blouses. [292]

Stockings were not the only shortage. Navy blue woollen shirts were customary wear, all year round, in many boys' schools, but by 1942 many woollen goods were scarce. At Mt Albert Grammar, in February 1942, boys were encouraged to wear white silk shirts instead, while sandals without socks were also officially permitted. [293] When clothes rationing began in 1942 the Rationing Controller decided that children at uniform-wearing schools would not have the privilege of extra coupons, though a standard issue of 26 coupons in excess of the general quota was made in each ration period for all children between the ages of 5 and 16 years. It was officially stated that though in normal times uniforms had many commendable features, in the pressing interests of clothing economy strict adherence should be forgone for the duration, especially for initial outfits, but as clothing wore out it should be replaced with uniform. [294] The Minister of Education in January 1943 asked school principals to relax uniform rules where these meant hardship to parents or waste of clothing; many schools had already reduced their demands for special shades and materials, thus easing pressure on a clothing industry preoccupied by the needs of the forces. [295] Meanwhile systems for buying and selling second-hand school uniforms were proving successful. [296]

In August 1943 there were reports that Auckland Grammar School Board members had said that pupils who could not afford grammar

we have no pyjamas to-day

school uniforms could go to district high schools and that they were not of the class that would benefit from grammar school education. This attitude was not encouraged by the Prime Minister, who said that he had never known a child who could not benefit from education; if one could not benefit from grammar school education then grammar schools were obsolete, which was not true of the fine schools at Auckland. [297] A few months later two Nelson colleges declared that no pupil would be barred for inability to provide uniform, though uniform was to be adhered to as far as possible. [298]

It did not follow that when clothes were rationed there were enough of all sorts to go round. During the last two years of the war some of the most troublesome shortages were in utility clothing: working trousers and singlets, men's pyjamas and shirts and children's clothing. In November 1942 the United Mine Workers' annual meeting asked the Minister of Supply to ensure sufficient working trousers and singlets at reasonable cost. [299] In February 1943 the Waimate Farmers' Union deplored the shortage of working clothes, as did Dunedin's Industrial Manpower Committee, saying that there was ‘actual distress’ in some parts of the South Island, particularly in Southland. [300] There were widespread complaints of insufficient clothes for children [301] and of scarce pyjamas. [302] Sullivan on 13 August 1943 stated that the New Zealand industry would switch over as far as possible to civilian needs, catching up on clothing, particularly pyjamas, and footwear shortages. [303] In October he explained to the Christchurch Consumers' League that through devotion to military needs, stocks of children's clothing had ‘become very depleted’. With Service requirements lessening, local mills would soon be producing civilian flannel, fingering wool, underwear, and serge for school clothes, while from overseas large quantities of wincyette and interlock would shortly be arriving and would immediately be made up in various factories; improvement was definitely assured. [304] Less optimistically the chairman of the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association said on 29 July 1943 that though priority had been given to certain New Zealand-made goods—men's working and flannel trousers, worsted suiting, boys' and girls' jerseys, girls' gym hose, knitting wools, blankets, overcoating and sports coating— no big releases could be expected quickly: it would take three months for the woollen mills to get into production on these standard lines and several more months for the made-up goods to reach the shops. [305] Complaints and promises were repeated, priorities listed, surveys and plans made, a National Garment Control Council and district committees formed. [306] With all this effort, by 5 April 1944 Sullivan was not able to indicate with certainty when pyjamas would be available in substantial quantities. [307]

A potent factor in the continued shortage was the difficulty of ensuring that available labour was used for utility lines, on which price control was strict, whereas on luxury goods the profit was much higher. Manpower officers were instructed that new labour entering the industry was not to work on luxury clothing [308] and in May 1944 it was announced that in the clothing industry there would soon be a six-months' transfer of labour to sections where there was serious shortage of production from those, mainly the frock section, where there was no shortage. [309] Also, as a clothing trade unionist explained, some factories, while constantly calling for labour, had worked no overtime since the war's start, thereby keeping down both costs and production. [310]

Late in August 1944 the Auckland Star, quoting the president of the Clothing Retailers' Federation, drew attention to the many industrial sewing machines that were idle for lack of machinists, claiming that there were 300 such in Auckland alone, while returned men were desperate for shirts, pyjamas and suits. There was plenty of pyjama material in the country but not enough operatives to handle it, while for suits there was not enough material. Between

Auckland and Invercargill, a survey of 28 representative stores had found in all only 440 suits. There was a strong case for directing women from the armed forces into clothing factories and both men and women to the mills. This theme was repeated, with a variation, by a correspondent whose business took him to factories and workrooms where he saw many industrial machines idle and many young women making luxury lines. How, he asked, were firms getting away with it while there was such a shortage of clothing for returned men? [311] The Department of Labour, in its 1944–5 report, commented on the disappointing lack of co-operation of some manufacturers in the making of utility garments and on the preference of women workers for making women's and girls' wear. [312]

The government at length tackled the price factor with subsidies: men emerging from the forces should be able to buy clothes at prices not much above those that they remembered. Apart from subsidies, price tribunal control was tightened while wholesale and retail margins were reduced wherever possible. Suits, working trousers and boys' shorts were three clearly defined items for which price stability was particularly important. Subsidies were carefully placed so that non-essential goods were not subsidised. For men's suits they were placed on those of medium and lower grade materials, not on the more expensive cloth. This meant, explained Sullivan in December 1944, that suits of imported material were available at £10 to £12, instead of £12 to £14 without subsidy, while suits of a ‘good New Zealand material’ were coming on the market at between £6 14 s 6 d and £8 10 s. At least 2000 would be in the shops before Christmas and 5000 more by the end of March 1945. Boys' shorts would be widely available, at 11 s 6 d to 13 s 3 d for 11–12-year-olds; working trousers, of New Zealand cloth, were selling at 30 to 35 shillings. These prices, he claimed, represented the values of 1940 rather than of 1942. Production was increasing notably in shirts and pyjamas: in the first 10 months of 1944 some 240 000 working shirts were produced, and 534 000 others. Sullivan warned, however, that temporary shortages would still occur in some lines. [313]

Sullivan's ‘good New Zealand material’ was viewed less enthusiastically by retailers. Their spokesman at the end of August 1944 said that local mills normally made only 50 per cent of New Zealand's worsteds, and the Services were still taking much of them. Some worsted was being imported from Australia, but not nearly enough for demand, and an ‘emergency cloth’ had been made locally. Some 300 000 yards of this tweedy material were being used for making suits, overcoats, flannel trousers, sports coats, work trousers, women's coats and gym frocks. Experience had shown that the material was unsuitable for men's suits, girls' gym frocks and sports coats, though it had partly filled the gap regarding overcoats and shorts. [314]

Meanwhile there were occasional gladdening advertisements: ‘English suiting—just arrived—a range of the latest blue tonings in worsted fabrics. Hugh Wright's provide the experienced styling and perfect fitting of a suit to your individual measurements. For four years we have wanted to make an offer like this. £14 10s.’ [315] Gradually the meagre supply of men's clothing became adequate, as both local and overseas industry eased back towards normal production, but suits were treated with respect, while on good shirts worn collars were carefully turned and fraying cuffs were shortened.

Led by banks and post offices, several services matched reduced staffs with shorter hours. From 9 February 1942 banks, previously open from 10 am to 3 pm Monday to Friday and 9.30 to 11.30 am on Saturdays, closed an hour earlier on weekdays and at 11 on Saturday mornings, though diminished staffs worked 44 hours weekly instead of 40. Also, bank holidays in honour of St Patrick, St George, St Andrew and Dominion Status ended. [316]

In 1939 there were 1705 post offices and 2568 street letter-boxes. Post and Telegraph staff, mostly permanent, totalled 12 211; in addition, 1603 country postmasters and telephonists, and 88 railway officers combined postal duties with other work. [317] War brought extra duties, such as oil fuel control, impressment of motor vehicles, payment of soldiers' allotment warrants, National Savings, with fewer staff. Pre-war, post and telegraph offices had been open until 8 pm on weekdays and until 5 pm on Saturdays. In May 1940 these hours had been trimmed in all but the principal post offices, with Saturday half-holidays and tea-breaks between 5.30 and 7 pm introduced; some small offices closed at 5.30 pm, and evening deliveries of telegrams were curtailed. [318] In December 1941 afternoon mail deliveries to residential areas ended. [319] From 2 February 1942, with more than 5000 experienced men in the forces or soon to be called up, smaller post offices closed for lunch and most services ceased at 5.30 pm on weekdays, 12.30 pm on Saturday (except in the four main centres). Telegraph counters were open until 10 pm on weekdays and 5.30 pm on Saturdays; transmission rooms opened at 9 am, had lunch and tea intervals, evening telegram deliveries were again shortened slightly and telephone accounts were sent out at six-monthly instead of monthly intervals. [320]

Pre-war, postmen would deliver mail to the door if they did not have to go more than 60 feet from the footpath. From late in 1940 people had been asked to help them by putting mail boxes at their gates. By February 1941 some 55 000 had complied so that in all 236 000 of New Zealand's 275 000 householders had boxes at the gate. In some small towns, such as Gisborne and Inglewood, every gate had its box; in Nelson, out of 3620 households only 70 did not have them. [321] From March to April 1942, when girls began to replace men with the bicycles and mail-bags, householders who did not provide gate-boxes had to collect their mail from the nearest post office. In March, of Wanganui's 5638 residences, only 35 lacked boxes. [322] In Wellington, with about 23 000 households, only 600 then lacked boxes, fewer than 40 early in May. [323] Dunedin was rather slower; in April 1100 households out of 19 400 had not yet complied. [324]

Milk deliveries made heavy labour demands. Supplies varied greatly over the country. In several places, notably Wellington, most milk was sold by municipal milk departments, pasteurised and bottled for household delivery, but in other cities and towns milk councils supervised, through licences, sale and delivery by competing vendors. Some sold bottled pasteurised milk, others sold raw milk, ladled into billies and jugs at back doors in the very early morning.

Many people preferred raw milk to pasteurised and in some places, such as Auckland and Christchurch, householders could choose raw milk from the can, raw milk bottled or pasteurised milk bottled, [325] while choosing one's milkman was as normal as choosing one's grocer. Long before Japan's entry, there were proposals for zoning milk deliveries, which would reduce the consumers' choice. These had been accepted in Auckland during 1940 [326] but dragged until mid- 1942 in Christchurch, where there was strong concern that standards would fall with removal of competition. [327]

In December 1941 front gate milk delivery was resisted in Auckland, where a housewives' meeting complained of milk roundsmen selfishly imposing inconvenience, and the risks of milk contaminated and money stolen. [328] In February 1942 the Auckland Milk Council advised roundsmen to seek the co-operation of their customers over daylight front gate delivery, saying that one company had already done this very successfully. [329] However, two months later when the Director of National Service pressed for savings of manpower on Milk distribution, some of the Council spoke of defenceless house- Wives being harassed and regimented, and there was union opposition to roundsmen being required to deliver more milk. [330]

As 1942 wore on, householders were not forced but were persuaded by Manpower arguments to accept milk at their front gates. In June the Wellington Milk Department reported ‘wonderful response’ to requests to place bottles as near the front gate as possible; rounds had been increased in size and reduced in number. [331] In Auckland on 10 August the Milk Council decided that from 15 September, ‘for the duration of the war only’, milk would be delivered only to points not more than six feet from the street alignment. [332] Roundsmen, who normally served 45–75 gallons to between 250 and 400 customers, [333] agreed to deliver 10 gallons more per man and to spend three to four hours on Mondays collecting payment where people had not agreed to putting money out or in a safe place known to the milkman. Invalids could apply for backdoor delivery. [334] Despite protests such as letters signed ‘Backdoor Billie’ and ‘Liberty’, [335] roundsmen reported on 16 September that 90 per cent of householders were co-operating. [336] In time, acceptance of front gate milk increased the demand for milk pasteurised and bottled.

[1] Unsigned article by A.E. Plischke, an architect then employed by the Housing Division, in Introduction to New Zealand, p. 137; A to J 1944, B–13, p. 5; Olssen describes in detail the development of the housing scheme; see also p. 47

[2] H. T. Armstrong, Min Housing, Dominion, 3 Jul 40, p. 10; Evening Post, 17 Jul 40, p. 6

[3] A to J1943, B–13, p. 9

[4] For expenditure on defence construction see A to J 1946, D–3, pp. 5–6

[5] Auckland Star, 31 May 41, p. 10

[6] Plishke, p. 137

[7] Otago Daily Times, 14 Jun 41, p. 8

[8] NZ Herald, 8 Nov 41, p. 10; Dominion, 31 Dec 41, p. 7

[9] NZ Herald, 13 Nov 42, p. 10

[10] Evening Post, 17 Apr 42, p. 4

[11] Ibid., 16 Apr 42, p. 4

[12] Auckland Star, 21 Aug 42, p. 6

[13] NZ Herald, 7 May 42, p. 6

[14] Dominion, 25 Feb 41, p. 6; Auckland Star, 13 Mar 43, p. 4

[15] see p. 801

[16] Dominion, 25 Feb 41, p. 7

[17] Ibid., 25 Nov 41, p. 6

[18] NZ Herald, 31 Jut 42, p. 2

[19] Evening Post, 1 Jun 42, p. 5

[20] NZ Herald, 21 May, 18 Aug 42, pp. 5, 2

[21] Ibid., 8 Apr 42, p. 4

[22] Ibid., 1 Jun 42, p. 4; for wage levels see pp. 1075– 6

[23] Auckland Star, 13 Mar 43, p. 4

[24] Press, 11 Mar 43, p. 4

[25] Evening Post, 16 Jul 42, p. 6

[26] Auckland Star, 10 Dec 42, p. 4

[27] Ibid., 12 Aug 42, p. 4

[28] Yearbook 1947–49, pp. 690–1

[29] A to J1943, H–11, p. 13; Auckland Star, 21 Oct 42, p. 2, 2 Apr 43, p. 4

[30] Dominion, 5 Nov 43, p. 4

[31] Auckland Star, 24 Jun 44, p. 7

[32] Firth, Cedric, State Housing in New Zealand, p. 6

[33] Yearbook1940, pp. 549–50

[34] Dominion, 9, 10 Jul 42, pp. 4, 4; Auckland Star, 17 Sep 42, p. 6

[35] Dominion, 4 Nov 43, p. 4

[36] Ibid., 5 Nov 43, p. 6

[37] Auckland Star, 4 Jul 42, p. 7

[38] It included Bishop St Barbe Holland, Rev Ashleigh Petch, a Methodist minister, E. Hurley, a public-minded lawyer, D. R. Wills of the YMCA, Miss Tocker of the YWCA, and was chaired by R. H. Nimmo of the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce.

[39] Dominion, 23 Aug 43, p. 4

[40] Ibid., 26 Nov 43, p. 4

[41] Ibid., 2, 9 Dec 43, pp. 6, 6, 31 Jan 44, p. 4

[42] Star-Sun, 9 Mar 43, p. 4

[43] Evening Post, 17 Jun 42, p. 4

[44] A to J1945, D–1, p. 22

[45] Ibid., 1946, D–1, p. 52

[46] Standard, 13 Jan 44, p. 1

[47] Auckland Star, 19 May 44, p. 6

[48] Dominion, 9 Feb 44, p. 6

[49] Auckland Star, 16 Sep 44, p. 6

[50] Ibid., 3 Oct 44, p. 2 & editorial

[51] Ibid., 27 Sep, 28, 29 Dec 44, pp. 4, 6, 3 & 6

[52] Ibid., 13 Nov 43, p. 4; Yearbook1944, p. 30

[53] Auckland Star, 8 Feb 43, pp. 2, 4

[54] Graham, George Samuel (1874–1952): accountant, Native Agent 1929ff; Hon Sec & exec member Te Akarana Maori Assn

[55] Auckland Star, 8 Feb 43, p. 4

[56] Ibid., 13 Nov 43, p. 4

[57] Ibid.

[58] NZ Herald, 4 Dec 43, p. 6, 29 Feb 44, p. 6

[59] Evening Post, 9 Sep 43, p. 6; NZ Herald, 17 Apr 44, p. 5

[60] NZ Herald, 16 Oct 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 5 Apr 43, p. 4

[61] Auckland Star, 28 Apr 44, p. 2 & editorial

[62] Standard, 2 Sep 43, p. 1

[63] Press, 25 Sep 43, p. 6. In Holland's administration, 1949–57, tenants occupying State rental houses were given the option of purchase, aided by State Advances loans. Yearbook 1951–2, p. 607

[64] Baker, pp. 514, 518, where he quotes an allegation in the Hawera Star, 12 Mar 45, that in the sale of one Taranaki property £300 was paid by a civilian purchaser for the front door mat

[65] Press, 16, 17 Jun 44, pp. 4, 4

[66] Auckland Star, 13, 14 Nov 44, p. 3, editorial

[67] A to J1944, D–1, p. iii

[68] Ibid., 1943, C–3, p. 11

[69] Ibid., 1944, C–3, p. 18

[70] Ibid., 1942, 1943, 1944, 1947, all C–3, pp. 19, 10, 37, 55

[71] Ibid., 1942, 1944, 1947, all C–3, pp. 19, 37, 55

[72] Ibid., and 1946, C–3, pp. 29–32

[73] Auckland Star, 13 Sep 44, p. 6

[74] NZ Herald, 12 Sep 42, p. 8

[75] Ibid., 1 Feb 44, pp. 6, 7 (photo)

[76] Ibid., 7, 17 Feb 44, pp. 4, 4

[77] Evening Post, 21, 22 Apr 43, pp. 4, 4 (photo)

[78] Auckland Star, 23 Feb 45, p. 6

[79] A to J1944, D–1, p. 16

[80] NZ Herald, 11 Mar 44, p. 4 (photo)

[81] NZ Listener, 26 Feb 43, p. 4

[82] See p. 406

[83] NZ Herald, 20 Nov 43, p. 4 (photo)

[84] Dominion, 26 Nov 43, p. 4

[85] Press, 12 Oct 43, p. 6

[86] In the end no more than 160 000 were built. Calder, p. 535

[87] Press, 4 May 44, p. 4

[88] Ibid., 6, 7 Jul 44, pp. 3 (photo), 4

[89] NZ Herald, 18 Nov 43, p. 2

[90] Wellington Housing & Accommodation Committee, Wellington's Disgrace; in the Shadow of the Slums, a Civic Responsibility, np

[91] Evening Post, 3 Jun 44, p. 5

[92] Auckland Star, 18 Jul, 18 Aug, 22 Dec 44, pp. 5, 6, 4, 4 Jan, 8 Feb 45, pp. 4, 3

[93] A to J1947, 1948, 1950, 1955, all B–13, pp. 14, 16, 18, 18

[94] Yearbook1950, p. 453, giving cumulative figures; A to J1945, B–13, p. 7, 1946, D-1, p. 50

[95] In 1939–40 5816 private sector permits were issued; 1266 in 1942–3; 3020 in 1943–4; 5466 in 1944–5; 7081 in 1945–6. Firth, p. 67; Yearbook 1950, p. 453

[96] A to J1946, D–1, pp. 50–1, 1947, D–1, pp. 49–50

[97] Ibid., 1947, H–18, p. 8, B–13, pp. 13–14

[98] Ibid., 1944, D–1, p. iii

[99] See pp. 139–41

[100] Department of Agriculture, Primary Production in New Zealand (hereinafter Primary Production) 1944, p. 22

[101] A to J1945, H–30, p. 8

[102] Yearbook1940, p. 426

[103] Primary Production 1944, p. 22

[104] Ibid., 1945, p. 16; A to J1942, H–30, pp. 6, 10, 11

[105] Baker, p. 200

[106] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 888

[107] A to J1943, H–30, pp. 6, 7, 1944, H–30, p. 10, 1945, H–30, p. 10 (all references to this final source that appear in this section refer to the first of the two tabled reports, that for the year ending 31 July 1944). Production and export figures vary in official sources, according to the months considered, and to whether the produce was graded for export, sold, shipped or held in store: eg, under the sales for export for 12 months ended 31 July 1942 are 154 595 tons of cheese, 115 524 tons of butter. Ibid., 1943, H-30, p. 20

[108] Ibid., 1944, H–30, p. 7

[109] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 888

[110] Between September 1939 and December 1942 prices and award wages had both risen 14 per cent. Baker, p. 285

[111] A to J1945, H–30(1), p. 10

[112] Wood, p. 278

[113] Dominion, 19 Apr 43, p. 4

[114] NZ Herald, 26 Apr 43, p. 2

[115] Dominion, 30 Apr 43

[116] Evening Star, 3 May 43, p. 2

[117] NZ Herald, 12 May 43, p. 2

[118] Keesing's Contemporary Archives, vol V, 1943–1946, p. 6099

[119] Dominion, 13 May 43

[120] NZ Herald, 12 May 43

[121] Ibid., 9 Jun 43, p. 2

[122] Ibid., 28 May 43, p. 2

[123] Evening Post,19 May 43, p. 4

[124] NZ Herald, 7 Jun 43, p. 4

[125] Dominion, 28 Jun 43

[126] Dreaver, Hon Mrs Mary Manson, MBE('46), JP (1887–1961): MP (Lab) Waitemata 1941–3; MLC from 1946

[127] Evening Post, 7 Aug 43, p. 6; NZPD, vol 263, pp. 615, 617

[128] Truth, 15 Sep 43, p. 11

[129] Evening Post, 6 Oct 43, p. 6

[130] Press, 29 Sep 43, p. 2

[131] Evening Star, 21 Jul 43, p. 5; Evening Post, 28 Aug 43, p. 8

[132] Press, 4 Oct 43, p. 3

[133] Dominion, 16, 23 Oct 43

[134] Press, 13 Sep 43, p. 4

[135] Ibid., 25 Sep 43, p. 4

[136] Ibid., 16 Sep 43, p. 4

[137] Auckland Star, 5 Oct 43, p. 4

[138] Evening Post, 6 Oct 43, p. 6

[139] Press, 4 Oct 43, p. 3; Auckland Star, 5, 7 Oct 43, pp. 4, 6

[140] Evening Post, 8 Oct 43, p. 4

[141] Ibid., 28 Oct 43, p. 6

[142] ‘Cream, brandy, honey and hot water bottles are things for which a section of the public is pursuing doctors,’ said a leading Wellington practitioner. Dominion, 6 Nov 43, p. 4

[143] Auckland Star, 16 Nov 43, p. 4

[144] Press, 19 Nov 43, p. 4

[145] Evening Post, 9 Nov 43, p. 3

[146] Auckland Star, 28 Oct 43

[147] Press, 29 Oct 43

[48] Dominion, 29 Oct 43

[149] Evening Post, 28 Oct 43

[150] NZ Herald, 28 Oct 43

[151] A to J1945, H–30A, p. 2

[152] Dominion, 22 Apr 44, p. 6

[153] Ibid., 6 Nov 43, p. 6

[154] Press, 13 Sep 43, p. 4; see p. 818

[155] Mrs M. Cassin, RD2, Napier, to author, 10 Sep 69

[156] Press, 6 Nov 43, p. 4

[157] Ibid., 10 Nov 43, p. 4

[158] Ibid., 22 Dec 43

[159] Dominion, 21 Jan, 1, 2 Feb 44, pp. 4, 4, 4

[160] Ibid., 13 Mar 44, p. 6

[161] Ibid., 2 Feb 44, p. 4; Press, 18 Dec 43, p. 4

[162] Dominion, 2 Feb 44, p. 4

[163] Press, 30 May 44, p. 4

[164] Ibid., 7 Jul 44, p. 6

[165] ‘Sawmill worker’, in a letter to ibid., 12 Nov 43, p. 6, thought that probably only a few score attended the meeting: ‘from the mill where I work not five per cent went to the meeting nor were we told in advance that the subject was going to be discussed’

[166] Ibid., 9 Nov 43, p. 6

[167] Ibid., 15 Nov 43, p. 6

[168] Auckland Star, 11 Nov 43, p. 2

[169] Ibid., 16 Nov 43

[170] see p. 958

[171] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 3, quoting telegram to editors, 15 Nov 43

[172] Baker, p. 470

[173] NZ Herald, 17 Feb 44, p. 5

[174] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 746

[175] Baker, p. 204, quoting NZ Dairy Board Annual Report 1960, p. 40

[176] Evening Star, 21 Jul 43, p. 5; Evening Post, 28 Aug 43, p. 8; Dominion, 28 Oct 43, p. 4; NZ Woman's Weekly, 12 Nov 43, p. 1

[177] A to J1945, H–30(1), p. 10; Evening Post, 27 Jun 45, p. 4

[178] NZ Herald, 22 May 44, p. 4

[179] Yearbook1945, p. 603

[180] Ibid.,1947–49, p. 746. New Zealand margarine was made from beef fat. Dairy Board interests precluded a product suitable for table use, although small packets were available for cooking.

[181] Baker, p. 470

[182] Auckland Star, 28 Oct 43, p. 3

[183] ‘The heartbreak of trying to make shortbread with a precious bit of butter and the mixture crumbled’, remembered Mrs H. D. Mitchell of Hastings to author, 9 Sep 69

[184] Auckland Star, 22 Nov 43, p. 2

[185] Ibid., 15 Nov 43, p. 2

[186] Basham, Mrs Daisy, MBE ('56): b London, educated NZ; radio broadcaster from 1930, daily morning programme for women from 1933; overseas b'casting tours 1938, 1944, 1946; d 1963

[187] Dominion, 6 Apr 44, p. 6

[188] Following the 31 January entry

[189] Press, 11 Oct 43, p. 4

[190] Ibid., 6, 23 Nov 43, pp. 4, 6

[191] Ibid., 23 Nov 43, p. 6

[192] Auckland Star, 16 Aug 44, p. 4

[193] A to J1945, H–30(1), p. 10

[194] Yearbook1942, p. 742. The provisional consumption figures for 1977 are 17½lb cheese and 31lb butter. Ibid., 1980, p. 633

[195] Galloway, S., Better Baking

[196] The latter was notably uttered by F. W. Doidge, prominent National MP, in February 1940, stressing that the war effort was as much concerned with production as with recruiting. ‘Farm or fight! Let us organise for victory on both fronts.’ NZ Herald, 12 Feb 40, p. 8

[197] Point Blank, 16 Oct 39, p. 3; Star–Sun, 16 Oct 40, p. 5; Ross, Wartime Agriculture, p. 258

[198] For details see pp. 288–91

[199] A to J1943, H–30, p. 10

[200] Wood, p. 279

[201] NZPD, vol 263, p. 417

[202] Press, 4 Oct 43, p. 3

[203] NZ Herald, 2 Nov 43, p. 2

[204] Press, 29 Sep 43, p. 2; NZ Herald, 19 Nov 43, p. 4

[205] Amery, William Bankes, CBE('20) (1883–1951): British govt official from 1916; Miny Food, Head Food Mission to Australia 1942–5; member Board British Phosphate Cmssn from 1946

[206] NZ Herald, 19 Nov 43, p. 4

[207] Press, 28 Aug, 27 Dec 42, pp. 4, 4

[208] Ibid., 27 Oct, 5 Nov 43, pp. 3, 4

[209] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 923; Evening Post, 14 May 43, p. 4

[210] Evening Post, 30 Jul, 13 Oct 43, pp. 4, 6; Auckland Star, 11 Nov 43, p. 2; NZ Herald, 17 Nov 43, p. 2

[211] Wood, p. 279

[212] Auckland Star, 17 Dec 43, p. 6

[213] Press, 27 Dec 43, p. 4

[214] Dominion, 18 Jan 44, p. 4

[215] Ibid., 29 Jan 44, p. 6

[216] Ibid., 7, 9, 10 Feb 44, pp. 4, 6, 4; Taihape Times, 4 Feb 44, p. 3

[217] NZ Herald, 18, 24 Mar 44, pp. 6, 2

[218] Ibid., 17, 18, 22 Mar 44, pp. 2, 6, 4; Press, 20 May 44, p. 4

[219] NZ Herald, 17 Mar 44, p. 4

[220] Ibid., 17, 28 Mar 44, pp. 4, 6

[221] Ibid., 24 Mar 44, p. 6

[222] Dominion, 3 Mar 44, p. 4; Chappell, N. M., New Zealand Banker's Hundred, p. 344

[223] NZ Herald, 17 Mar 44, p. 4

[224] Ibid., 12 Apr 44, p. 4

[225] Auckland Star, 12 Jul 44, p. 2

[226] Ibid., 5 Sep 44, p. 6

[227] A to J1945, H–30(2), p. 26

[228] Yearbook1945, p. 603

[229] Ibid., 1947–49, pp. 745, 747

[230] Baker, p. 470

[231] Published by NZ Dairy Exports and Farm Home Journal

[232] Calder, p. 280

[233] NZ Observer, 13 Dec 39, p. 19

[234] Auckland Star, 27 Jul 42, p. 3

[235] NZ Herald, 28 Jul 42, p. 4

[236] Press, 10 Aug 42, p. 4. Cable pages that morning announced that the United States had attacked Gaudakanal.

[237] The latter were not in fashion, though shoulders in the 1940s were squared and often padded.

[238] Dominion, 30 Oct 42, p. 6

[239] NZ Herald, 31 Oct, p. 4; Auckland Star, 30 Oct 42, p. 5. The opulence of this basis, in some cases, and the labour involved, may be gauged by a current advertisement: ‘Smartly tailored ensemble in purty colour shade. The full length coat is embroidered with open-work Appliqué design on the front edge, also the long-sleeved tailored frock. 11 guineas’. Press, 3 Nov 42, p. 3. Or: ‘… just the Ensemble you require for the Races … featuring the short tunic. A navy dull silk crepe model attractively trimmed in scroll and leaf design. The transparent yoke of double Marquisette is finished with braid trimming. Smartly cut skirt with six gores attached to silk bodice. 9 guineas.’ Ibid., 4 Nov 42, p. 5

[240] Dominion, 31 Oct 42, p. 8

[241] Calder, p. 280

[242] Press, 3 Nov 42, 4

[243] Dominion, 31 Oct 42, p. 8

[244] Press, 5 Nov 42, p. 6

[245] NZ Herald, 31 Oct 42, p. 6

[246] Dominion, 25 Mar 43, p. 4

[247] Ibid., 26 Mar 42, p. 4

[248] Ibid.

[249] Ibid., 27 Mar 43, p. 4; Press, 23 Mar 43, p. 4

[250] Evening Star, 31 Mar 43, p. 6

[251] Auckland Star, 13 Apr 43, p. 4

[252] Ibid., 14 Apr 43

[253] Dominion, 25 Oct 43, p. 3

[254] Otago Daily Times, 6, 13 Nov 43, pp. 6, 6

[255] Auckland Star, 10 Dec 43, p. 6

[256] NZ Herald, 7 Feb 44, p. 2

[257] Ibid.

[258] Ibid., 9 Feb 44, p. 2

[259] Ibid., 22 Apr 44, p. 6

[260] Auckland Star, 6 Dec 44, p. 4

[261] NZ Herald, 12 May 45, p. 8

[262] These were: woven artificial silks in plain colours, knitted cotton or rayon, or woven cotton materials other than molleton.

[263] Dominion, 15 Jan 43, p. 4

[264] Press, 5 Mar 43, p. 3

[265] Evening Post, 2 Sep 42, p. 6

[266] Press, 24 Dec 42, p. 3

[267] Evening Post, 20 Aug 43, p. 6

[268] Press, 9 Mar 43, p. 3

[269] Ibid., 7 Sep 43, p. 2

[270] Ibid., 21 Sep 43, p. 3

[271] Ibid.,17 Aug 43, p. 3

[272] Dominion, 4 Mar 43, p. 6

[273] NZ Herald, 6 Apr 44, p. 2.

[274] Auckland Star, 24 Jun 44, p. 7

[275] Ibid., 7 Oct 43, p. 7

[276] NZ Herald, 23 Nov 43, p. 5

[277] Evening Post, 31 Aug. 7 Sep 43, pp. 8, 7; Press, 27 Aug, 6, 10, 20, 24 Sep, 21 Dec 43, pp. 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3; Otago Daily Times, 22 Nov 43, p. 5; Dominion, 26 Mar, 17 Aug, 4 Nov 43, pp. 6, 3, 6, 6 Dec 44, p. 9; Auckland Star, 6 Nov 43, p. 7, 16 Mar, 24 May, 12 Jul 44, pp. 2, 7, 5

[278] Dominion, 3 Apr 44, p. 3

[279] Auckland Star, 24 Jun 44, p. 8

[280] ‘A pretty hat is as British as Big Ben’. Ibid., 5 Aug 42, p. 3

[281] Tack-on collars were coupon-free, and widely advertised.

[282] Auckland Star, 22 Mar 43, p. 2

[283] Ibid., 8 Aug 42, p. 4; Evening Post, 15 Sep 43, p. 8

[284] Evening Post, 19 Dec 42, p. 10

[285] Auckland Star, 13 Jan 45, p. 7

[286] Eunice Robinson to author, 14 Sep 69

[287] Mrs R. G. Spooner to author, 15 Sep 69

[288] Ibid.

[289] NZ Herald, 9 Oct 40, p. 9

[290] Ibid., 16 Oct 40, p. 9

[291] Ibid., 24 Oct 40, p. 8

[292] Otago Daily Times, 11 Mar 41, p. 8

[293] NZ Herald, 6 Feb 42, p. 6

[294] Education Gazette, 15 Oct 42, p. 255

[295] Dominion, 29 Jan 43, p. 4

[296] Auckland Star, 2 Dec 42, p.

[297] Dominion, 16 Aug 43, p. 4

[298] NZ Herald, 11 Apr 44, p. 4

[299] United Mine Workers' Minutes, 25 Nov 42, p. 117

[300] Press, 9, 26 Feb 4,3, pp. 4, 4

[301] Ibid., 7 Jul, 16 Aug 43, pp. 2, 3; Dominion, 14 Jul 43, p. 3

[302] Press, 6, 9 Aug 43, pp. 4, 4; Auckland Star, 30 Aug 44, p. 6

[303] Evening Post, 13 Aug 43, p. 3

[304] Press, 5 Oct 43, p. 4

[305] Ibid., 30 Jul 43, p. 6

[306] NZ Herald, 17 Apr 44, p. 4; Press, 6 Aug, 9, 12 Dec 43, pp. 6, 4, 2. The National Council did not include representatives of wholesale and retail trades, or of the workers who made the goods

[307] NZ Herald, 5 Apr 44, p. 6

[308] Press, 3 Nov, 9 Dec 43, pp. 2, 4

[309] Auckland Star, 22 May 44, p. 6

[310] Press, 22 Dec 43, p. 2

[311] Auckland Star, 30 Aug, 6 Sep 44, pp. 6, 4

[312] A to J1945, H–11A, p. 48

[313] Dominion, 25 Oct, 9 Dec 44, pp. 6, 8

[314] Auckland Star, 30 Aug 44, p. 6

[315] Ibid., 18 Jul 44, p. 6

[316] Press, 31 Jan 42, p. 6; Chappell, p. 344

[317] Yearbook1940, pp. 363, 370

[318] Evening Post, 29 May 40, p. 11

[319] NZ Herald, 12 Dec 41, p. 8

[320] Evening Post, 24 Jan 42, p. 6

[321] Dominion, 8 Feb 41, p. 12

[322] Wanganui Herald, 13 Mar 42, p. 2

[323] Dominion, 13 Mar, 6 May 42, pp. 4, 4

[324] Otago Daily Times, 14 Apr 42. p. 4

[325] Press, 22 Jan 43, p. 2

[326] NZ Herald, 3 Dec 40, p. 13

[327] Press, 15, 22 Jan, 3 Feb, 6 Mar 42, pp. 4, 3, 4, 4, 24 Apr, 6, 9, 12, 18, 26, 27 May 42, pp. 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4; see p. 749

[328] Auckland Star, 9 Dec 41, p. 11

[329] Ibid., 20 Feb 42, p. 6

[330] NZ Herald, 2 May 42, p. 8

[331] Dominion, 18 Jun 42, p. 2

[332] NZ Herald, 11 Aug 42, p. 2

[333] nbid., 19 Jun 42, p. 4

[334] Auckland Star, 15 Aug, 11 Sep 42, pp. 6, 4

[335] Ibid., 8 Aug, 9 Sep 42, pp. 2, 2

[336] Ibid., 8, 9, 16 Sep 42, pp. 2, 2, 4

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 18 — Aliens

CHAPTER 18
Aliens
new Zealand in 1939 was not used to aliens. In a total population of 1 640 000 some 8000 were of alien origin, most having come in gradually over many years. About half were Chinese, most of whom worked in market gardens and fruit shops, though in the cities a few were dealers in Eastern goods. There were Dalmatians farming in the Auckland province, a few making wine; about 800 Italians, mainly in the fish trade, lived in several pocket settlements. There were Yugoslavs, Scandinavians, Greeks, Germans, Hungarians, Poles and others scattered here and there, many of them naturalised. In Nelson a German settlement of the 1840s had largely been assimilated. After the 1914–18 war several hundred German ex-internees were deported and not till 1928 were nationals of former enemy states permitted to enter New Zealand. The German-born population fell from 5007 in 1886 to 1299 in 1936 and fewer than 300 of the Germans registered as aliens in 1946 were non-refugees. [1] The number of German and Austrian immigrants rose steeply from a yearly average of 37 during 1933–8 to 251 in 1938–9 and 423 in the year ended 31 March 1940. The latecomers had left Germany before the war started, along with 52 who arrived during 1940–1. Arrivals from Czechoslovakia also increased, from 3 in 1938–9 to 102 in 1938–40, with 30 following in the next year. [2]

In the later 1930s, when refugees from Hitler's Europe were searching the world for new homes, New Zealand admitted them very cautiously. Only one refugee entered per 1500 New Zealanders, compared with one per 480 of population in the United Kingdom and one per 625 in the United States. [3] Churches in New Zealand set up committees to assist the entrance of suitable refugees, and urged the government towards liberality, while recognising that it could not move ahead of public opinion. The public feared that refugees, through language, health and other difficulties, would prove incompetent to earn their livings. With unemployment still very much in the national mind, the government requirement that each refugee have a guarantor to promise that for five years he would not be a charge on the State was a powerful barrier; guarantors were not plentiful. [4] The churches, perceiving that the ‘economic and social complications of an open door are almost incalculable’, [5] were willing to quicken interest and sympathy for refugees but were dubious about actually taking responsibility for individual families. [6]

There was also apprehension lest refugees, mainly of Jewish origin, should prove economically successful, presumably at the expense of New Zealanders. The British Home Secretary's statement in mid- 1939 that 10 000 refugees had provided employment for 15 000 Englishmen, [7] with its suggestion of the native-born taking orders from the foreigner, was double-edged advocacy. That the community might receive much of value to itself from intelligent and cultivated Europeans was an idea not widely accepted by the majority, who had never met such people but were familiar with anti-Jewish clichés. Some Jewish families already established were reluctant to sponsor boldly lest unacceptable newcomers should impair their own carefully attained image and positions.

In July 1939 the Wellington Chamber of Commerce urged that from self-interest as well as humanitarian reasons the government should admit chosen immigrants more liberally. New Zealand, for development and for defence, needed a larger population; its industries would benefit if suitable people were taken from the thousands of healthy and skilled Europeans living in British work camps and other training institutions on temporary permits; a co-ordinating committee should be established to plan their infiltration and settlement. [8] A Wellington manufacturer said that from 1500–2000 female workers could be absorbed by the shoe-making trade at once if they were available; his firm alone could take 50. Highly industrialised countries like Czechoslovakia could supply trained operatives in various pursuits. [9] Both the Press and the Otago Daily Times on 20 July favoured the Chamber of Commerce proposal and were critical of the government's silence and inactivity concerning the admission of refugees. It had, said the Press, ‘aroused a justifiable suspicion that the whole problem is being dealt with reluctantly, unsystematically and illiberally.’ The basis of government policy was the mistaken assumption that to admit refugees in large numbers would antagonise more electors than it would please and that safety lay in doing very little. ‘But public opinion is now well ahead of official opinion. The appeals for a more liberal policy have come from a wide variety of interests including chambers of commerce, trade unions, manufacturers' organisations and churches.’

At about the same time the Peace Pledge Union wrote to members of Parliament pointing to the terrible plight of refugees and saying that New Zealand industry would benefit from large numbers of hard-working, educated people bringing in new demands, capital and skills. [10] The New Zealand Farmers' Union, however, rejected an Auckland proposal that the Union should press for suitable Europeans to fill vacancies in the primary and secondary industries. Recently, one Swiss immigrant had been followed by 19 others; they were good workers but if that went on the farming industry would be entirely in the hands of such people. [11]

With the outbreak of war some churches, notably the Methodist, still advocated the admission of approved refugees, particularly children, from the tens of thousands who had fled Hitler's Europe and were seeking permanent homes. [12] More firmly, churches said that the errors of the last war should be avoided; there should be friendliness and goodwill to the aliens already here. All Christians should show gracious hospitality to those who had suffered so much, and should persistently discourage the ignorant, often cowardly rumours so common in war time; New Zealand was fighting against racial and national intolerance, and it would be tragic to allow defeat within the country. [13]

In the first months of the war there was scattered hostility towards aliens, of the ‘once a German always a German’ sort, from some. Others, anxious that the excesses of the last war should not recur, pointed out that many aliens had been in New Zealand for a long time, while recent refugees had suffered and fled from Hitler. For instance: in October 1939 a local RSA executive member urged that, contrary to current Dunedin belief, there was no difference between Germans and Nazis and that all enemy aliens should be behind bars for the duration. His executive, however, thought this too sweeping and would do no more than refer the internment of aliens to the Dominion Council for urgent discussion, remarking that it was not necessarily desirable to intern those of German origin known over many years as good citizens. [14] The ‘behind bars’ viewpoint was eloquently rebutted by several correspondents stressing the difference between Nazism and its victims, invoking Chamberlain's distinction between Nazis and Germans, and recalling the benefits conferred on British industry by 17th century Huguenot refugees, and others who had sought asylum from political and religious persecution. [15] An article, ‘The War and the Refugee, a plea for sanity’, [16] also quoted Chamberlain's ‘we have no quarrel with the German people’, [17] and stressed the importance of keeping the spirit of tolerance alive against the inroads of irrational anti-Hun utterances. One should make extra efforts to comfort German friends, who had already suffered so much and had to start life again in a strange community. One should fight any sign of intolerance appearing among one's acquaintances, keeping ruthlessness for the Nazi spirit and compassion for its victims everywhere.

There was no wave of patriotic fervour as in 1914, engulfing aliens in hostility, but as volunteering ran slackly after the first month or two there were murmurs that one of the reasons was reluctance to defend the country on seven shillings a day while aliens, safe in soft jobs, received 15 or 20 shillings. [18] This job-jealousy was to persist and grow stronger throughout the war. Some of its earliest rancour focused on ex-European doctors.

New Zealand at the end of the Thirties did not offer much scope for European architects or musicians, however skilled; legal training, meshed in codes, cases and common law, was not transferable but, given language competence, medicine and dentistry could be applied across the frontier. There was not much outcry against the handful of German–Jewish dentists who began to appear in the cities. Perhaps New Zealand teeth proffered enough work for all comers and dentists attracted less public attention than doctors, who loomed high in the social landscape. From 1940, numbers of New Zealand's younger, brisker medical men were going overseas or attending encamped forces in New Zealand. Should European doctors, with their well-known charm and ingratiating ways, be allowed to entrench themselves in these empty areas? Various voices declared that they should not. One of the earliest was Truth, [19] which spoke of interlopers who had changed their nationality overnight, stealing soldier doctors' practices, helped thereto by secret Jewish societies, extravagant claims and credulous people. A refugee committee spokesman replied that 11 Jewish doctors were then in practice. Fewer than 20 were training in Dunedin and there were 1400 doctors on the medical register. [20]

More quietly, a proposal to place five refugee psychiatrists from

Austria in New Zealand mental hospitals was vetoed by the government. The Prime Minister answered enquiries by saying that as the medical staffs of these institutions were at full strength there were no billets for these applicants, who did not have the qualifications or experience of the present staffs. [21] A handful of correspondents still hankered for Vienna-trained psychiatrists. [22]

As local doctors disappeared into the forces, it might have been thought that doctors from Europe would have been accepted after several year's further training at Otago's Medical School to ensure that they came up to New Zealand standards and were familiar with New Zealand conditions. When actually in practice they were usually popular, but there were exaggerated statements on how many there were and vocal suspicion that by being present in a time of need and by their Continental manners, they would take over permanently the work of doctors serving overseas. Their number was in fact modest. In about 1934 the Medical Council of New Zealand, which controlled admissions to the medical register, had been asked by the British government to consider favourably applications from Jewish medical men seeking to practise in New Zealand. By February 1940, of 67 applicants, the Customs Department had agreed to admit 50, and 39 had arrived. Of these, eight already had qualifications acceptable in New Zealand, 17 had entered Medical School, nine were waiting a chance to enter, while five had taken other jobs. [23] At Medical School the first comers were required to do one year's study and examinations, and five qualified thus. In 1938 the course was extended to three years, and 20 embarked thereon. By February 1942, of the 50 medical refugees granted entry by the Customs Department, 43 had entered the country and the balance of the permits had lapsed; between 1935 and 1941, 15 qualified at Otago and 11 more were due to qualify at the end of 1942. [24]

The Medical Council, concerned to protect New Zealand medical men from foreign infiltration, decided in 1939 that during the war no more refugee applicants would be admitted to take the three year course. [25] Within Otago University and the Senate of the University of New Zealand it was held that this was too sweeping a restriction; the University's proper concern was with the qualification and teaching of students, not with accepting or refusing aliens as such. Though New Zealanders should be accepted first, refugee applicants of suitable character and ability should be taken in if there were room; the public was entitled to the best medical attention possible, whatever its origin. [26] Eight more refugee students were admitted to the three year course in 1940 [27] and a few others later gained entrance through application to the University of New Zealand. [28]

The RSA and others opposed to alien doctors were chiefly concerned lest they take over the practices of doctors with the forces. There was less opposition to their working in hospitals or remote places [29] and several went to districts that had never before had doctors. [30] Early in 1942, in many areas overworked doctors were increasingly hard to reach. [31] The Observer on 10 February 1943 remarked that there was no excuse for people who complained when they could not get a doctor but banged the door in the faces of those trying to remedy the deficiency. [32]

In organising general alien surveillance, the police started almost from scratch in 1939. Previously, immigration had been handled by the Customs Department and foreigners, once admitted, were not subject to further registration or checking. Hence no complete list of aliens existed. In May 1938, the Aliens Committee of the Organisation for National Security, drawn from the Army, Police, Internal Affairs, Customs and Statistics departments, had decided that Customs and Statistics would henceforth inform the police of aliens' arrivals and departures; the list could not be made retrospective. [33]

During the Thirties, several German clubs which included New Zealanders as members were formed as cultural and language societies. After 1934, when the police began to look into these clubs, they found that the most vigorous of them, the Deutscher Verein at Auckland, increasingly acquired, under Nazi-minded consuls, an aggressively nationalistic tone, while its membership diminished. [34] As war approached, aliens' activities were more closely watched, and from September 1939 their mail was closely censored. [35]

Meanwhile the Aliens Committee, considering what should be done in the event of war, determined that naturalisation would be suspended for the duration, and produced the Aliens Control Emergency Regulations (1939/132) of 4 September. These required every person of 16 years or more who had ever been a subject of an enemy state, even if naturalised, to register with the police, thereby acquiring a certificate to be produced on demand. Aliens were to notify the police of changes of address, or of name, and could not without police permits work on a ship or wharf. If a police officer or member of the armed forces believed an alien to be disaffected or thought that his conduct, past or probable, was a public danger, he could take such an alien into custody pending the decision of the Attorney- General, who, if convinced that these suspicions were solidly grounded, could order internment. The Attorney-General could also exempt approved aliens, wholly or in part, from the regulations. An amendment at the end of October (1939/233) required aliens to obtain police permission if they wished to leave their registered homes for more than 24 hours.

The need to register was widely advertised, and the police list of aliens grew rapidly. There were no instant internments; official policy was to keep internments to the minimum, and Somes Island in

Wellington's harbour, which was again chosen for this purpose, had to be reconverted from an animal quarantine station. Just before Christmas seven men from Auckland and two from Wellington were taken to Somes Island. [36] The number there grew slowly, and by June 1940 had risen to 16, plus 15 from Samoa. In that month

Italy's entering the war increased internments by 30, mainly those who had been prominent in local Italian organisations which of recent years had taken on a Fascist flavour. [37]

Many well-known citizens, German-born but of undoubted loyalty, applied for and received the Attorney-General's exemption. The need became so clear that the regulations were amended on 22

November (1939/248). Unless the Minister of Justice decided otherwise, exemption from all controls was given, in effect, to those who had been naturalised British subjects for more than 25 years and to their children born in British territory. By the end of the year about 650 persons of German origin were thus exempted, exemptions that with very few exceptions stood throughout the war. [38]

News about aliens in Britain inevitably affected New Zealand actions and attitudes. In pre-war years the Nazi technique of organising Germans living in neighbouring countries to promote Nazi policies had been prominent. In Austria, Czechoslovakia and Danzig substantial minorities had become the cutting-edge of German expansion, building up pressure and incidents that led to military seizures. In mid-1940, from Norway, the Low Countries and France came reports that swarms of ‘tourists’ preceded the panzers. There were tales of treachery by agents entrenched in key positions, of signals and sabotage, of confusion and collapse accelerated by the ‘Fifth Column’.

Britain's normal German community of between 15 000 and 20 000 had been augmented before the war by refugees, mainly Jewish or leftist. By September 1939 there were more than 60 000 from Germany and Austria and some 8 000 Czech refugees. On the outbreak, about 2 000 suspects were interned, while 120 Aliens Tribunals investigated nearly 74 000 others. About 600 (Class A) were interned, the movements of about 6800 (Class B, absolute reliability uncertain) were restricted, and the majority (Class C) went free with certificates of reliability. In the crisis of 1940, all these categories were swept aside in a comprehensive round-up, beginning on 12 May, when about 2000 alien males living in coastal areas were arrested. A few days later all in Class B, including women and children, were rounded up with great haste and secrecy, while newspapers clamoured for total internment. With the entry of Italy, 4000 Italians who had lived for less than 20 years in Britain were interned immediately. By 20 June, the police had orders to bring in any Class C Germans or Austrians of whom they were doubtful and, after 25 June, all Class C men under 70 except invalids or key workers. The movements of these exempted persons were restricted and they were not allowed to possess cars, bicycles or maps. The haste and size of these internments inevitably meant harshness and unseemly conditions in camps, and there were many suicides. Several thousand aliens were shipped to Canada and Australia. Early in July

1940 the Andora Star, taking some 1500 Germans and Italians to

Canada, was sunk with heavy losses.

Reaction to such measures began; it was also realised that many useful and talented workers were idle on the Isle of Man, site of the main camp. Tribunals again began to investigate aliens, who were released progressively, so that by 1943 nine-tenths of those employable were at work, many in skilled jobs. [39]

In New Zealand, the disasters of 1940 and the British round-up of aliens caused some near-panic ripples of hostility towards aliens, heightened on 19 June by the sinking of the Niagara in Hauraki Gulf. But even before these events the RSA was moving against the enemy within the gates. Its executives, dignified by their own sacrifices and those of fallen comrades, regarded themselves and were widely regarded by others as authorities about defence and aliens generally. On 2 May 1940 the annual conference of the NZRSA held that during the war and for two years thereafter the entrance of foreigners should be prohibited and that those naturalised who showed disloyalty (a wide-ranging word) should have their naturalisation papers cancelled. [40] On 11 June the Dominion executive urged the government to intern immediately all enemy aliens who had come from enemy territory within the last few years, adding; ‘we say all enemy aliens because it seems impossible to differentiate.’ [41]

Between these dates other groups and individuals had shown hostility to aliens, demanding measures such as wholesale internment or drafting aliens to labour on the land. In many cases concern for security was backed by resentment of aliens protected by New Zealanders holding well paid jobs. The RSA was entwined with some of these groups, notably the National Service Movement in Auckland and the Taranaki movement, [42] and it was influential in the Farmers' Union. The rash of meetings called by all these bodies demanded, besides conscription and a national government, strong action against Communists, disloyal elements and enemy aliens. As well, early shots in the main anti-alien barrage of 1940 came from the job-sensitive medical men. [43] The Farmers' Union annual conference in the last week of May 1940 heard the general range of arguments: it would be terrible if the fighting men were stabbed in the back by a ‘fifth column’ as in Poland and Czechoslovakia; New

Zealand should get in first by interning all enemy aliens, for if there were any exceptions save on the grounds of old age, those who should be in custody would slip through a gap in the regulations; there would be hardship for some but they should be prepared to face this for the good of the country; there should be a clean sweep of the German–Jewish doctors on to Somes Island. One speaker, however, insisted on the necessity for a court of appeal against internment. [44]

Adam Hamilton, then leader of the Opposition, declared that he would seek from the government full returns of the number of aliens who had come to New Zealand during the past few years, particularly during the last year; of the number employed in government departments, and of those competing in business or the professions with New Zealanders who were bearing the burden of war service. [45]

Truth was triumphant: ‘The whole country is now backing “Truth” in demanding a policy of internment, with no loopholes. A “Fifth Column” surprise must not happen here’. [46]

An article in the New Zealand Herald on 25 May, advocating vigilance and criticising government inactivity, drew together a good deal of current opinion. ‘Concern over the menace of a Fifth German Column in New Zealand is widely manifest. In some quarters it is extravagant. In others … it is called hysteria. In others again it is given second place among internal dangers to the subversive influences of Communism.’ The great majority of people desired no extreme steps, but the absence of reasonable government action was bound to manufacture extremists. To the ‘average patriot’, aware that the Fifth Column was part of the German war machine, it was absurd to imagine that Germany, when evicting Jews, would not send its active agents with them. It was the unavoidable misfortune of German–Jewish refugees to be suspect, especially as some had a good deal of ready money for business and property investment, plus ‘a commercial aggressiveness somewhat foreign to New Zealand custom’. There was reason for believing, said the article, that aliens with cash resources unexpectedly large for refugees had secured farm properties in certain localities. Any marked area preference should be investigated. ‘We have German refugees; we have people classed as refugees who may have loyalties of a very divided character; and no doubt we have some Germans who are units of the German armed forces’, waiting for orders. Public anxiety would not be quieted till surveillance was much closer than it was at present. [47]

On 12 June 1940 an article in the Herald, repeated by the Otago Daily Times on 18 June, declared that public concern had not been assuaged by the Attorney-General's assurances on 28 May [48] that adequate steps were being taken. ‘Everywhere people are talking of dangers of one kind or another to which the country may be exposed through the activities of the Fifth Column and of disloyal elements. Much of the talk is based on mere rumour; some if it is only the expression of vague anxiety. But part of it is based upon close observation and a clear appreciation of the risks.’ There followed a Gallipoli story of a cease-fire order given during close fighting by a German officer to Auckland soldiers who thus, 25 years earlier, had learned ‘something of what is now called Fifth Column methods.’ [49] More frivolously in mid-June a Dominion reporter remarked that considerable courage was needed to speak in any foreign language in Wellington: the loud conversation of two persons speaking German in a restaurant drew inquisitive and black looks from nearby people, evidently ‘prepared on the least provocation to regard them as fifth columnists.’ [50]

In the correspondence columns of newspapers a sprinkling of letters advocated general internment, and some urged that reliable aliens would themselves prefer to be interned rather than leave a few dangerous ones at large. [51] It is probable that telegrams calling for internment were sent to ministers. For instance on 19 June 1940, National party women of Canterbury, ‘very hot and angry’ while believing that the Niagara, sunk by a mine in Hauraki Gulf, had been sabotaged, telegraphed the Prime Minister that all enemy aliens should be immediately interned. [52]

As R. A. Lochore, a linguist employed in postal censorship and in the control of aliens, wrote: ‘It was in provincial towns, blest with a mere half-dozen refugees, that the fifth-column hunt went forward most merrily in 1940, until the quarry either made an ally of the local police sergeant, or buried themselves in the comparative anonymity of the cities.’ [53] Newspapers give instances of full-scale hostility in the small towns where there was no anonymity. Thus, the Hawke's Bay Hospital Board declared that it would not enter into any contracts with alien persons or firms during the war [54] and that no alien of enemy origin would have access to its institutions except as a patient. [55] In Invercargill a man objected to the liberty allowed aliens because he had to work alongside one who reported regularly to the police. [56] Another wrote, ‘It is remarkable the number of people of German and Italian origin who are still walking around as free as ourselves. If the “fifth column” beat France, what will these people do here if they get a chance? … Whether they are innocent or not, the best place for them is a cell.’ [57] Another wrote: ‘I say they are not to be trusted, no matter how long they have been in New Zealand. I say round them up and make them work for their tucker.’ [58] An Italian restaurant keeper, naturalised, married to a New Zealander, and formerly popular, was driven from Dannevirke. [59] Another Italian at Meanee near Napier was tarred and feathered. [60] At

Whangarei there were complaints of Dalmatians getting jobs and buying land when young Britishers had enlisted; something would have to be done to protect soldiers' interests against aliens. [61]

There were also less excited voices. While Moody in Auckland was uttering his warnings, [62] in Wellington, the centre which had the largest number of enemy aliens, city councillors considered the possibilities of arson and of sabotage in public utilities. They spoke of various precautions, advising municipal departments to check over their employees, and advising shopkeepers such as fruiterers to remove readily inflammable boxes from their yards, but they did not propose wholesale dismissals or internments. [63]

Sometimes attacks brought forth champions. [64] In Taranaki a contractor told men who objected to working with two others, of Italian descent, that the latter were loyal and he had known them for years, but if they felt so hostile there were plenty of rifles in Wellington and thousands of Italians elsewhere. [65] Also in Taranaki, a young German-born farmhand got into arguments which led to an assault. In court, his lawyer said that his client was out of work for he was dismissed as soon as his nationality was discovered, and suggested that he should be interned to solve that difficulty. The magistrate said that it was unthinkable that in this country a man should be punished just for being a German, and gave probation. [66] After new regulations on 18 June 1940 had decreed that enemy aliens should not possess or control motor vehicles, Horowhenua county councillors, in considering the issue of licences, decided to refer cases in doubt to the police, but hoped to avoid injustice to loyal settlers of enemy nationality. In this fight for very existence, said the chairman, ‘no risks must be taken, but I hope no injustice will be done to those who are just as loyal as any Britisher. The decision is not with the council to make, but where it is found necessary to refer cases to the police it is to be hoped that the persons involved will not take umbrage because of this action, realising the issues which are at stake.’ [67]

Refugee emergency committees soothingly explained that refugee surveillance was not casual: each refugee had been thoroughly investigated before gaining entry and the police kept close watch on all aliens. Their movements and activities were known day by day, while all letters they received or posted were censored stringently. As an instance of their willingness to help, it was made known that at the outbreak of war all male refugees in Christchurch had written to the military authorities offering to serve in any capacity, and two of the younger men were already in the Third Echelon. [68] The Presbyterian Church published widely, on 30 May 1940, its resolution that the government had the best information on refugees and should not be embarrassed by popular clamour for immediate wholesale internment of those who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by the victory of Hitlerism.

A few hardy liberals defended the pass between ‘refugees’ and ‘enemy aliens’. One, F. de la Mare, while sympathising with people who in difficult days spoke under the urge of patriotic emotion, noted that New Zealand's handful of refugees from barbarities suffered in Europe had recently become ‘enemy aliens’ who should not be given work but should be interned. This was not the policy of the government, which had decided to investigate every case, investigation that should prove no great task. Refugees presented the problem of absorption, which would not be helped by passion or very naïve patriotism. He thought that history would find the best test of New Zealanders' right to individual and national freedom in their attitudes to these unfortunate people. [69]

Some prominent Aucklanders, including several professors, countered anti-alien outcry by appealing for discrimination. They held that evidence and guarantees should be assessed in every case, and the doubtful ones be interned, instead of the community lashing blindly at all and sundry in an emotional crisis. No guarantee could be absolute, but there were also false Britons in Hitler's pay, and the line should be drawn on evidence, not on race. Energy should be directed towards increased output, the elimination of waste, efficient defence and training schemes, and universal service, which should include whole-time or part-time work for parasites, rather than towards working up resentment against aliens. [70]

Not all academics took this view. Auckland's Professor of Philosophy, W. Anderson, [71] commented that ‘the academic front (or should one say, façade?)’ was exploiting the rhetorical possibilities of accusing its opponents of brain-storms and crowd hysteria. ‘The whole idea of internment is that it is a measure necessitated by the unprocurability of incriminating evidence. Before we could get the evidence, the damage would have been done.’ [72]

A distinguished headmaster, L. J. Wild, [73] spoke of the school's duty to uphold justice and charity, calmness and clear thinking, especially when ‘far too many people are working themselves into a state of nervous excitement, and in an excess of panic which is quite foreign to British character, impose upon themselves the gratuitous but no doubt exciting task of hunting for heretics and other suspects now more generally known as “Fifth Columnists”’. [74]

For R. H. Nimmo, prominent in Wellington's Chamber of Commerce, wholesale internment was incompatible with British justice, and he was sure that those pressing for it would not do so if they had seen for themselves in Europe, as he had, ‘the indescribable hardship and injustice meted out to Jewish people’, or seen the poor exiles, herded like cattle, crossing the Altantic with their worldly goods in bundles. Each enemy alien in New Zealand should have a thorough, impartial investigation and, if there were the slightest justification, be interned without hesitation, but he hoped that the government would not be stampeded into ruthless internment of people who had proved to be useful citizens and who were filled with horror at the very name of the enemy. [75] The central council of the Chambers of Commerce asked the Minister of Justice if there were as many aliens as reports suggested and if police powers were adequate. It was contented with the Minister's assurance that as a result of government caution, which had been criticised as harshness, in admitting refugees during the past four or five years, their numbers were not large and police powers were sufficient. One member of the council said that he would hate to see anything like a pogrom in a British country, and there were others in the community, such as Communists, far more dangerous than enemy aliens. [76]

Fraser on 16 May 1940 had declared that the government had full information on all aliens and was keeping close watch; vigilance by the public was commendable, but alarmist reports would be harmful. [77] Mason, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, repeated this more fully on 28 May: no Fifth Column brigade, battalion or company, would march in New Zealand. There were some disaffected persons, but they were either known or suspected and were being watched. Freedom always made possible the existence of ingrates, hospitality always risked the viper in the bosom. There would be more internments, but vigilance must be combined with justice. There were now hundreds in the country who had fled, as New Zealanders would have done, from the Nazi terror, which was quite as hateful to them as to us. [78]

While uttering these assurances, the government was moving towards closer surveillance. Police routine had meant checking on matters brought to their notice, not alien-by-alien investigation. So far, only those known to be active supporters of Nazi or Fascist doctrines had been interned. Internments had been ordered by the Minister, solely on evidence put forward by the police, and were in effect police committals. But the police, while trained to present a case for prosecution, had no experience of objective presentation. The Minister wanted an advisory body to test the credibility of both police and alien evidence, though the police were somewhat reluctant to divulge secret information to such a tribunal. [79] Along with public clamour for closer control, the aliens themselves were asking for a tribunal to investigate and clear them from suspicion, as was done in England before the May crisis. A deputation from the Wellington Emergency Relief Committee stressed this to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice on 10 June. [80]

On 18 June regulations (1940/119) provided for any necessary number of tribunals of up to three members which would examine the bona fides of enemy aliens, advise whether or not they should be interned, review those already interned, and consider any matter referred to them by the Minister. The regulations also proscribed certain articles: without special police permission aliens might not possess charts or large-scale maps, cameras, motor vehicles, sea-going craft or aircraft, any military documents, explosives, or more than three gallons of inflammable liquids. The Minister could increase or modify restrictions on any alien or class of aliens as to residence, reporting to the police, registration, occupation, or possession of articles.

On 8 July 1940 a Tribunal was appointed: Mr Justice Callan, as chairman, C. H. Weston KC, [81] and J. H. Collins, [82] a trade union secretary. They were instructed to examine all enemy aliens, reckoned at 2341, [83] and classify them in groups for varying degrees of restriction and liberty. Before the Tribunal began work, the regulations were again amended on 8 August (1940/183). Grounds for internment were simplified so that the Tribunal could recommend internment in any circumstances which it thought fit. Also, as it was then considered possible that non-enemy aliens could have hostile purposes these regulations brought all such persons [84] within the range of restrictions. They could now be brought before the Tribunal, and if necessary restricted, deported or interned.

Early in August 1940 the Tribunal began in Wellington on the most urgent cases. It was soon evident that usually there was not enough information assembled to test bona fides and to classify. Frequently the files held little more than the details given at registration, save where censorship had supplied material or the police

Waste metal collection

Glass and paper conservation

A winchdriver unloading war material, 1943

Soldiers building a haystack, Hamilton, 1944

A ration book page

Ration books being issued by the Post and Telegraph Department at Auckland, April 1942

The Coast Watching Station at Oteranga Bay, only accessible by horse, 1943

Patriotic poster designed by the Governor-General, Lord Galway

Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt talking to Mrs Janet Fraser at Auckland Airport, 1943

Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt and J. T. Paul, Director of Publicity, at

Government House, 1943

Girl Guides in Auckland making camouflage nets

Aircraft construction at the de Havilland plant in Wellington, 1943

Red Cross supplies being loaded at Wellington Wharf

Gift food being loaded for despatch to Britain, January 1948

A munitions factory, 1943

Manufacture of helmets

had investigated a complaint. The chairman told the Minister of Justice on 23 August that the task would take far too long. He proposed that in each of the fifteen police districts at least one investigating officer, preferably a magistrate or lawyer, should examine the local enemy aliens. The police would inquire into every case, and the present Tribunal would become an appeal body. Meanwhile the Tribunal would tackle the thickest files available and hear appeals against existing internments. [85]

These proposals were embodied in new regulations of 24 October (1940/273), which revoked, consolidated and augmented previous regulations. In each police district, the police would investigate the affairs and conduct of every enemy alien, interviewing each one with a long list of set questions, checking on answers, following up leads and seeking information from other government departments and from anyone associated with the alien. This material was to be put before the local Aliens Authority, and the Authority, from this information, his own local knowledge and his assessment of aliens from interviews, would sort them into five classes (given below), recommending accordingly to the Minister. Where the Minister directed, non-enemy aliens would likewise be examined and classified. The Appeal Tribunal would hear appeals both from the aliens and the police against these recommendations, and would advise on any matter referred to it by the Minister. All enemy aliens were further restricted. They could not possess any apparatus capable of radio, telephonic or radio-telegraphic communication, or radio sets capable of receiving from beyond New Zealand or at most Australia. They could not have firearms and were prohibited from leaving their registered homes for more than 24 hours or going beyond a 20-mile radius of home without police permission.

In Wellington, where almost half the enemy aliens lived, the three members of the original Tribunal, plus an extra lawyer, each acted as a separate Aliens Authority. Three were appointed in Auckland, and one in each of the remaining police districts, all being lawyers except at Wanganui and New Plymouth, where they were magistrates. Men prominent in party politics on either side were not selected. [86] These Authorities set to work late in November 1940. Those with few aliens in their districts had almost finished at the year's end and by 17 March 1941, except for a handful in one provincial district, all 2341 enemy aliens had been investigated, 80 being interned and many others subjected to various restrictions. [87]

The five classes were defined in the regulations, and the system was described in official press statements. [88] Class A (recommended for immediate internment) held those who openly supported Nazism or Fascism, those who were likely to communicate with the enemy, to side actively with the enemy if he came to New Zealand, or to retard the war effort. Class B (recommended for internment if invasion threatened) held a wide range of persons, some of whom were also in Class C, and some of whom did not fit into the other classes. Class C (to be restricted to one particular employment or place of residence) comprised those not likely to assist the enemy, but whose liberty caused public uneasiness. Class D (to remain subject to aliens regulations but without internment or special restriction) was intended particularly for those whose youth, age or illness made them harmless. In Class E (recommended for exemption from all alien restrictions) were those whose loyalty was thought beyond question. In practice there were many aliens who did not fit accurately into these groupings. Notably there were many recent refugees who might claim to be aliens rather than enemy aliens, but where very little was known about such refugees supervision was thought necessary. By the original instructions they should have been consigned to Class B, for internment if invasion threatened, but in practice the authorities, when reasonably well satisfied about a refugee, put him in Class D, among the infirm, with only basic restrictions. More than nine-tenths of the refugees were put in this class. [89]

Classifications varied from Authority to Authority especially with Italians. One put most able-bodied peasant-type males into Class E as harmless, another put them into Class B as untrustworthy; most were finally put into Class B or D. In general, a man of character was likely to be classed B on account of his capacity for harm, as was a weakling who might be used as a tool or yield easily to pressure. At any time an Authority could review his verdict on any alien, and must do so if required by the Minister or the police. Thus, as aliens were not told their classification, it was possible quietly to correct the more glaring discrepancies. [90]

Aliens, particularly refugees who felt sensitive about the term ‘enemy alien’, wanted to know their classification, as in England where many had certificates declaring them ‘refugees from Nazi oppression’. In the New Zealand system it seemed unwise to tell a Class B man that he was provisionally at liberty but would be interned if invasion threatened, and silence here necessarily implied secrecy over the other classes. If a man was interned, obviously he was Class A; if notified of exemption, he was in Class E; if subject to special restrictions he knew that he was in Class C, but he still did not know what would happen if invasion threatened; if he heard nothing at all about his classification he knew it was either B or D. No Authority was prepared to issue firm guarantees and, given silence, changes in classes could be made without fuss; if because of scanty information a refugee who seemed thoroughly reliable later seemed less so, there would be no document to disturb public confidence. The secret line between B and D separating the unreliable and internable from those probably trustworthy became more important as time went on, with the latter being drawn into the war effort, while the unreliable remained on the fringe. [91] Despite the refugees' pleadings, no other label or status was devised, and they remained ‘enemy aliens’, a term that helped suspicion and hostility to persist.

With the classification of enemy aliens completed at the end of March 1941, the Authorities and the police proceeded to work comprehensively through non-enemy aliens. It was not impossible that enemy-minded persons or even enemy agents might have passports from non-enemy states. Since August 1940 any alien arousing suspicion had been liable to investigation; during 1941 all who were or at any time had been nationals of countries under German rule or suspected influence— Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Russia, Spain,

Switzerland, Japan, Thailand—were investigated. Nationals of European countries regarded as less suspect were examined only if they had arrived since the beginning of 1935. All possible information on each person was set before the Minister of Justice who decided whether the case should go to an Aliens Authority for classification. Most of this work was completed by the end of 1941. [92] During the year a few score of additional aliens entered the country and were classified, including some German–Jewish refugees, some Polish Jews who arrived by way of Lithuania, Russia, Siberia and Japan, and some Finns from the Pamir, a Finnish barque seized as a prize of war after it had entered Wellington harbour in July 1941, [93] although it was not till 7 December that New Zealand formally declared war against Finland, Rumania and Hungary. [94]

When Japan entered the war practically all aliens whom it was considered necessary to examine had been classified. Of the total 8000 aliens about half, being Chinese, Syrian and American, were held to be beyond suspicion. The 2341 enemy aliens had been examined and classified; so had 626 of the 830 aliens belonging to the less-favoured non-enemy states; of the 450 from more favoured countries 280 had been sent before Authorities. [95]

Early in 1942, in the midst of Japanese successes, with air-raid shelters and coastal defences rapidly appearing and evacuation plans being made, nearly 400 aliens in Class B, theoretically booked for internment if invasion or attack threatened, posed an intricate problem. In practice, all classified persons who did not fit into Classes A, C, D or E had been placed in this group; it included those politically pro-Axis but regarded as harmless through age, infirmity or domestic circumstance; those claiming Allied views but who were thought to have deeply divided loyalties; a few whose technical abilities made them potentially dangerous but actually very valuable to the war effort; some Italians who had said that they would defend New Zealand against Germans or Japanese but would definitely not go abroad to fight Italians; some of poor character, who might be pliant under the offer of money, and some recently arrived about whom very little was known. [96]

In December 1941, police authorities and the Aliens Tribunal pressed strongly for the complete internment of Class B. The Minister of Justice, supported by the Chiefs of Staff, opposed this as both unjust and harmful—harmful both in the loss of those doing valuable work and in tying up more soldiers as camp guards. It was finally decided that Aliens Authorities should re-classify Class B aliens into three subdivisions: B1, for immediate internment; B2, to be interned if the Japanese occupied New Caledonia, Fiji or Samoa; B3, to be interned if New Zealand were invaded. In the event, 26 aliens were interned, 156 were placed in B2, and 184 in B3. [97] Those living in coastal cities or other possible invasion points were considered more dangerous than those living inland. Italians presented a particularly anxious problem at this stage, as no one felt sure how they would act in an invasion. The conflicting arguments of security, injustice and waste of manpower were met by sending some of the most disaffected inland to work on the vegetable farms of the Department of Agriculture.

Aliens, even those naturalised, were not liable as were all other fit males for compulsory service in the forces, or until February 1942 the EPS or Home Guard. The authorities, besides being wary of treachery, feared suspicion and discord in the ranks, feeling that ‘foreign accents were bad for morale’. [98] There were, wrote Dr Lochore, … about 150 single male refugees in the age-group eligible for overseas service, and 120 of them are known to have enlisted at one time or another. Many married men also enlisted. In the first months of the war half-a-dozen refugees actually went overseas with the three echelons, [99] but for two years after April 1940 not a single alien of any sort was accepted into the armed forces. Indeed it did not pay to be too zealous in that period, for a refugee who showed undue anxiety to serve merely drew suspicion on himself…. So, sometimes with real regret, and sometimes with a sigh of relief, the able-bodied young refugees turned their backs on the war effort and set about building up some economic security for themselves and their kinsfolk. [100]

Similarly the EPS and the Home Guard were reluctant to accept aliens until early in 1942, when, said Dr Lochore, ‘the realities of the situation took charge.’

In February 1942, the National Service Department told the Mayor of Christchurch, among others, that the government had decided that all male aliens aged between 18 and 65 should apply for enrolment in the EPS, which would use them when satisfied about their good faith, referring all doubts to the police; regulations to this effect would soon follow. [101] On 22 June, Regulations (1942/187) made enrolment in the Emergency Reserve Corps obligatory not only to ‘British subjects’ but to ‘all persons whether British subjects or not’. The Dominion of 24 June remarked that ‘this was a mere formality’; for many months friendly aliens had been admitted to certain sections of the EPS. In these regulations, applying to ‘all persons’, the authorities, said Lochore, ‘took their first stand against public opinion by admitting most refugees into the Home Guard and the civil defence organisations. There were no untoward results—except that these carefully-planned decisions were occasionally overridden by know-alls who took grandiloquent stands of principle against “enemy aliens”.’ [102]

Encouraged by this, the Air Force and the Army began to accept refugees recommended to them by security officers. By the end of the war, 64 had served in these forces, two-thirds on home service only. [103] Till 1943 a complicating factor was that those not naturalised had to serve as nationals of their respective states. Naturalisation had ceased for the duration and in any case many had not lived the necessary five years in New Zealand. The British Nationality and Status of Aliens (in New Zealand) Amendment Act of August 1943, following enactments in the United Kingdom, provided that anyone who was or had been in the forces during the war and who was deemed a proper person to become a British subject could be naturalised. [104]

As time passed without sabotage or shipping incidents, hostility towards aliens on security grounds was eclipsed by hostility towards aliens as cuckoos in the economic nest. To many people aliens, defended by New Zealanders and excluded until 1942 from the demands of even the Home Guard and EPS, were merely waiting for victory and meanwhile were entrenching themselves in business to the detriment of the men overseas. [105] For, as Dr Lochore noticed, the recent arrivals, the refugees, sought not only to live in New Zealand but aspired to do well: ‘instead of congregating in little unobtrusive alien cells, like the Italians or Yugoslavs, the refugees were to be found everywhere: buying taxis, taking trade examinations, knocking at the door of the professions, starting new industries, taking over farms.’ [106] These activities were inevitable. Refugees who had enough drive and resources to get to New Zealand had drive and resources enough to seize chances. Many employers would not take on foreigners, or their presence was resented by other workers, factors which increased the aliens' will to become self-employed or employers, rather than hired men. They remembered inflation in

Germany after 1918, and strove to secure the solid asset of property. Almost from the start of the war there had been grumbles about aliens safe in well-paid places, with antagonism at first concentrated upon doctors; soon they provided targets over a wide field of business, with Truth and the RSA prominent in defence of the fighting man's interests.

The president of Auckland's RSA warned in February 1941: ‘Too many members of inimical nations have been freely allowed to enter and settle in this country ever since the last war, and in many cases they are settled in professions and occupations in detrimental competition with New Zealand or British-born citizens…. My committee considers that all aliens of enemy birth or origin should be interned at once and made to work at the development of waste land and other necessary work of a progressive nature’; thereby at once increasing production and stopping a probable leakage of information. [107] A little later Truth announced that the only policy that would satisfy the majority of the public was to intern those against whom there was the slightest suspicion, to conscript the others for non-combatant work at soldiers' pay and at the end of the war let them take their chance along with returned men in the struggle for existence. [108] At about the same time the Wellington City Council was unwilling to grant a dairy licence to a former dentist who had left his estate and instruments in Bavaria in 1938. Some councillors were sympathetic, asking what such people could do, short of entering internment camps, if not allowed into business, but others, including the Mayor, held strongly that no German national should receive a licence that might be wanted by a New Zealander or more particularly by a returned man. [109]

At the end of May 1941, the RSA's annual conference advocated a system of licences for all aliens entering a profession or business, licences which could be withdrawn. [110] Truth rejoiced that ‘this important and powerful body’ was alive to the economic infiltration of aliens. Active assistance to the Nazi cause had been ‘efficiently and properly’ checked by the police and the Aliens Authorities, but now there must be safeguards lest returning soldiers should find foreigners in their jobs or professions: ‘If someone must be out of work, it must not be the returned man.’ [111] Truth's criticism extended to Chinese fruiterers who were opening new shops and dovetailing with Chinese growers to the disadvantage of European greengrocers. [112] In June 1941 and again in August, the member for Remuera, W. P. Endean, called for a return to show how many aliens had entered New Zealand during the past three years; how many were interned and on what principles internment was imposed; what properties had been purchased by such recent arrivals, and how many had been bought from men serving overseas. [113]

Some letters in the Evening Post during October 1941 voiced several aspects of hostility to aliens in business. One wrote: ‘it is irritating to anyone with next of kin overseas to see good positions being occupied by young, strong and obviously healthy so-called refugees’, protected by New Zealanders while they made themselves comfortable and secure in commercial life. Another resented their prosperity, which was ‘instinctively felt by many New Zealanders’ to have resulted not solely from industry and ability but from applied opportunism, ample resources and aid from well established confreres. [114] More informed, J. H. Collins of the Aliens Tribunal pointed out that some aliens had been allowed to enter New Zealand only because they had special qualifications that enabled them to begin new industries and open up new factories; many had played a big part in New Zealand's war effort and were still doing so. [115]

The NZRSA in November continued its pressure, in complaints to the Minister of Industries and Commerce of instances in which, soon after New Zealand businessmen had been called to the forces, businesses operated by persons of foreign extraction had been opened near the servicemen's establishments. The RSA urged that no alien, enemy or otherwise, should be allowed to commence any business or profession without a licence from the government, which should not be granted for an area occupied by a New Zealander who had given up a similar business to serve his country. [116] The Minister replied that steps had already been taken to protect businesses licensed under the Industrial Efficiency Act whose owners had been called to the forces; the position in the case of new entrants into businesses which were not licensed would be fully discussed. [117]

In March 1942, land purchase regulations (1942/77) checked aliens' buying of land and house property. No one could sell such property or lease it for more than three years to an alien without the written consent of the Minister of Justice. Every case depended on the Minister's decision, and as his guiding principles were not explained to the public at the outset there was room for uncertainty and suspicion. Later, on 22 March 1944, Mason explained that consent was not given for land overlooking places of military importance or likely to be needed for rehabilitation purposes. The alien purchaser must be of good character, and to avoid aggrandisement must declare all other property owned. [118] He must also take some part in the war effort, such as serving in the Home Guard or EPS, or contributing to war loans. [119] An alien who had not fulfilled the last condition might be refused, but told that if he met it his application would be reviewed. In September 1944 Opposition speakers protested about a Chinese man, a long-term resident, buying 42 acres of land being told that as a preliminary condition he must invest £500 in a war loan. The Minister explained that this was normal procedure, the investment being regarded as an earnest of willingness to share in community responsibility, with the sum suggested being in proportion to the applicant's means. [120] By the end of 1944, out of 514 applications, 404 had been granted (65 for farms, 276 for houses and 63 for business properties), 79 had been declined and the rest were pending. [121]

This measure prevented aliens speculating in houses or acquiring a number of properties in order to rent them, and it checked the buying of land, long a sensitive point. It did not visibly blunt commercial enterprise or the agitation against it. In October 1942 all males aged between 18 and 45 years who were not British subjects either by birth or naturalisation were directed (Regulation 1942/292) to register for essential industry. This was designed both to bring in more manpower and to diminish resentment against aliens for being free to pursue their own interests amid opportunities created by the absence of others in the forces.

A letter in January 1942 had asked: ‘Does New Zealand intend to support her growing legion of aliens in complacent quiet and comfort indefinitely?’, pointing out that New Zealand males from adolescence up to 60 years old were conscripted for industry. [122] Truth said that plausible, fulsome manners could not cloak the hard-headed, arrogant intention of foreigners to make their presence felt in professions and industries. ‘Let our refugees show their gratitude by taking their places in essential industries or works, such as farming, vegetable-growing or where necessary, BUT AT ARMY PAY.’ The country's defenders should ‘return to a New Zealand we have kept free internally…. let us not be smug and indifferent at showing what is true patriotism. We do not need to hate, we must just hold not only what is our own, but what is our boys’ heritage, who cannot at the moment protect themselves. [123] A 1943 letter said: ‘I don't see how you can call people “refugees” who arrive in a country and immediately buy the best businesses and employ New Zealanders to work for them.’ [124]

The clamour against commercial infiltration, by Truth and the RSA, supported by manufacturers, continued strongly, and by 1944 Opposition members repeatedly asked questions about aliens and their business activities. [125] Truth, again and again through 1942 and still more frequently in 1943–4, drew attention to aliens in business and manufacturing, frequently repeating its view that aliens were entitled to a living wage, but as employees not employers, and that it would be particularly outrageous if they employed returned men. This view was expressed on 3 March 1944 by F. Finlay, [126] member for Hamilton:

Although I have many alien friends whom I respect, I consider that not one of them should be in business and that they should not be in a position to employ ‘Diggers’ coming back from the war. The whole thing is wrong. Aliens have enjoyed security and they should be given work at a fair wage, and they ought to be thankful for that. [127]

The RSA continued to urge, as in 1941, that aliens starting in business should have licences, issued with regard to vacancies left by New Zealanders entering the forces, and for the duration of the war only. In 1943 the 2NZEF Association, a kindred body, advocated enquiry into the sources of aliens' incomes and what they produced, rebutting criticism as ‘maudlin sympathy’ from the ‘vicariously charitable’ crying over the wrongs of strangers, wrongs which they would alleviate not with their own but with their fighting brothers' capital. [128] Such strong sentiments got publicity but they were not held by all servicemen or ex-servicemen. One wrote that spokesmen should avoid statements which might be read as encitement to ‘chauvinistic intolerance’. The president of the 2NZEF Association must be aware that the opinion he so strenuously defends is not shared by all members of the Association. Indeed, many of us view this anti-alien ebullition as a grave danger signal. The request for an inquiry into their business status and financial resources is, on the surface, not unreasonable, though some may regard it as impertinent; it is the underlying implication and potentialities—the spark that may be fanned into a conflagration that would dismay and alarm even the instigators of the investigation that is to be feared.

If those pressing for an inquiry were sincere they should produce a statement showing how many returned men were adversely affected. [129]

In March 1944 the statement of an Auckland Manpower officer that aliens, when directed into essential industry, frequently appealed out of it to pursue their own affairs received considerable attention. [130] It was linked to the Auckland RSA's demand that the government should set up a royal commission to inquire into the business activities of both friendly and enemy aliens, and that there should be restrictions on aliens purchasing business properties similar to those on their acquisition of land. [131] An article in the New Zealand Herald stated that aliens were becoming entrenched in many areas, including luxury manufactures: they were making gloves, model clothing, toilet preparations; they were furriers, street photographers and doctors. [132] Keith Holyoake, member for Pahiatua, asked for figures on the number of aliens who had passed through the Customs Department since the outbreak of war, how many had received permits to set up in business or professions, and how many had received import licences on hardship or any other grounds. He spoke of widespread concern about aliens getting ahead in business while returned men had difficulty in getting started, and of the need for a royal commission to investigate. [133]

The defenders of aliens replied to these attacks. A refugees' committee spokesman pointed out that hundreds of New Zealanders had appealed against Manpower direction, and argued that if it were unpatriotic for an alien to buy a business, was it not unpatriotic of a New Zealander to sell it to him? If an alien problem existed, it was largely of New Zealanders' own making, the result of their attitude to those unfortunate people; New Zealanders should treat them as they themselves would wish to be treated in an alien country under similar circumstances. [134] New Zealand, by requiring a five-year employment guarantee, had admitted only those aliens likely to succeed and was now reproaching them for being successful, wrote F. A. de la Mare. [135] One alien, a dental surgeon, pointed out that only Austrians and Germans were enemy aliens; Poles, Czechs and Yugoslavs were not only friendly aliens but allies. The total number of Jewish refugees in Auckland was about 300; about 80 were males, most of whom had offered their services when war broke out. He claimed that no business of any kind had been bought by a Jewish refugee from men called to the forces. Six refugees had acquired dairies, one a grocery business; four were glove-makers, one a street photographer; eleven were farmers, eight were doctors, four were dentists. [136]

The New Zealand Herald found the term ‘enemy aliens’ unfortunate, suggesting that they were ill-disposed persons who should be interned, whereas their being at large showed that the authorities had accepted their bona fides. The majority were refugees from Nazi tyranny, representatives of the people whose liberation was one of the leading aims of the war, and they should be welcome. But allegations were being made and repeated, allegations that in obtaining licences for new industries aliens had been preferred to returned men. Such talk disturbed morale and encouraged ill-feeling. For the sake of the whole community and of the aliens themselves that injustice, if real, must be rectified; if not, it must be denied so emphatically that it could no longer have credence. There was danger of a real social problem growing up and it should be scotched without delay. [137]

There were no strong official denials, no royal commission. The Rehabilitation programme was not yet fully fledged, and in considering whether an industrial enterprise was necessary or viable there were many factors besides patriotic virtue. It was not easy, say, to balance Libyan service against experience in glove-making.

Further protest came from another quarter. In May 1944, the New Zealand Manufacturers Federation wanted the government to ensure that all aliens who had started in business since the beginning of the war should work 100 per cent on war and essential civilian production. They also asked that no more aliens should be allowed to set up in business until the end of the war, or until returning servicemen should have had a reasonable chance to establish themselves. Particularly in Wellington and Auckland, said the manufacturers, aliens' influence in some activities was widespread, was growing, and should be halted. Speakers stressed that they were not moved by racial animosity, but aimed to protect the future of men who were safeguarding the country. [138]

Ensuing letters in the Evening Post gave several viewpoints. One quoted Norman Angell: [139] ‘We must hammer at this fallacy that every immigrant or refugee who gets a job takes it from an English- man’; in New Zealand as in England the knowledgeable or skilled craftsman refugee, sometimes working with local businessmen, had extended industries, making more jobs. [140] Another wrote, ‘Imagine the resentment that will be held by our boys returning from overseas if they have to apply to aliens for positions…. New Zealand has its own population problem without having to worry about becoming a cosmopolitan race.’ Perhaps when the housing situation had been righted and the birth rate was increasing, New Zealand could begin to think about aliens. The writer did not want aliens to think him unsympathetic, ‘but New Zealanders must come first in their own country… otherwise we will be the refugees.’ [141] A few thought that aliens, persecuted in their own countries, should not be harried when making a fresh start. [142] Another wanted stringent direction of aliens into essential labour, including domestic work: ‘It is only fair that refugee women especially help to carry the burden which war has placed on the shoulders of New Zealand women. It is only right that refugees, who have fled from their own country to avoid death and destruction, should be only too willing to take their part in winning the war by putting their shoulders to the wheel with the majority of wives and mothers of our fighting men overseas, instead of “picking the plums”’. [143]

At the end of June 1944, the NZRSA repeated its opposition to the acquisition of land and businesses by aliens while men were serving overseas, asking that all sales and leases of property to enemy aliens, and the acquisition by them of shares in limited liability companies, should be prohibited. [144] On 7 August Holyoake again endorsed the RSA's concern over aliens in business and again urged a royal commission. Eraser explained that the Auckland RSA had already been informed that their statements were of a general nature, not a basis for action, but if details were supplied the government would inquire. Precautions were being taken to guard the returned men's interests, and a royal commission was not necessary. [145] The RSA thereafter published in the Auckland Star an account of exchanges between the government and itself over aliens in business, stressing that while Skinner, [146] the Minister of Rehabilitation, had answered promptly, the Minister of Justice, Mason, had made long delays.

The report stated that in December 1943 the national executive of the RSA, hearing that regulations controlling alien business enterprises were intended, had asked that two of their members should see these before they were gazetted. They inquired further in mid- February 1944, and on 22 March, when still without a reply, asked Mason three questions: had or had not regulations for the protection of businessmen serving overseas been drafted? If drafted, could two members of the Dominion executive of the RSA read and discuss them? If not already drafted, was there any intention of bringing forth such regulations? The Minister had not replied until June and then evasively, without answering the questions but asking for a factual survey of known cases, with any specific suggestions as to conditions or restraints in each case that would be feasible and effective to protect servicemen. The RSA claimed that specific instances had been quoted as far back as 1941, including the fishing, transport and glove industries, and 32 extra Chinese fruitshops that had opened in Auckland between the outbreak of war and October 1941. It claimed that suggestions for restraints had been given in December 1943, urging that when any alien proposed entering a business or profession where a New Zealander had had to give up a similar job to enter the forces, the status of the alien should be advertised and the licence, if granted, should be for the duration of the war only. With the fifth year of war nearly completed, returned men were deeply perturbed at the government's inexcusable delay in taking drastic action to protect the livelihood of servicemen overseas. [147]

The RSA was by this time so critical of the government in other areas, such as its indulgence of conscientious objectors, that this attack lacked novelty and, with no election pending, the government rode out the storm. In 1942 Cabinet had indeed considered and recommended a system of business licensing, but although several draft regulations were prepared they were never enacted, principally because the government felt that aliens were not in general prejudicing returned mens' opportunities in civilian life and that there was room for both aliens and servicemen in the community. [148] The vigorous past president of the RSA, W. Perry, who filled the gap in the War Cabinet left by the death in May 1943 of Gordon Coates, had in September 1943, just before the election, been made Minister in Charge of Aliens, an appointment calculated to allay RSA anxiety. Mason, however, continued to administer the land purchase regulations, the only ones that approached the area of business discontent.

The RSA's zeal to protect New Zealanders from aliens did not slacken. Its annual conference in 1945 advocated that any persons who had arrived in New Zealand from Germany, Austria, Hungary or Italy since 1939 should have to return to their own countries within two years after the war's end. They should be allowed to take with them the amount of money and property that they had declared to the Customs Department on arrival. Any surplus should be sold and distributed by the government to the wives and dependants of those who fought for the aliens' respective countries while they enjoyed peace and plenty in New Zealand.

- This drew comment from ‘Whim-Wham’: [149]

- An Alien's skill and Industry

- May earn his keep? Don't talk to me!

- Each Case he treats, each Lathe he turns

- It is MY Money that he earns

- Exhausting by his useless Toil

- Our over-populated Soil….

- The More we send or drive away

- The More there'll be for Those who stay

- Let's start at once, at the Expense

- Of those who have the least defence

- (“Mein Kampf” tells how): and after Them

- It will be easier to condemn

- Some other Section of this Reich

- Whose Race or Face we do not like

- And have them summarily evicted

- Until New Zealand is restricted

- To those self-guaranteed as fit

- To govern & inhabit It.

Refugee numbers and resources were too modest to threaten an economic invasion, although some no doubt appeared alarmingly well provided to those who expected refugees to possess only battered suitcases and humility. Dr Lochore, who had access to official records on aliens, analysed the means whereby New Zealand's 1054 refugee aliens, [150] 547 men and 507 women over the age of 16, earned their livings in 1945. There were 657 full-time in gainful occupations, and 251 engaged mainly in domestic duties; 66 were retired, incapacitated or unemployed; 35 were full-time students and 45 were in the armed forces. Of the 657 gainfully employed, 43 were in agriculture (22 employed, 21 independent). Manufacturing claimed 146, wholesale trades and business 23, retail trades and business 92. In the professions were 166: accountancy 14, architecture 14, dentistry 21, education and research 3:3, engineering 16, industrial chemistry 7, medicine 34, nursing 16, veterinary medicine 4, others 7. Among various occupations which engaged 100 were 15 clerks, 5 electricians, 12 domestic helps, 7 laboratory assistants and 15 mechanics. There were 65 in unknown occupations, probably unskilled or semi-skilled, and 22 women working full-time within husbands' businesses. It was estimated that 44 were making more than £1,000 yearly, 66 had incomes of between £500 and £1,000, while 547 earned less than £500. In the 123 manufacturing and business undertakings owned by refugees, 5 had more than 20 employees, 5 had between 10 and 20, 28 had fewer than 10 and 85 had none. Among the wholesalers, about 16 importers merely cut into the import licences of older firms, without making any worthwhile contribution to the community. The retail traders were generally modest, while those in the professions and in manufacturing made solid contributions to public welfare. [151]

General restrictions and supervision continued throughout the war, local police making quarterly reports on their aliens in classes B, C and D. Aliens Authorities reviewed cases where fresh information was received by the police or by censorship, and Manpower officials were advised on relevant details. The Aliens Appeal Tribunal advised Perry as required and heard appeals against internment. As the months passed, the number interned lessened. In November 1945 all restrictions were removed, save that persons not British subjects still had to register with the police. [152]

The number of internees waxed and waned according to the course of the war and surveillance measures, as when about 30 Italians were added after Italy entered the war, and 26 internments resulted from the overhaul of Class B after the entry of Japan. According to Police Department figures the 23 internees of December 1939 rose to a peak of 185 in December 1942. [153] Customs Department lists of former internees, supplied by Internal Affairs' passports section in 1974, gave the total as 160 men, of whom 89 were resident in New Zealand, 71 came from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and the Cook Islands. Their nationalities were as follows: [154]

Nationality | From NZ | From outside NZ | Total
German | 42 | 48 | 90
Italian | 29 | 0 | 29
Japanese | 6 | 23 | 29
Austrian | 6 | 0 | 6
Spanish | 1 | 0 | 1
Hungarian | 1 | 0 | 1
British | 1 | 0 | 1
Thai | 2 | 0 | 2
Yugoslav | 1 | 0 | 1
| — | — | —
| 89 | 71 | 160

The number gradually lessened. Italians were released after Italy became an ally, and some Germans from the Islands were released when the Pacific war receded northward, and the governments of their islands no longer felt that security required their internment: for instance, five Germans from Western Samoa returned there in June 1944. [155] By the police figures, 133 were interned at December 1943, 61 a year later, and 47 in September 1945. [156]

Early in 1942 the Swiss consul, on behalf of the internees, reminded the government of its responsibility, under the Geneva Convention of 1929, to keep interned persons away from a possible fighting zone. Accordingly, another camp was built at Pahiatua, and

Somes Island internees were moved there during 1943. [157] In 1944, when the Pahiatua buildings were required for Polish refugee children, the remaining internees were moved back to Somes Island.

An almost invisible agency in the control of aliens was the Security Intelligence Bureau, affiliated with the Services, and set up at the request of the British government to co-operate with corresponding branches all over the Commonwealth, [158] with a Major Folkes, sent out from Britain in February 1941, at its head. It made use of information on aliens gathered by postal censorship and from 1942 was closely concerned with matters such as acceptance of aliens into the armed forces, their purchase of property and naturalisation. The Bureau supplied postal censors with crew lists of any foreign ships in port so that they could identify any letters posted locally, investigated the small Indian community and gave information on overseas security policies. [159]

The Bureau under Folkes was discredited in 1942 by a bizarre hoax. Late in March, Sidney Gordon Ross came out of prison and obtained interviews with two Cabinet ministers who passed him on to the Bureau. His stories of Fifth Columnists and plots for sabotage and assassinations preceding invasion were believed and as ‘Captain Calder’, working with the Bureau, he built up a far-ranging fantasy until, after three months, it was punctured by the police. [160]

An account of the hoax appeared in Truth on 29 July 1942 and on 30 July the press censor forbade further reference to the Bureau or the hoax. [161] On 21 October Fraser, replying to questions by Lee, said that the accuracy of the Truth statement was being investigated and that public safety measures could not be discussed in public.’ [162] In March 1944, questioned on the number of Category A men in the Bureau, Fraser said that its strength had been ‘very considerably reduced’ in the past year, but three Category A men were needed in its ‘most secret and important’ work. [163] On 15 September 1944, to a general question about the ‘secret service’, Fraser explained its origin [164] and said that it was now under the able police superintendent James Cummings. The officer from Britain had been returned as a ‘grave misfit’ who had shown extraordinary credulity. It was a story worthy of Jules Verne and he hoped that it would be written up. [165] The Auckland Star promptly obliged with a long article on ‘New Zealand's greatest hoax’. [166] The incident had renewed publicity in the 1968 narrative of ex-prisoner Ward McNally, Cry of a Man Running, and in a New Zealand television programme in October 1982.

[1] Lochore, p. 59

[2] Yearbook1942, p. 42

[3] Lochore, p. 59

[4] Church News, Mar 39, p. 5

[5] Outlook, 30 Nov 38, p. 3

[6] Ibid., 23 Nov 38, p. 5

[7] Methodist Times, 12 Aug 39, p. 13

[8] Dominion, 19 Jul 39. p. 11

[9] Otago Daily Times, 19 Jul 39, p. 10

[10] Press, 24 Jul 39, p. 8

[11] Otago Daily Times, 18 Jul 39, p. 8

[12] Press, 16, 21 Nov 39, pp. 2, 2; NZ Herald, 1 Mar 40, p. 9

[13] Outlook, 29 Nov 39, p. 19; Church Chronicle, 1 Apr 40, p. 38; Press, 30 May 40, p. 11

[14] Otago Daily Times, 25 Oct 39, p. 10

[15] Ibid., 27, 28 Oct, 3 Nov 39, pp. 12, 9, 11

[16] Reprinted in Union Record, 15 Dec 39, p. 8, from Woman Today

[17] On 27 March 1942, Goebbels reflected in his diary: ‘If I were on the enemy side, I should from the very first day have adopted the slogan of fighting against Nazism, but not against the German people. That was how Chamberlain began on the first day of the war, but, thank God, the English didn't pursue this line.’ The Goebbels Diaries, translated and edited by Louis P. Lochner, p. 103

[18] NZ Herald, 30 Jan 40, p. 10

[19] Truth, 17 Jan, 21 Feb 40, pp. 1, 8

[20] Ibid., 24 Jan 40, p. 7

[21] Press, 5 Feb 40, p. 11

[22] Ibid., 15, 16, 23, 24, 28 Feb 40, pp. 14, 12, 15, 4, 7

[23] Dr C. E. Hercus, Dean of the Medical Faculty, Otago Daily Times, 14 Feb 40, p. 3

[24] NZ Herald, 22 Jan 42, p. 8; Press, 3 Feb 42, p. 4

[25] NZ Herald, 22 Jan 42, p. 8

[26] Otago Daily Times, 18 Jan, 14 Feb 40, pp. 3, 3

[27] Press, 3 Feb 42, p. 4

[28] NZ Herald, 22 Jan 42, p. 8; Evening Post, 20 Jan 43, p. 4

[29] Dominion, 30 May 41, p. 6

[30] Press, 27 Jan 42, p. 6

[31] NZ Herald, 23 Jan 42, p. 6

[32] NZ Observer, 10 Feb 43, p. 9

[33] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 40

[34] Ibid., pp. 41–52; WHN, ‘Aliens’, pp. 4–5, 14–6

[35] see p. 981

[36] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 12; NZ Herald, 15 May 40, p. 8

[37] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 12

[38] Ibid., p. 11; Lochore, p. 60

[39] Calder, pp. 130–2; Fleming, Peter, Invasion 1940, pp. 109–10

[40] Evening Post, 3 May 40, p. 10

[41] Dominion, 13 Jun 40, p. 10

[42] See pp. 98ff, 107ff

[43] See pp. 95–7, 855

[44] Wanganui Herald, 23 May 40, p. 8

[45] Evening Post, 22 May 40, p. 10; see also p. 97

[46] Truth, 5 Jun, 10, 17 Jul, 7 Aug 40, pp. 1, 9, 1, 1

[47] NZ Herald, 25 May 40, p. 10

[48] see p. 865

[49] NZ Herald, 12 Jun 40, p. 15; Otago Daily Times, 18 Jun 40, p. 8

[50] Dominion, 11 Jun 40, p. 11

[51] Truth, 10 Jul 40, p. 9; NZ Herald, 28 May 40, p. 4; Otago Daily Times, 29 Jun 40, p. 13; Southland Times, 17 Jun 40, p. 4

[52] Evening Post, 6 Sep 40, p. 6

[53] Lochore, pp. 71–2

[54] Press, 24 Jun 40, p. 6

[55] Evening Post, 16 Sep 41, p. 9

[56] Southland Times, 17 Jun 40, p. 4

[57] Ibid., 20 Jun 40, p. 4

[58] Ibid., 20 May 40, p. 9

[59] See p. 122

[60] Dominion, 11 Mar 41, p. 8

[61] NZ Herald, 19 Apr, 18 May, 15 Jun 40, pp. 9, 12, 8

[62] See p. 95

[63] Evening Post, 16 May 40, p. 10

[64] See p. 121

[65] NZ Herald, 17 Jul 40, p. 8

[66] Taranaki Daily News, 11 Jun 40, p. 8

[67] Palmerston North Times, 17 Jul 40, p. 2

[68] Press, 20 May 40, p. 5; NZ Herald, 18 May 40, p. 13; see also p. 871

[69] NZ Herald, 20 May 40, p. 10. Similar letters appeared in Auckland Star, 29 May 40, p. 6; Otago Daily Times, 25 May 40, p. 19

[70] NZ Herald, 24, 25 May 40, pp. 11, 14. Letters by the poet A. R. D. Fairburn and others have already been quoted. See p. 96

[71] Anderson, William (1889–1955): b Scotland; Prof Philosophy AUC from 1921; AUC Council 1947–51

[72] NZ Herald, 1 Jun 40, p. 15

[73] Wild, Leonard John, CBE('52) (1889–1970): foundation headmaster Feilding Agricultural High School 1922–46; Pro-Chancellor NZU 1948

[74] Palmerston North Times, 11 Jul 40, p. 8

[75] Dominion, 14 Jun 40, p. 10

[76] NZ Herald, 5 Jul 40, p. 8

[77] Evening Post, 16 May 40, p. 13

[78] Ibid., 29 May 40, p. 5

[79] WHN, ‘Aliens’, pp. 17, 19. By direction of the Prime Minister, the Police Department was entitled to safeguard its sources of information by withholding such details as appeared necessary to ensure the success of further investigations. WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 79

[80] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 18

[81] Weston, Claude H., KC('34), DSO (d 1946 aet 67): Crown Prosecutor New Plymouth from 1915, Auck from 1931, Wgtn from 1934; Judge-Advocate from 1935; 1st Pres NZ Nat party 1936; Vice-Pres Wgtn RSA many years, Pres 1941–4

[82] Collins, James Henry (1897–1970): b England, to NZ early 1920s; founded Wgtn Caretakers Union 1936; Sec Wgtn & NZ Musicians Unions from 1938; Nat Sec Brewery Workers Union; associated NZ Lab party from days of M. J. Savage, member party's nat exec until 1969; Aliens Tribunal, patriotic, rehab and other nat movements during and after WWII; JP; served WWI

[83] There were 1241 Germans, 817 Italians, 179 Austrians and 104 Czechs. WHN, ‘ Police Department’, p. 82 and Schedule I

[84] That is, any person over 16 years who, although he might be a British subject by birth or naturalisation, was, or at any time had been according to the laws of any state not forming part of His Majesty's dominions, a national of that state. Certain exceptions concerned women, marriage and declarations of nationality.

[85] WHNs: ‘Aliens’, pp. 22–3, ‘Police Department’, p. 83

[86] WHN, ‘Aliens’, pp. 23–4; Press. 7 Dec 40, p. 12

[87] Evening Post, 17 Mar 41, p. 9

[88] Ibid.

[89] WHN, ‘Aliens’, pp. 25–6

[90] Ibid., pp. 26–7

[91] Ibid., pp. 27–8, 32

[92] Ibid., p. 33

[93] Baker, p. 374

[94] Documents, vol I, p. 14

[95] WHN, ‘Aliens’, pp. 33–4

[96] Ibid., pp. 37–8

[97] Ibid., p. 40

[98] Ibid., p. 44

[99] The 22 male Jewish refugees living in Christchurch at the outbreak of war wrote to the local military authorities offering their services. Dominion, 6 Sep 39, p. 6. Three Austrians were mentioned as having enlisted in the NZEF. Ibid., 15 Jan 40, p. 6; Truth, 15 Apr 42, p. 8, discussed the chances that a few might have gone overseas through official oversight; see p. 863

[100] Lochore, pp. 84–5

[101] Press, 28 Feb 42, p. 8

[102] Lochore, p. 85

[103] Ibid.

[104] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 45

[105] eg, letters in Southland Times, 28 May 40, p. 7; Otago Daily Times, 14 Mar 41, p. 7:

Evening Post, 26 Jan 42, p. 4

[106] Lochore, p. 72

[107] Otago Daily Times, 5 Feb 41, p. 6

[108] Truth, 26 Mar 41, p. 16

[109] Evening Post, 13 Mar 41, p. 8

[110] Ibid., 31 May 41, p. 10

[111] Truth, 11 Jun 41, p. 16

[112] Ibid., 13 Mar 40, p. 13, 14 May 41, p. 8

[113] NZPD, vol 260, pp. 388, 1241; Otago Daily Times, 13 Jun 41, p. 6

[114] Evening Post, 13, 16 Oct 41, pp. 6, 8. Aliens were defended in other letters. Ibid., 14, 16 Oct 41, pp. 6, 8

[115] Ibid., 9 Oct 41, p. 10

[116] Ibid., 20 Nov 41, p. 4

[117] Ibid.

[118] In the first prosecution under this clause, in June 1944, an alien who, in attempting to make a purchase, declared that she had not acquired any property since these regulations came into force, was found to have bought a property for £1,350, which was later sold for £300 profit. Magistrate Luxford, calling this a ‘very impudent offence’, fined her £400 to remove the profit. Evening Post, 9 Jun 44, p. 9

[119] NZPD, vol 264, p. 507

[120] Ibid., vol. 266, pp. 629, 631, 636–7; statement by Under-Sec Justice, Dominion, 4 Nov 44, p. 8

[121] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 49

[122] Evening Post, 26 Jan 42, p. 4

[123] Truth, 22 Apr 42, p. 4

[124] Auckland Star, 24 Mar 43, p. 2

[125] NZPD, vol 264, p. 507, vol 265, p. 148, vol 266, pp. 628, 636, vol 267, p. 343

[126] Findlay, Frank (d 1945 aet 62): b Scotland, in business Hamilton from 1923; MP (Nat) Hamilton 1943–5

[127] NZPD, vol 264, p. 118

[128] Auckland Star, 18 Dec 43, p. 4

[129] Ibid., 21 Dec 43, p. 2

[130] NZ Herald, 8, 17, 21, 22 Mar 44, pp. 7, 5, 4, 6

[131] Ibid., 17 Mar 44, p. 5

[132] Ibid., 21 Mar 44, p. 4

[133] Evening Post, 24 Mar 44, p. 7; this notice of question was not recorded in NZPD

[134] NZ Herald, 24 Mar 44, p. 2

[135] Ibid, 20 Mar 44, p. 2

[136] Ibid., 25 Mar 44, p. 9

[137] Ibid., 22 Mar 44

[138] Evening Post, 27 May 44, p. 8

[139] Angell, Sir Norman, Kt('31) (1874–1967): author, lecturer, editor, journalist, newspaper manager; member Council Royal Institute International Affairs

[140] Evening Post, 3 Jun 44, p. 6

[141] Ibid., 6 Jun 44, p. 4

[142] Ibid., 5 Jun 44, p. 4

[143] Ibid.

[144] Ibid., 29 Jun 44, p. 4

[145] NZPD, vol 265, pp. 148–9

[146] Skinner, Hon Clarence Farringdon (1900–62): MP (Lab) Motueka from 1938; appointed Cabinet while in Middle East during WWII, returned to take positions Min Rehab, Lands, Cmssnr State Forests, Min in charge Valuation Dept, Scenery Preservation

[147] Auckland Star, 9 Aug 44, p. 4

[148] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 46

[149] NZ Listener, 6 Jul 45, p. 1

[150] He explained that they were mainly of German and Austrian origin, though often the determination of nationality was ‘endlessly complicated’ by Furopean wanderings and other factors; but in varying degrees all were Jewish.

[151] Lochore, pp. 72–81

[152] WHN, ‘Aliens’, p. 50

[153] Ibid.

[154] IA 163/3/8

[155] Evening Post, 9 Jun 44, p. 5

[156] WHN, Aliens', p. 50

[157] Ibid., p. 51; Dominion, 4 Mar 42, p. 6

[158] NZPD, vol 266, p. 367

[159] WHN, ‘Post & Telegraph Censorship’ (hereinafter WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’), pp. 36, 71

[160] Wood, pp. 161–2, describes the affair and its official disclosure

[161] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VI, p. 14. Scholefield in his diary on 5 Sep wrote scathingly of an ‘incipient gestapo run by immigrants.

[162] NZPD, vol 261, p. 875

[163] Ibid., vol 264. p. 504

[164] Ibid., vol 266, p. 367

[165] Evening Post, 16 Sep 44, p. 5; NZPD, vol 266, p. 367, has Eraser's statement on the setting-up of the Bureau but omits his almost colourful reference to the hoax and credulity

[166] Auckland Star, 18 Sep 44, p. 6

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 19 — Censorship

CHAPTER 19
Censorship

THE Censorship and Publicity Regulations passed on 1 September 1939 were not rushed up overnight. Since 1934, committees drawn from the Service departments, the Police, Internal Affairs, Post and Telegraph, and Prime Minister's departments had considered problems and precedents, deciding among much else that press censorship and publicity were inter-related and should be part of the Prime Minister's Department. Out of all these considerings, regulations were drafted during the Munich crisis of September 1938, revised under the further advice of concerned departments, and made ready by February 1939. [1]

The supreme authority was to be the Censorship and Publicity Board [2] chaired by the Prime Minister, its members the Minister of Defence, the Postmaster-General, the chiefs of the three Service departments, the Director-General of Post and Telegraph, the permanent head of the Prime Minister's Department and any other persons whom the Prime Minister might appoint. The Controller of Censorship, appointed by the Governor-General, removable by the Board and paid as Parliament might decide, was at the head of postal and telegraph censorship; the Director of Publicity, appointed, paid and removable likewise, was in control of the press. [3] Both were charged to prevent the spreading of prejudicial information and subversive reports.

‘Prejudicial information’ was any information on Service strengths, equipment, operations, defence measures, shipping, cargoes and any other matter whatsoever which would or might be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy. ‘Subversive reports’ as first defined included four categories which remained operative throughout the war: reports intended or likely to cause disaffection towards His Majesty, to interfere with the success of His Majesty's forces by land, sea or air, or with their recruiting, training, administration and discipline; or to disrupt their morale or the morale of civilians. Four other sorts deemed subversive in September 1939 were dropped from a revised list in February 1940: a false report; one expressing seditious intention within the meaning of Section 118 of the Crimes Act 1908; [4] one intended or likely to undermine confidence in the banking system or currency or any financial measures of the government taken in the interests of the war; one intended or likely to prejudice relations between His Majesty's subjects and any friendly foreign state, or the subjects thereof. This last clause, dropped in 1940, was restored in March 1942.

Three new sorts of statements were added to the subversive list in February 1940: those intended or likely to cause undue alarm to the public; to prejudice or interfere with the manufacture, production, supply or delivery of any goods or services required by the war; to cause unlawful resistance to any law relating to military service or to the administration of justice. Reasonable and temperate discussion in good faith of any existing laws or measures would not be subversive. No one should publish or communicate orally or otherwise a subversive report, or possess an article with a view to so doing; prosecutions could be instituted only with the written consent of the Attorney-General.

The 1939 regulations empowered the Director of Publicity to forbid any periodical to publish information which he considered prejudicial to the public safety; or to publish without his prior consent information on any topic he might specify. A publisher convicted of disobeying such instructions might, in addition to any other penalty imposed, be forbidden by the court to publish or be concerned with the publication, for a specified time, of any newspaper in New Zealand. No one should publish in a periodical any letterpress or graphic representation dealing with the war, unless it had previously been submitted to the Director of Publicity and approved in writing, though this would not check publication of material dealing with war topics in a general way, without describing or purporting to describe any actual events. The Director of Publicity could forbid those in charge of a printing press (widely defined) to print on it any material of a specified kind which had not been submitted for censorship and approval. There could be no published indication that the censor had required to see any material, had altered or excised anything or refused publication. Finally, if charged with a breach of these regulations, the onus of proving that he had complied lay with the person charged.

Regulations could more readily define censorship powers than the processes of publicity, but during 1938 the formative committee had worked on this aspect of the duties of the Director of Publicity. He was to implement the policy of the Board of Censorship and Publicity; to prepare and issue information both as news and for propaganda, using and co-ordinating the press, broadcasting and films; to maintain continuity of policy and direction in publicity, and to be the sole authority through which all government departments would issue statements relating to the war, though where the armed forces were concerned he would be guided by them. [5] Propaganda was to be prepared ‘to secure that the national cause is properly presented to the public both at home and abroad. Various aspects of the national activities will have to be analysed and explained; enemy activities must be examined and criticised; and means must be devised to disseminate the national point of view in a guise which will be attractive and through channels which will ensure that it reaches persons who are likely to be influenced by it.’ [6] The formative committee had also decreed that censorship of the press was to be carried out largely by the voluntary co-operation and self-imposed restrictions of newspapers themselves, and any control likely to appear unreasonably irksome to them was deprecated. [7]

On 22 June 1939 the Council of Defence [8] approved the appointment, in the event of war, of George McNamara, [9] recently retired Director-General of Post and Telegraph, as Controller of Censorship, and on 28 August Cabinet appointed J. T. Paul as Director of Publicity, with J. H. Hall [10] as Deputy Director. [11] These three appointments were announced on 2 September 1939.

Paul, who in the next five years was by far the most prominent figure in the censorship field, was 65 years old when the war began. Born and educated in Victoria, he had come to New Zealand in 1899 to work for 20 years as a linotype operator on the Otago Daily Times. He then moved to the literary side of his trade, working on the Dunedin Evening Star, the Otago Daily Times and the Otago Witness, which last he edited from 1924 till it ceased publication in 1932. From the start he had been active in trade unionism, had been president of several unions and in 1903 president of the Otago Trades and Labour Council. He was also prominent in the formation of the Parliamentary Labour party, from as early as 1904, and was its president from 1917 to 1920. The Liberals in 1907 had appointed him to the Legislative Council, where he stayed till 1919, resigning to stand unsuccessfully for Dunedin South. He had written a number of pamphlets, including Our Majority: some shadows and high lights of industrial history (1910), The Tailoress's Birthday (1911), Labour's First Plank (1917) and Labour Landmarks (1938). He had a thorough knowledge of newspaper routines, and he was a dedicated Labour man whose moderation and persuasiveness had been of high value in the party's formative years. [12]

Connections between the Prime Minister and both branches of censorship were soon strengthened. A regulation (1939/215) in October, decreed that the salaries of both the Controller of Censorship and the Director of Publicity should be fixed by the Prime Minister, not Parliament. The Censorship and Publicity Board met about twice, the last time in April 1940; effective control of censorship throughout the war was exercised by the Prime Minister. [13] Postal censorship had its headquarters in the State Fire Buildings,

Wellington, but the office of the Director of Publicity was in Parliament Buildings and his letter-head proclaimed that he was of the Prime Minister's Department.

In the first months of the war the public was less aware of press censorship, which was of course invisible, than of the postal sort, which cut holes in letters. [14] The Director of Publicity however was soon instructing editors on lines to be followed and areas to be avoided.

Most of the war news came by overseas cable, terminating at

Auckland, where it was received by the telegraph office. After the first few days, when many cables were referred to the Director of Publicity, telegraph censors at both Auckland and Wellington were made his representatives, empowered to release cables that seemed in order. The Auckland Telegraph Censor released them to northern papers, including Hamilton and Gisborne, after a half hour's delay. During this delay cables were read by the Telegraph Censor at Wellington, who if he found anything doubtful would refer it to the Director of Publicity; otherwise he would release the cables to the Press Association for the rest of the country.

By far the most inward cables passed without alteration or deletion. Those read most carefully and in which most deletions were made came from the United States before it entered the war, or from neutral countries. These, not being censored at source, often contained reports or conjectures that were unfounded or extremely alarming. [15] Within Britain much censorship was left to the discretion of editors, but news going overseas by cable was censored more tightly, and often information uttered by the BBC was not cabled out of Britain. [16] When cables reached the Dominions they were censored again and some information withheld by the local censor. Repeatedly New Zealanders who read overseas papers were to wonder why news that could appear in Britain, so close to the firing line, could not be printed at the world's edge. After March 1942, news already published in British newspapers, which hitherto had left London uncensored, was at the request of the Dominions' governments subject to the same treatment as news going overseas directly by cable. [17]

From the start, the Director of Publicity did not accept that publication of a news item in Britain or in any Dominion was a passport to its publication in New Zealand. When Australia, in May 1941, decided to rely on British screening and cease censoring cables from the United Kingdom, the Press wondered why New Zealand did not follow suit, why news which had passed the exacting requirements of British censors on its way from Britain should be improper for New Zealanders. ‘The results are fantastic and irritating. Half the world knew that New Zealand forces were in Greece weeks before it was considered expedient to release this information in the one country in the world most interested in it.’ [18] Paul, in the same week, wrote:

In order to retain absolute control of what should be published in New Zealand in relation to the war I have refused to accept censorship restrictions in any part of His Majesty's Dominions ‘as sufficient’. Cablegrams from the United Kingdom sometimes contain items that would not only be destructive to public morale but would be seriously disturbing to those people who have direct representatives engaged on the battle front. [19]

Letters sent into and out of New Zealand containing material for publication were, with some clearly harmless exceptions in the late stages of the war, referred by Post Office censors to the Director of Publicity for approval. [20] Outward news cables if they were obviously in order could be passed by the telegraph censors who were alert for more than security errors: for instance, on 17 April 1940 they were instructed by the Director of Publicity to ‘suppress all outward press news which is likely to convey a prejudicial view to overseas countries concerning the National War Effort in New Zealand. This will include comment implying disunity on the part of political parties as affecting the Government's war measures, and in addition information concerning anti-war and communist organisations.’ [21]

In the first weeks of press censorship, directives warned against accepting undesirable advertisements concerning the war, against printing letters from New Zealand servicemen overseas or photographs of military camps, without approval. Others deprecated publishing material likely to inflame public opinion against inoffensive enemy aliens, and urged the use of the term ‘Nazi’ rather than ‘German’, as the Allies had no hostility to the German people. [22] Reprint matter or comment which might in any way reflect on Japan or Italy should be avoided in order not still more to prejudice friendly relations with these countries. [23]

As the war went on, directives not only imposed or lifted prohibitions on items of news but advised how news should be treated.

For instance, on 19 June 1940, when the ship Niagara was sunk by a mine off Bream Head, causing a spurt of suspicion about sabotage, spies and aliens, the Director of Publicity telegraphed to editors: ‘Speculation inadvisable regarding time, vessel or means by which mines laid off New Zealand coast. Please keep closely to Prime Minister's statement in House tonight.’ [24] Another example of advice on presentation occurred at the end of June 1942, when British forces were driven back to Egypt and Paul telegraphed: ‘War Cabinet requests co-operative assistance of press in avoiding overemphasis of Middle East news in headlines.’ [25] Again, on 8 April 1942, as the Japanese threat loomed, Paul warned editors to avoid placing undue emphasis on the return of the Australian Imperial Force to Australia, as ‘it would be doubly unfortunate if an agitation took place in New Zealand for the return of the NZEF and the military situation made it impossible to favourably consider any such demand.’ [26]

Sometimes editors were ordered to submit all items on certain subjects for censorship before publication. For example, when the

New Zealand Herald on 17 April 1941 printed a story about New Zealand making Service biscuits for Britain, stating that shipments would begin before the end of June, the Director telegraphed: ‘Arising out of publication of an unauthorised statement by one newspaper regarding British War Office Orders any future reference to war material or war production must be referred to this office prior to publication.’ He later explained that the defence authorities held that enemy attention would be directed at New Zealand in proportion to food supplies known to be shipped to Britain, while manufacturers had already been told that the British government desired secrecy concerning food contracts. [27] Manufacturers, of course, wanted the public to appreciate why local biscuit supplies were reduced, and the papers were keen to give news of such contributions to the war effort.

By February 1940 the initial definition of subversive reports had been found wanting. The elimination of ‘false reports’ would have placed an impossibly heavy burden on censors, especially postal censors, who inevitably encountered much harmless inaccuracy, and it would have infuriated the public. It was likewise impracticable to eliminate reports likely to undermine confidence in the government's financial measures, unless the Opposition were to be silenced, and it had been far from silent during October 1939. Seditious intention under Section 118 of the 1908 Crimes Act was complicated by precedent cases, when no friendly foreign states were being impugned.

Subversive statements were being uttered plentifully at pacifist and communist meetings and in communist pamphlets, against which the censorship regulations were ineffective through lack of activating machinery: there was no provision for on-the-spot arrests and prosecutions required the assent of the Attorney-General. Meetings were more readily broken up on charges of obstructing traffic or by the police, under the Police Offences Act 1927, when they believed a breach of the peace was about to occur, ordering the speaker to desist and arresting him for obstruction if he did not. [28]

To meet the situation as it existed, Section 14 of the Censorship and Publicity Regulations dealing with subversive reports was revoked on 21 February 1940 and replaced by Public Safety Emergency Regulations. These gave the police immediate powers to prohibit meetings or processions, to arrest speakers or distributors of leaflets, and to search without warrants. The definitions of subversive statements now included four from the original list, dropped four, [29] and brought in three new ones.

As described elsewhere, [30] 1940 saw a number of prosecutions of

Communists for subversive statements. The first of these was heard at Auckland on 12 April, on charges relating to the People's Voice of 9 and 16 February and to certain pamphlets; all accused were convicted, as were most of those later prosecuted in various parts of the country. A few got off for speeches made in a by-election campaign. Meanwhile the People's Voice showed no repentance or caution and on 29 May 1940 Censorship and Publicity Regulations were extended (1940/93). [31] On 30 May the police seized the press of the People's Voice.

That paper was not the only one that troubled the censors. On 7 October 1939 the Director of Publicity had written to Fraser: The Paper Tomorrow, which pretends to be a New Zealand independent review, has been publishing some matter calculated to detract from our national effort. Tomorrow approaches the present crisis in much the same insidious manner as it deals with local problems or politics—and the Government. For instance, it quotes approvingly the words of yourself as Acting-Prime Minister—‘I do not think that even in this black hour anybody should be expected to sink his conscientious opinions’—as ‘A fine statement’, and devotes much of the same issue to a mixture of candid friend advice and semi-subversive criticisms of national policy. [32]

Very soon after the amendment of 29 May 1940, the police warned the printer of Tomorrow that his press might be seized. The editor, Kennaway Henderson, [33] on 17 June wrote to subscribers that for this reason publication had ceased:

under the Emergency legislation ‘Subversion’ is very vaguely defined, so that almost any critical writing might be regarded as subversive. Consequently no printer is prepared to print Tomorrow, and, in effect, we have been suppressed under legislation passed by the first N.Z. Labour Government. New Zealand now has no independent critical journal.

At the moment a wave of hysteria is sweeping the country. It may be that an opportunity to commence publication again will occur in a few months. [34]

The opportunity did not come, and Tomorrow, a vigorous intellectual sprout of the 1930s, disappeared without a court charge staining its character.

The Co-operative Press of Christchurch, which had printed leaflets for the local anti-conscription campaign and also pacifist literature, notably A. M. Richards's trenchantly critical booklet, What are we Fighting for?, was seized like the People's Voice but without any publication having been challenged in court as subversive. [35]

The press in general had no sympathy with anti-war voices, pacifist or leftist, and often urged the government to stiffen measures against them. Papers also made statements about the necessity for censorship. Later, these were usually followed by complaints that New Zealand's censorship went too far, but in the early days a graceful acceptance of sacrifice was advocated. Thus, the Christchurch Star–Sun on 3 October 1939: ‘in wartime even the democracies recognise the necessity of restricting freedom in order not to lose it, and a Press censorship is conformed to by the Press with the best of grace. The censorship is full of difficulties, anomalies and inconsistencies, but it must go on.’

The Listener, which did not regard itself as a governmental tool, declared on 1 March 1940:

If there is any Government in the world reluctant to curtail liberty it is the Government at present in office in New Zealand. It is a bitter experience for it and for everybody that it must now control liberty or betray it.

It hoped, of course, and kept on hoping, that citizens of all shades of opinion would control themselves…. Liberty is precious. It is the goal, whatever comes in the way, of our struggle. Freedom of speech is precious since it is the sign and expression, normally, of freedom of thought. But freedom of speech is not precious in itself. Far less is it sacred. It is precious when it preserves other freedoms, a dangerous superstition when it destroys them. There is no freedom of speech in No Man's Land; none outside a hostile listening post, none in the presence of spies and traitors.

To pretend that there is no risk in curtailing free speech is, of course, blindness; but to argue that it must never be curtailed is madness. War is a balancing of risk against risk, of evil against evil. It is a state of emergency in which standards of liberty as well as standards of living must be related to the necessities of the hour. To claim that our tongues must be free, everywhere and at any time, is a fanatical loss of touch with reality.

The Outlook, official voice of the Presbyterian Church with its tradition of free speech, was in October 1939 in equally docile mood: restrictions of one kind and another were inevitable and would be borne in the knowledge that they were necessary. In censorship, the Church would submit to the law of the land, rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's, and knowing that the government would not interfere with its fundamental doctrines. The Wanganui Chronicle on 9 February 1940 wrote that some people looked on censorship as something too grievous to be borne, but this attitude was entirely wrong, for the censor was a friend, knowing better than anyone else what was likely to be harmful and what not; seemingly innocent remarks might give an important clue to an interested person.

Early criticism was directed not at the local press censor, for whom there was some actual praise, but at the feebleness of overseas news and the silence of the Services. The peace so far from peaceful had been replaced by the war that was not warlike; much seemed dubious and the news media were doubted. The New Zealand Observer on 11 October 1939 commented that though censorship and propaganda were an essential part of modern war, the current wearisome repetition in the cable news was like playing football without knowing the score. The fault was not with the newspapers or censorship in New Zealand: ‘These Boys' Own Paper stories are apparently deemed suitable for Empire consumption by the British Ministry of Information … and the Daventry broadcasts have the same flavour.’ After five weeks, it was obvious that the surest way to make people lose interest in the war was to deprive them of authentic and credible information about it. The Southland Times on 28 February 1940 attributed the smooth functioning of newspaper censorship to the Director and Deputy Director of Publicity both being trained journalists and to the government's obvious sympathy for civil rather than military control. The Thames Star on 11 March 1940 said that the Director of Publicity did his best to assist newspapers, but was hampered and restricted by instructions from London. The Press on 8 March explained that the British Ministry of Information withheld from the Dominions some news published in Britain, an illogical restraint; British newspapers went by air to neutral countries such as Sweden, and thence to Germany, so that in German broadcasts New Zealanders might hear English news denied to them. Admittedly the suppressions were more irritating than important. In New Zealand, relations between the press and the local censorship had been happier than in other Dominions: the muddled announcement of the Anzac troops' arrival in Egypt, for which the Australian press had violently denounced its censors, created no stir in New Zealand. It could not be said, however, that the administrative problems of local censorship had yet been satisfactorily solved, or that decisions were always reasonable. Nor was it easy to understand the steps taken by some State departments to prevent information being divulged on such topics as the expansion of industry to meet war needs, which in Australia was set forth in detail. The Press also pointed out that there were in fact two local censors: the Director of Publicity and the military authorities. Between them, newspapers at times had difficulty in obtaining clear and authoritative rulings with a minimum of delay.

Halfway through 1940 the Auckland Star complained of the probably inevitable chafing between the Services and newsmen keen to tell what was going on in the war. Control was necessary and was accepted, said the Star, but some was not serving its purpose.

For instance, damaging rumours about the Niagara were published in Australia [36] because official news in New Zealand was:

dammed both at source and outlet. At the outlet stands the censor, who is reasonable, courteous and helpful. He is there to ensure that information which the newspapers obtain is not published if publication would be harmful…. If newspapers obtain the news, he will, if necessary, censor it. If they do not obtain the news— well, it isn't published unless some one, some time, chooses to make a statement. At the source of the news stand the Service Departments, which have little understanding of—and, in some instances, not the slightest regard for—what the public requires in the way of a full, fair and safe presentation of affairs. Their general policy is to say nothing, to discourage publication, and, if they can, prevent it. This negative policy is by some mistaken for strength.

Churchill had put the issue of official news in the real, not nominal, charge of a civilian authority, consulting with but not dominated by the Services, and similar charge was needed here. [37]

Truth, as usual, scolded everyone, especially the government. On 8 May 1940 it had complained that through timidity, lack of enterprise and government repression the press gave a ‘milk and watery acquiescence’ to every government defence measure, good, bad or indifferent; increasingly it was assumed that the war effort, the concern of every thinking person, was wholly the concern of the government and the defence machine, but if these authorities took the people more into their confidence there would be a more vigorous spirit. On 18 December, claiming that in Britain during the raids a ‘soporific censorship’ had persuaded many, including Americans, that Britain was doing very nicely and there was no need to worry,

Truth urged again that the people of New Zealand should be taken into the government's confidence; like the British, they could take hard facts, and they needed wakening to effort. Further complaints against ‘schoolmarmish war censorship’ appeared on 30 December. [38]

Till the end of 1940 it could be said that the press and the Director of Publicity, helped by the novelty of the war, got along fairly amicably, restiveness being mainly against the British Ministry of Information and, even more, against the silence of the Services. But as time passed with warning restrictions gradually mounting, irritation was predictable. Events early in 1941 led the Director of Publicity into censoring not for direct security reasons, but from belief that criticism of the government would hurt the war effort by endangering public morale. This caused newspapers to remember actively their allegiance to the National party. Sidney Holland strongly supported by F. W. Doidge entered the scene as champions of free speech and freedom of the press.

The first incident in which it was held that the censor exceeded his proper powers in order to shield members of the government from embarrassment came out of a communist subversion trial in the much-venerated Supreme Court. On Thursday 13 February 1941, H. A. Ostler and T. B. Christie were on trial in Christchurch for publishing or attempting to publish a subversive statement, the underground People's Voice. Ostler, son of Sir Hubert Ostler, Judge of the Supreme Court, declared that while the prosecution was pending, the Solicitor-General, H. H. Cornish, [39] had taken him to dinner and suggested that it could be arranged for him to enter the Army, and that if he did so the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General were willing to drop the prosecution, though this would not be easy; no such accommodation was offered for Christie, his partner in crime.

The Director of Publicity, as he later explained, when faced at 2 pm with this disturbing revelation ‘decided within three minutes’ to postpone publication of that part of the proceedings until an ‘explanation and refutation’ could be published with it. Immediately instructions were given: ‘Ostler's statement in Supreme Court concerning Solicitor-General's alleged interview must not be published. Will release Ostler's statement together with Solicitor-General's reply when case resumed on Monday’. Paul added: ‘No other person had either a direct or indirect voice in the postponement of publication, and my first discussion with the Prime Minister regarding that decision did not take place till some hours after it had been made.’ [40]

The two men were convicted but not sentenced on 13 February, reappearing in court on Monday 17th, when a statement from the Solicitor-General was read. Cornish explained that as a family friend and a former headmaster of the school where young Ostler had made a promising start, he had, entirely on his own responsibility, met him for ‘a friendly talk’, hoping to induce him to break from subversive associations. He had advised that it would be both right and wise to join the Army, which would show repudiation of any disloyal intention, and which the Court might properly take into consideration. He firmly denied that he had or had claimed any authority from the Prime Minister or the Attorney-General to offer privileged treatment. This was published in the papers of 17–18 February, alongside Ostler's statement, without any explanation of the delay. [41]

The Otago Daily Times on 18 February was the first paper to make critical comment. Apart from the Solicitor-General's indiscretion, there was another circumstance in this deplorable episode to which public attention must be directed. Ostler's statement was made in court on Thursday; a telegraphic report was circulated by the Press Association during Thursday evening and in the ordinary course would have appeared in the press next morning.

It did not appear because at a late hour the Director of Publicity communicated with the newspapers prohibiting publication until Monday when Mr Cornish's explanation of his interview with Ostler would be available. In view of the extraordinary powers vested in the government, and in this officer, whose communications emanate from the Prime Minister's office, publication of the message was withheld by us on Thursday evening. We do not, however, admit that any obligation rested on us to comply with the demand of the Director of Publicity. This official is empowered under the Censorship and Publicity Regulations 1939 to administer these regulations to the extent of controlling the publication of statements that may be broadly defined as tending to imperil the public safety during this time of war. Only through an excess of zeal could he extend his authority to a supervision over the publication of reports of proceedings in the Supreme Court, even though the names of the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General might be mentioned in them. [42]

At Napier on 20 February, W. J. Broadfoot MP was the next to draw attention to the postponement. ‘A full account of the prosecution of Ostler was given in the Press but not of the defence, and that I say is wrong…. Ostler's defence was suppressed, and that is wrong. I am sure that the Press did not do it but that it was suppressed by someone else.’ [43]

The Standard of 27 February, under the heading ‘Censorship— But Not Suppression’ called this an ‘unfair inference’, and printed Paul's statement, already cited, on how the postponement came to be made. In this Paul said:

One of my responsibilities is to prevent the impairment of public morale, to discourage the publication of anything calculated to destroy confidence in the integrity of responsible officers or those charged with the effective prosecution of the war effort in New Zealand. But above all, it is imperative that public confidence should not without cause be shaken in the administration of justice as affecting the war effort, and the War Regulations are designed to maintain that confidence. If it could be proved that a Judge's son could obtain any sort of preferential treatment in comparison with the son of any other citizen then that would be detrimental to the nation's war effort; but a statement by any person, especially when not made on oath, is not proof.

In my position of grave responsibility I am not concerned with persons, politics or parties, but I must endeavour to preserve the public morale….

There was never any intention or desire to suppress one word of the Press reports regarding the proceedings and no suppression was made. I believed that it was fair to the people of this country that with the publication of Ostler's allegations, a statement from the Solicitor-General should appear.

Speaking generally, added Paul, if both sides of any question could be given simultaneously, there would be no excuse for unsound judgment. He stressed that the postponement was his decision alone, and threw in that it was part of Hitler's technique to divide nations under attack, while part of his own responsibility was to prevent division. [44]

The day before the Standard appeared, papers had published a letter from the Prime Minister to the Solicitor-General, inquiring sharply whether Ostler's statements were correct, in whole or in part; he wanted a ‘full and explicit statement regarding anything and everything that may have transpired between you and Mr Ostler having bearing on the case’; this matter, affecting the administration of law and the integrity of the government and its officers, was most serious, calling for ‘most searching and urgent examination’. Cornishs reply, published alongside, was dated 20 February, and merely enclosed the statement already uttered in court, adding that he now realised it had been indiscreet of him to interview Ostler at all, and his chief regret was that ‘as a result of what I did Ostler was able to make a statement that I had the authority of yourself and the Attorney-General to discuss the matter with him.’ [45]

During the next week, both Christchurch papers said that the suspension of Supreme Court reporting had provoked much comment and criticism. The Star–Sun was relieved that Paul had acted on his own, though he had established a very dangerous precedent, which should never be followed. [46] The Press said that Paul's action was legal but queried whether it was just and wise. His statements showed a dangerous view of his functions. Over a long period a censor could do little to ‘prevent the impairment of the public morale’, though he could damage it by weakening faith in the full ness and reliability of available news and, by the suppression of accurate information, encouraging rumours. The public did not need a censor to shield it from disagreeable truth or bolster up confidence in administration and political leaders. Confidence would be better maintained by knowing that evidence of muddling and incompet ence was not being withheld, while faith in the administration of justice was not strengthened by awareness that the censor had inter fered with the publication of judicial proceedings. [47]

While the Ostler case was simmering, newspaper men met at

Rotorua in annual conference from which emerged varying opinions on current censorship. Paul claimed that the ‘overwhelming opinion’ of the New Zealand Newspaper Proprietors' Association was that his action over Ostler was justified in the circumstances. [48] Of Paul's regime in general, the president of the Association later said, ‘It would be expecting too much to suggest that there was complete agreement on all the issues raised, but it was freely conceded that Mr Paul was carrying out a difficult task with the minimum of inconvenience to the newspapers and that his practical knowledge of newspaper production and his helpful attitude at all times had assisted to promote an admirable spirit of co-operation between the Censorship Department and the newspapers.’ [49]

Sir Henry Horton, [50] chairman of the New Zealand branch of the Empire Association, voiced criticisms that were to be repeated during the next few years. Mistakes and inconsistencies, he said, were certain to occur, as censors were necessarily inexperienced, but they should therefore be responsive to improving suggestions. Though there had been no formal proposal to restrict further the independence of news papers, there was within the official censorship ‘an increasing tend ency to suppress information which cannot have any military importance’. More serious was the unofficial censorship, the with holding of information by persons and institutions on the excuse that its publication might affect the conduct of the war or disturb the public mind. Such withholding to prevent criticism of the administration in any area could not be defended, and newspapers should protest strongly ‘whenever they find that the powers vested in the official censorship are being usurped by persons or services having no authority to restrict the freedom of the Press.’ [51]

More censorship tension was soon produced by a strike in the Hutt Valley at the Woburn railway workshops, which were now doing some munitions work. They required four extra hours from some workers on Saturday mornings. This was on a voluntary basis and at ordinary pay rates, as it was established Railways practice that the first four hours of such work was at normal rates, whereas since 1936 in private industry all work beyond 40 hours was at time-and-a-half, or more.

The Wellington branch of the Railway Tradesmen's Association, seeking to have this anomaly adjusted, interviewed the Minister of Railways, Sullivan, on 14 November 1940. On 14 February 1941 a letter signed by Semple, Minister of Railways since 21 January, refused extra pay for Saturday morning work while promising to require as little of it as possible, consistent with the war effort. [52] At Woburn, where 1600 men were employed, a meeting on Thursday 6 March decided that unless overtime payments were granted forth with, Saturday morning work would be declined. Management on Friday afternoon told nearly 300 men to report next morning or face suspension. They refused, and Semple ordered their suspension, declaring that he would not tolerate direct action; these men, who had not acted through the national executive of the railway unions, were disloyal both to their unions and to the government; there could be only one government in the country. [53] On Monday 10 March, when 280 men were turned away from their machines, their fellow workers left the shops, saying that the Minister had taken an uncompromising attitude and that they had no alternative to accepting his challenge. [54] When police and management stopped union officials from addressing the night shift, the night men also joined the strike. [55]

Newspapers greeted the affair with detailed reports and disapproving editorials. In general, they were not concerned with the rights or wrongs of the strike; these were outweighed by the wartime needs of a vital industry where a new spirit and discipline must keep work moving while anomalies and grievances were ‘left in the hands of those appointed for that purpose.’ [56] The denunciations of the New Zealand Herald, for instance, were not half-hearted:

This appalling dereliction of duty in face of the supreme crisis [57] leaves the whole country aghast….Whatever the point at issue at Woburn… it pales into insignificance beside the country's plain need…. The dispute can be settled while the work goes on…. The Minister and the Government can do no other than take up this challenge to their authority and this Mr Semple intends to do. Meanwhile the shops stand idle and munitions output has ceased because of the precipitate, irresponsible and undisciplined action of workers who subordinate all else to their demand to profit out of the war emergency. [58]

The Auckland Star held that people should appreciate the real nature and importance of the matters involved. Condemnation of direct action, the natural and justifiable reaction of many, should not obscure the larger issues. On various occasions since the start of the war, workers had been led to expect continuance of the 40-hour week. The war effort demanded Saturday work, and if normal rates were paid for it war production would undoubtedly benefit, but the change must apply to all workers, not just a section of them. Immediate redress of all grievances was the democratic right of workers, and assured of that they should go on working while their case was being heard, in a sense of co-operation and liberty; but, in war, discipline was even more necessary than liberty, and if self-discipline were lacking it must be imposed. ‘The united, disciplined and solid nation is the one that wins wars.’ [59]

The Otago Daily Times reminded that in Germany and Britain 10 to 12 hours were worked daily, six days a week, but in New Zealand a series of stoppages over hours and wages had climaxed in the refusal of railway workers to exceed 40 hours a week on war equipment. Government had refused to be cajoled into paying overtime rates on Saturday; the men, defying previous agreements and the advice of union executives, had struck, and Semple, roused by their flagrant refusal, had declared there could be but one government. ‘If the new Minister of Railways is as good as his word, the public may expect that he will seize the opportunity to indicate… once and for all that his mandates are to be obeyed.’ The men must go back to work immediately on the previous conditions. The government had the power to deal decisively with this challenge, a challenge to the basis of democracy, by asserting its authority with compromise or loss of time. [60]

However, besides the lofty editorials, the papers were printing statements from Ministers and the men about past negotiations. [61] Other railway branches and other unions were beginning to consider the strike, Wellington carpenters for instance sending fraternal greetings and a donation. [62] On 12 March, on the instructions of the Prime Minister, the Director of Publicity telegraphed his editors: ‘From this date the publication of all resolutions, reports of meetings, statements in support, or any information relating to the railway strike cannot be published [sic] without permission.’ [63]

Editorials, however, could continue, and on 13 March both the

Press and the Dominion took similar lines, dwelling on the 40-hour week anomaly. The Press said that the government had so far dealt wisely and firmly with the dispute, refusing to discuss the men's grievances while they were on strike. [64] The government must make clear its determination to prevent strikes and lockouts. But the Woburn men in hours of work and payment for overtime were substantially worse off than employees in private industry, where since 1936 legislation had established a 40-hour week. The government should rationalise its position. By requiring the workshops to exceed 40 hours, the government was admitting that the 40-hour week was a bar to industrial efficiency. How could it justify maintaining it in private industry? [65] The Dominion pointed to the embarrassing contradiction of the Labour Department having recently refused to allow volunteers in a private firm to work for ordinary rates on Saturday, [66] and on the same day the Newspapers Proprietors' Association warned the Prime Minister that many complaints were coming in; Holland said that he would move for discussion in the House; Fraser replied that this would be off the air and out of the press. On the argument that discussion in Parliament might prejudice settlement of the strike, Holland agreed to postpone the debate, [67] which took place a week later on 19 March.

Behind the scenes, the national executives of both railway unions— the Associated Society of Railway Servants and the Railway Tradesmens Association—passed resolutions regretting any unconstitutional action by unionists and asking for the reinstatement of all suspended men and others on the basis prior to the stoppages, ‘with the assurance of the Minister that negotiations re overtime rate for Saturday work be instituted immediately.’ [68] The government accepted the regrets and agreed that the men should be reinstated on pre-strike conditions, provided that they were back on duty on or before Monday 17 March. On the 14th, at a mass meeting of 1200 to which the press was not admitted though the results were published, this was accepted with only eight dissenting. The combined Hutt Committee later put out a leaflet condemning the executives for working against the Hutt men's interests. [69] The national executives opposed the Hutt's striking on a national issue without their advice, fearing that it would prejudice negotiations. The result was total victory for the government: not till 30 August 1943 did railway workers obtain time-and-a-half rates for Saturday work after 40 hours during the preceding five days. [70]

City editors forbore immediate comment, save for the Otago Daily Times, Paul's former employer and somewhat restive under his new authority, which on 15 March worked in the first hint that censorship had been exercised: ‘Brief as, from a circumstance over which we have no control, the information is that we are now, and have, in the past day or two, been able to give the public concerning this unfortunate incident, it is sufficient to indicate, that the men concerned have retired with the best grace possible from a position that was wholly untenable.’ Important questions were still to be clarified, primarily the 40-hour week, the government's own creation, to which it was now showing inconsistency. Three days later this paper led firmly into the censorship issue, quoting Roosevelt's dictum that without freedom of the press democracy could not be maintained, and the recent statement of a British Home Security official that free speech and criticism were, in democratic government, a spur to action. The free press of New Zealand had never been seriously challenged, and no such challenge, however tentative, could be allowed without remark. ‘In recent months, almost unknown to the public, which is the real custodian of democratic rights, the press of this Dominion has submitted to certain restriction upon its publication of news’, most accepted willingly, some self-imposed. As Churchill said, in war some ancient liberties must be placed in pawn, news or views which might assist the enemy could not be printed. But in a democracy censorship must be applied with scrupulous respect for the rights of the press and the public; several edicts from the Prime Minister's office had arbitrarily delayed or forbidden news of merely domestic affairs, and though so far the restraints had been minor, the principle infringed was of the highest consequence. [71]

On 19 March Holland, who was renewing his party's demand for a national government, read out the order which had silenced the strikers' side of the news and deprived the public of its right to be fully informed on all public questions, not least the vital question of the 40-hour week. Although the country was at war, it was necessary to ensure that New Zealand's government, in its desire for efficiency, did not fall into Nazi ways. He asked for assurance that the regulations would not be so used again. [72]

This Fraser stoutly refused. He had saved a vital industry from communist subversion and the newspapers from being, unwittingly, the vehicle of communist propaganda, and he was ‘unrepentant’. ‘I think I did the right thing and I will do it again on every occasion when the necessity arises’; but the regulations would, he stated, be dispensed with as soon as possible after the war. [73]

The debate was widely and fully reported, being continued next day by Doidge, who declared that while the Woburn men were wrong to strike they were entitled, right or wrong, to be heard, and that if this case, plus that of Ostler, were established as precedents, the newspapers of New Zealand were in the grip of a political

Gestapo. [74]

The debate was the signal for a salvo of city editorials. Leading in mildness, the Dunedin Evening Star accepted that the ‘drastic’ instruction had been induced by the need to settle the dispute as quickly as possible, and if it had been ‘differently worded to refer only to motions encouraging the strikers, which we understand to have been the sole object of prohibition, there would have been no need of criticism.’ [75] The Evening Post merely noted with satisfaction that the censorship regulations, unlike other State-socialistic changes, would be withdrawn at the end of the war. [76] The Dominion said that the public now had a better idea of the government's policy of extending censorship to domestic affairs not directly related to the war, reserving the right to stop any information which in the opinion of the censor would ‘endanger public safety through condonation, approval or anything that would tend to cause a spread of difficulties.’ This description from the Prime Minister's speech covered a very wide field. The real issue was the definition, in particular cases, of what constituted subversive propaganda, on which the regulations gave the censor overriding authority. The press must bow to his decree if he decided that it would be better for the public's morale to withhold disturbing domestic information than to give that information and encourage morale to take strength from adversity. [77]

The Otago Daily Times was pleased that, thanks to Holland, censorship had come into open discussion. What had the government to fear from submitting the facts of an illegal strike to the public? The answer that the government was not going to have a word published that might be a danger to the war effort was specious pleading. The strike doubtless did affect the war effort, but it was not a strike against the war effort in any deliberate sense; it was a protest against the government's abandonment of the ‘precious 40- hour week’, in essence a domestic and party issue. The public would be wise to exercise the closest surveillance of censorship, as much for its methods as for its intentions. [78]

The Otago Daily Times also printed, on 22 March, an article derived from a circular put out by Harold Silverstone, editor of the

Industrial Worker, which he called an independent and objective weekly newspaper devoted to trade unionism. He was, wrote Silverstone, not allowed to publish one word of a day-by-day account of 10–13 March which he had submitted to Paul. Later, a report of the meeting at which the dispute was settled ‘was slashed until it was not only unrecognisable but actually false.’ Silverstone resigned from his editorship to produce this cydostyled letter, which by indicating the extent of censorship itself contravened the regulations, and declared that he would welcome prosecution. [79] There was none.

Under the heading ‘Muzzling the Press’ the Auckland Star listed the Prime Minister's offences: he had invoked the regulations to censor news of the strike, he had threatened to prevent the reporting and broadcasting of Opposition comment until the strike was settled, and he was ‘quite unrepentant’, though democratic people must feel grave disquiet at their Prime Minister ‘referring derisively to the “specious plea of the freedom of the Press”.’ Fraser's case, said the

Star, was that Communists were intent on prolonging and spreading the strike, and that communist-inspired resolutions were being published in the newspapers; he therefore imposed the censorship, the strike ended and, therefore again, the censorship was justified. He had claimed that 99 per cent of the strikers were normally patriotic men, misled by a malign subversive communist element. But all were back at work, including the Communists, the war regulations having been used not against Communists but against the press. Labour supporters should note that trade unions were prevented from explaining their grievances to the public. Censorship was exerted not merely on communist-inspired resolutions but also on any information about the strike. In practice, the news permitted was government propaganda. Such an abuse of power was consistently applied in Germany, Russia and Italy; ‘It has not happened consistently in New Zealand; there have been one or two minor abuses, and this major one.’ [80]

The Press stressed that newspapers were forbidden to indicate that any censorship had been exercised and was disturbed that the Prime Minister seemed jocularly unaware that he should explain riding roughshod over the freedom of the press, the privileges of Parliament and the elementary right of citizens in a democracy to be kept reliably informed on the policy and actions of their government. The forgoing of small items of news, Fraser had said, was a small matter compared with the possibility of newspapers being used unwittingly to foment trouble and turmoil in the country. Newspapers, said the

Press, did not mind forgoing important items of news for diplomatic and military reasons; they minded being deprived of the right to be fair and impartial. [81]

The New Zealand Herald, which at the outset had so vigorously rebuked the strikers, repeated that the press fully accepted military censorship, proving its discretion by the absence of any serious breach in 18 months of war. ‘It is the abuse of the censorship for party political ends that is condemned.’ The previous week the workers had been gagged, yet the point at issue, the 40-hour week, was of the widest public interest, and how should the public decide unless both sides were stated? Incitements such as reports of meetings or statements supporting the strike were justifiably silenced, but that no information was to be published without permission was an ‘unconscionable proceeding’, plain suppression, more likely to breed suspicion than unity. The Herald added that there had been other cases of political censorship, ‘the most glaring’ being the four-day suppression of Ostler's statement in the Supreme Court where only the Judge should have such power. ‘The Prime Minister should recognise an error that is, in fact, an offence’, and give the assurance for which the Opposition asked—that there would be no repetition, no further falling into Nazi methods. [82]

Two days later the Herald considered the legal freedom of the press in British countries. Unlike in America, where by the 1789 Bill of Rights freedom of speech and of the press could not be abridged by Congress, in Britain Parliament was supreme, restrained only by public opinion, drawing on tradition. Lord Justice Mansfield [83] had said in 1784: ‘The liberty of the press consists in publishing without licence, subject to the consequences of the law’, and this reference to licence stemmed back to the system attacked by Milton in Areopagitica. While there was no legal barrier to censorship, the whole idea was repugnant to British law. In war it was accepted concerning anything that might aid the enemy or injure the nation's war effort, but it was vitally important that these should not be so generously interpreted as to ban what would be merely inconvenient for the authorities to have known. War in defence of liberty should not become the vehicle for needlessly suppressing liberty: eternal vigilance was still the price; all should be alert to guard against unnecessary inroads. [84]

Cartoonist Minhinnick with the caption ‘Simple Blackout Hints’, showed Fraser tying a ‘press censorship’ blindfold over the eyes of

simple blackout hints, no. 163

a groping little man; [85] the Auckland Star's ‘J. C. H.’, with the caption ‘Unrepentant’ showed Public Opinion as a large and savage schoolmaster glaring down at a small smarting Fraser who thumbs his nose, saying ‘I'll do it again’. [86]

Several papers linked this episode with the Ostler case. The Star– Sun recalled the latter as an utterly unwarranted interference with domestic news, an error of judgment by the Director of Publicity which had precisely the opposite effect to that intended. The Prime Minister had used the regulations to prevent the strike spreading; no one who knew anything of labour organisations imagined for a moment that such use had any influence on the course of the dispute, but Fraser had prevented public discussion of some aspects of the strike and stifled public criticism. [87] A few days later the Star–Sun observed, fairly enough, that in the past week or two a good deal of nonsense had been talked about censorship and the liberty of the press but the important principle, stated over and over again, was that the total freedom enjoyed by a country was measured by the freedom of its press. It was radically unsound to apply censorship to domestic matters; its recent such use was unnecessary, showed official ignorance of elementary principles and created a dangerous precedent. [88]

Censorship in the Woburn strike was a political football. Possibly because the Opposition and the press were usually so much against strikes and the 40-hour week, and as the papers had opened fire so hotly, Fraser felt that in the heightening war tension quick and salutary smothering of the dispute could be achieved through censorship, hoping for tolerance, even approval, from the strikers' traditional foes. A note in J. H. Hall's handwriting, dated 29 March 1941, pointed out that in this totalitarian war, where every phase of the nation's life, social, economic and moral, was subject to attack, the term ‘military’ must have much wider application than it had had in 1914–18. [89]

But censorship provided Holland, in the flush of new leadership, with an opportunity to attack the government in the name of democracy, freedom of the press and the right of trade unionists to be heard. Political warfare, especially to a politician in opposition, was an entrenched habit, while the other war, however many words were spent on it, was not yet a reality. The newspapers, already slightly chafed by Paul's cautions, were happy to chastise the old enemy, Labour, for a new offence.

The opportunism of the press and the National party was proved by later events. When unrepentant Fraser applied similar press strictures in later strikes, there was no such outcry. There was no protest when on 17 March 1942 an order forbad publication without prior approval of news of the Westfield freezing workers' strike. [90] Similarly, on 15 October 1942 Sullivan, justifying the use of censorship to maintain essential supplies, read out to the House as an example of proper censorship an order issued on 15 September early in the

Waikato coal strike: ‘To assist in localizing the serious coal dislocation and ensure speediest possible return to full production assistance of press is necessary to prevent extension of trouble. There must be no publication of reports of meetings resolutions or statements in support of the unlawful strike or of any statement supporting or condemning the strikers without reference to the Director of Publicity.’ [91] Though more tactful, less peremptory, this order was not in substance much different from that which had caused such furore

18 months earlier. [92] No member of Parliament or editor was concerned about trade unionists' right to be heard, or the public's right to full information.

This acceptance of strike-silencing in 1942 might well seem a measure of the deepening force of the war, and doubtless this was part of it. But in 1951, in the waterfront strike, Holland was to apply censorship quite as firmly as had Fraser in war time.

Ironically, German propagandists were able to make prompt use of Holland's censures, broadcast in Parliament. Breslau, on 22 March, in English for England, announced:

Mr. Sydney Holland, Leader of the Opposition in the New Zealand Parliament, stated on Friday that the Government had introduced a very strict censorship. The Censor had been instructed to ban all news concerning strikes in New Zealand armament works and to prevent newspapers from criticising the Government. Mr. Fraser, the New Zealand Prime Minister, said that if he had known Mr.

Holland had meant to allude to the strike in armament works he would have prevented this debate in Parliament. Great Britains alleged struggle for liberty and freedom has throughout the Empire become the sepulchre of tradition, right and privilege of Britons.

On the same day Germans were told: ‘A New Zealand member of Parliament tried to criticise the British War Censorship. He objected to the press being forbidden to criticise members of New Zealand Government. This imprudent M.P. was told by Prime Minister Fraser that it was not for Parliament to formulate policy: that was the business of the Government which was appointed by the London Government.’ [93]

The Labour government was with reason long and deeply aware of the antagonism and power of the press. ‘We never had a fair go from the papers’, was a plaint uttered often by Savage. Labour had come to office against all the weight of press influence, which continually dragged against most of its actions, for instance in 1941 strenuously supporting doctors in their hostility to the medical benefits of Social Security. The war had killed plans for a Labour daily, and the government's use of the new medium, radio, to explain its purposes and tell of its achievements was not an over-happy substitute, its national service talks being too often unskilful, dull and too obviously propaganda. Parliamentary broadcasts were Labour's main line to the minds of people and here, from time to time,

Labour men revealed their exasperation and anxiety over the persistent opposition of the press.

Thus A. F. Moncur, in the crisis of June 1940, asked the city newspapers, ‘the greatest controlling factor in making for the calmness of the people today’, to cancel for the moment their political inclinations. Labour, he said, had known for years that the metropolitan press ‘stands first, last, and all the time for vested interests’, whereas Labour stood for the masses; he complained that ministerial statements handed to the press had portions left out or were printed in obscure places. [94]

Another member, J. W. Munro, [95] on 29 July 1941, claimed that Labour had passed its highly Christian Social Security Act with the dogs of vested interest yapping at its heels. ‘Never forget that the newspapers are owned by vested interests, and are their watchdogs.’ [96] At about the same time H. G. R. Mason complained that the Oppositions friends in the press concealed and suppressed Labour statements: a ‘splendid speech’ by the Minister of Agriculture was buried under a small heading in the middle of a page. [97] Chief Whip James O'Brien, irked by the space given to Opposition utterances, carried resentment further, advocating that every newspaper should be licensed, and when one worked against the interests of the country and the people, or criticised the government unfairly, the licence should be cancelled. He evaded saying who should judge the issue, adding that Seddon [98] in his time had fought every newspaper in the country. [99] The Evening Post, linking O' Brien's proposal with vague warnings in the Standard against Labour-suppressing reportage, saw a serious threat of totalitarianism, [100] as did the Wanganui Herald on 4 August; but there was no widespread alarm.

In March 1944 James Thorn was to declare that freedom of the press meant that a few capitalists started a paper and their employees wrote to prop up their system, vilifying Labour and praising Tories; such freedom was licence to corrupt and poison the minds of the people and, despite the censorship complained of, newspapers had campaigned against the government throughout the war. [101] Fraser himself in August 1944 said heatedly that the press was controlled by landowners and the rich, who in effect told the leaderwriters what to write, ‘and, if they do not write it, out they go’; the real censorship was by editors, not by the government censor. [102]

One of the clearest statements came from Paul commenting on criticism of his functions by the Press of 3 June 1941: ‘It is unfortunately necessary in almost every instance where criticism of a war activity occurs to remember that a definite bias—unconscious or otherwise—obtrudes against the Government. While the Press as a whole is favourable to the war effort, it holds in the main that the success of that effort depends in large measure on the destruction of the Government. If not that, then destruction of the principles on which the Government exists.’ [103]

The government, then, was resentful of newspapers, knowing that praise from them would be grudging, criticism prompt and plentiful; the newspapers' basic attitude was that the war required a British-style coalition, and that only with National party talents in Cabinet and Labour's domestic programme set aside for the duration would there be the unity needed for a real war effort. Newspapers were irked to have Paul, a life-long Labour man, holding final authority on what could and could not be published, in areas of public morale and welfare largely determined by himself. They were ready, as the months passed, to criticise his shortcomings both in censorship and publicity.

Reverses in Greece and Crete in April and May 1941 shook confidence in the conduct of the war. As mentioned elsewhere, [104] Fraser took steps through Freyberg to ensure that the New Zealand Division would not again be launched on adventures without due air and armour support, but this of course was not known by the public. In the House of Commons these campaigns were criticised openly, extracts reaching New Zealand; here, however, Parliament's talk on

Greece and Crete was, as usual when military matters were discussed, in secret session.

Before that debate began, on 11 June 1941, Holland stated that 90 to 95 per cent of the information given in secret sessions could have been given openly. [105] Nash, as Acting Prime Minister, claimed that nothing had been withheld except what would have been advantageous to the enemy, that absence of wrangling in Parliament on the war situation did not mean that people were not informed. Such wrangling helped the enemy. Even things quite innocent in themselves, said in the House, had been so used, twisted very cleverly by Dr Goebbels to create an impression in such places as Spain,

Italy, Sweden, Holland and Denmark that the British Commonwealth was disintegrating, whereas an argument in the House of Commons would not give this impression. [106]

Greece and Crete sharpened another censorship problem. Very early in the war, editors had been warned to take great care in publishing letters from servicemen overseas. The Director himself had been advised by the staff officer in charge of publicity with 2NZEF to be very cautious over interviews with returned men, as some were not in normal health and a few were not desirable citizens. [107] Accordingly, in September 1940 Paul asked newspapers to submit such interviews to him before publication.

On 10 July 1941, when a hospital ship brought a large number home from the fighting, Paul telegraphed editors tightening this instruction. Subsequently he deleted several references, for instance to prisoners and to the Greek Army, that would have been harmful to the Allied cause. Similar restrictions were placed on letters from prisoners-of-war. [108] In handling statements from disgruntled soldiers, as in other matters, Paul ‘endeavoured to induce editors to adopt the principle that together with every published charge made by soldier or civilian affecting the war effort there should appear an explanation, whether that explanation contained a complete rebuttal of the charge or an admission that it rested on a sound or reasonable foundation.’ [109]

As the war worsened, a growing question was whether criticisms of equipment, manpower, training, etc, should be published as a spur to greater effort and better administration, or should be silenced as damaging to the country's morale, let alone any help or encouragement they might give to the enemy. The government inclined to the latter view. New Zealand's war effort was the war effort of the New Zealand Labour government; it was only half a side-step in the mind for attacks on Labour's administration to become attacks damaging to the war effort itself, and therefore censorable.

‘Blanket’ prohibitions, which might cover wide topics indefinitely, kept precision well away from comments on defence. As an instance: on 9 May 1941 the Director of Publicity told editors that on 29 April some newspapers had reported, from military sources, a shortage of 2000 men in the Northern Territorial forces, and another quoted the Dominion commander of the Home Guard telling Guardsmen at Waipawa that there were no rifles for them. Such news should not be given to the enemy, potential or otherwise; therefore, there should be no published reference, direct or indirect, to any shortage of manpower or war materials in New Zealand, without authority from his office. [110] A similar restriction on news of war production had been imposed in April. [111]

This covering type of prohibition drew complaint from Sir Cecil Leys, [112] chairman of New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. [113] On 21 May he recalled saying at the last annual meeting that it was the duty of the press, besides stimulating effort and maintaining morale, to ventilate abuses and bring slackness to light. These purposes were hampered by a ‘timid censorship which has become unnecessarily restrictive. “Blanket” orders prohibiting the publication of this or that class of information, much of which should rightly be in the hands of the public, are being issued in increasing numbers until there is scarcely an item of war news which can be published without reference to the censor. No New Zealand newspaper would publish matter which would give information to the enemy not already in his possession or available to him from a dozen sources’, [114] while keeping back essential facts was a grave disservice to New Zealanders. One result was an erroneous impression of preparedness. The people had no idea of the true state of home defences, or of the need for urgent preparation against an emergency that might arise at any moment. ‘The easy belief that all we need do is to carry on … as if conditions were normal is thus fostered, and the enthusiasm of the many thousands who were never foolish enough to hold this belief but were ready to do their utmost to put the country in a state of preparedness is … not being maintained. It could be rekindled by a vigorous campaign in which the real facts were stated, but these must not be told—they would be giving information to the enemy. Such a policy is utterly wrong.’ The Censorship system was basically at fault, giving to one man a monopoly of judgment, without any appeal. He should have the help of experts outside the forces, whose invariable reaction was that as little as possible on anything should be published. ‘No man, however able, painstaking and industrious, should be expected to exercise such wide powers.’ The government should urgently recast its censorship policy, to require that before reference to a subject without prior approval was banned, a ‘limited body of men qualified to judge and advise upon the long-term results of such restrictions be consulted.’ [115]

This speech was widely and prominently reported, but it was not followed by the approving general chorus that would salute later criticisms of censorship. The Otago Daily Times, however, commented on 24 May that the Director of Publicity had unquestionable control over all publication; his prohibitions extended much more widely than most people knew; there appeared to be no dividing line between military and political significance, and items of news more likely to stimulate than to retard the war effort had been suppressed. The Timaru Herald on 22 May said that for practical purposes the Director's powers were unlimited, and he had been set an impossible task which no other government had entrusted to one man. Unexpected endorsement came from the Labour-minded Grey River Argus, which stated bluntly that though Sir Cecil Leys was no friend of the workers he should be heard on this issue. Censorship had spread a mental blackout over New Zealand, rivalling the literal blackout of coastal towns and drawing protest from many quarters. Labour's censorship was harsher than that of Tory-dominated Britain, its operators refusing to ‘accept the commonsense principle that what is good enough, and safe enough, for the minds of the British people (… virtually in the firing line) should, without question, be considered good enough and safe enough for us.’ Did ‘these people’ really believe that New Zealanders could not be trusted with the truth, that national unity and effort would be jeopardised by frank, informed discussions on the war situation? Did they believe that all must be kept on a proper course by a carefully selected diet of sunshine items of news and sunshine expressions of views? The Argus agreed with Sir Cecil Leys that the existing censorship should be tempered by consultative experts; indeed it went further, suggesting that the present organisation should be replaced by a more democratic one, representative of the mentality and requirements of New Zealanders. [116]

At about the same time, on 29 May 1941, Nash himself, opening an RSA conference, evoked further criticism of government leadership and war publicity by saying that not five per cent of New Zealanders understood the seriousness of the war situation. The RSA proposed a Ministry of Information and regretted that Ministers used the radio to make important defence policy statements. [117] The Otago Daily Times pointed out that to keep people informed of events and their obligations the radio was no substitute for the press: within minutes the spoken word became hearsay, passed on inaccurately, facts distorted into error and statement into rumour. ‘Newspaper print provides the most reliable and assimilable medium for placing before the public, in the first instance, facts which have to be faced.’ [118]

While some papers attributed national complacency to the government's carry-on-as-usual attitude, [119] the Press said firmly that the responsibility for this lay with the Censorship and Publicity Branch of the Prime Minister's Department. Manifestly this organisation had failed, partly because of the national tendency to take things as they came and not worry overmuch about the future, but partly from weakness of policy, method and personnel. The Director of Publicity, who was also the chief press censor, had been appointed without any understanding of the magnitude of the task of publicising the war effort, and he had done about as much as could be expected with his staff which, apart from typists, ‘seems to consist of two men, one of whom is a journalist’. This meagre organisation, unhappily combining both censorship and publicity, had an almost negative attitude. As ‘keeping up the public morale’ had meant for the most part suppressing or glossing over unfavourable news, discouraging free and informed discussion of the war effort and covering up deficiencies in the country's military resources, it was not surprising that the public was over-complacent. The Economic Stabilisation Conference had urged that more attention be given to publicising the war effort. Publicity needed experts such as those who for the Centennial had produced in the pictorial pamphlets

Making New Zealand some of the best official publicity seen in this or in any country; similar pamphlets could have helped to bring home wartime realities. [120]

Press complaints against politically protective censorship flared again when on 6 August 1941 Doidge gave notice in the House of a question suggesting inadequate rifle training. The Speaker, as he was empowered and expected to do for security reasons, cut him off the air, while Paul, in the interests of public morale, silenced the question in the newspapers until a ministerial answer could be given alongside. Nash, stressing that the Director of Publicity was an independent authority, said that he had full power for such decision, which no one could break. [121] A month earlier in Australia, when the censor had attempted to cut criticism of AIF equipment in Greece from the reports of a debate, Prime Minister Menzies, calling this a ‘grievous error’, had said that censorship should not be used to stifle criticism. [122] The New Zealand press was not slow to note the difference and to point out that between suppression to shield government from criticism and suppression for the sake of public morale the line was very thin. [123]

As mentioned earlier, [124] the entry of Russia created new censorship and publicity problems. Directions from the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs that hopes of effective resistance by Russia should not be raised and that Russia should not be spoken of as an ally but as another country attacked by Hitler did not have much effect. Although circulated to newspapers, they were overwhelmed by Churchill's ‘Any man or State who fights against Nazidom will have our aid.’ There was, however, little risk of New Zealand newspapers being over-enthusiastic about Russia (until its resistance became heroic) and Roman Catholic papers were hostile to any association with godless, materialist Russia.

At about this time, censorship was exercised over an outbreak of intense anti-Catholicism in the Nation, organ of the Orange Lodges. The printers, unwilling to get into trouble for a trade job, showed some extreme samples [125] to the Director of Publicity, who vetoed them, but others were printed of which he did not approve, while the police received an anonymous letter complaining that the Nation was offensive to Catholics. In July, after stopping on the machines an article complaining of the complaints, the Director warned editor and printers that portions were subversive, tending to divide the community; thereafter suppression was not found necessary. [126]

The Paul Papers record a telephone conversation between Paul and the Rev P. T. B. McKeefry [127] on 29 September 1941, which is quoted in full to show something of Paul's attitudes, his methods, and the pressures he tried to balance. [128]

Mr Paul: I want to keep you chaps and the Nation and the

Communists and the near Left on as even lines as I possibly can. Don't you mistake me for one moment. I do not expect the men and women who hold their religion to be a serious and vital thing to have any truck with the enemy. The dividing line between Marxism and Christianity is a very definite line. I am not going to ask you to say anything you should not say—but you would not if I did ask you. What I want to do if I can is ask you to soft-pedal a bit in order that I may demand the same from the Nation and expect the same from the Communist or near-communist organisations and papers like In Print for instance. That is only a camouflage. I know all the rottenness that is underneath these things. I know how stupid it must appear to all intelligent people. Now that Russia has come in it is a ‘holy war’—before it was an ‘imperialist war’. I am not insensible to that. All I want you to do as far as you can—if you subordinate your opinion on religion—all I am asking if you can possibly do—take Lee's Weekly.

Rev. P. T. B. McK: He expects to get a little cheap publicity but I am damned if he will—I am not going to take any notice of him.

Mr Paul: And I agree with you. I don't know how possible it is for you to help me in this matter. I do not find much in this that I would personally take exception to; but officially there are one or two things. I don't like the references to Maisky—‘verbal perversion’. Maisky is an ambassador of a friendly power, and I think you can use another descriptive term rather than that.

Rev. P. T. B. McK: Would you mind putting a good pencil mark right round anything you want altered or left out?

Mr Paul: Yes. I didn't see your issue of August 14.

Rev. P. T. B. McK: Could I post you down a copy?

Mr Paul: If you would. I am very much interested in this because I took a view as a Labour man in the old days that the Russian Government had quite enough to do to change the face of Industrial Russia without attempting to destroy Christianity in the process, just as the Germans had quite enough to do to re-organise

Germany without exterminating the Jews. These extreme schools provide the germ of their own destruction.

Rev. McK: Yes. Would you put a cross against anything to go out? And a ring round anything to be changed. I promise you faithfully to do that. Another thing: I will be coming through

Wellington some time about the end of October. I wonder if I could call round and see you?

Mr Paul: I'd be only too glad to see you.

Rev. McK: If you will just let me have that back noted with your own marks, then you can be sure I will fall right in with you, and I will also send off the copy for you.

Mr Paul: Thank you. Much obliged. [129]

Japan's entry, and the increased defence measures ensuing, predictably tightened censorship. On 22 December 1941 references to coastal shipping were banned, and from 2 January 1942 any references to the ‘location of military camps or aerodromes, or concentrations of defence units or troops in any area in New Zealand or in territories within her sphere of activities’ had to be approved before publication. [130] On the civilian front, fear that reports or rushes on goods expected to be scarce, such as sugar and tea, would lead to more greedy buying and premature shortage, produced on 20 January an instruction that unless approved by the Director there must be no published reference to shortage of any commodity in New Zealand, or to steps proposed or taken to remedy such shortage. An amendment on 9 February limited this to imported foodstuffs, another on 8 May banned reference to cotton textile goods, and the original order was reimposed on 19 June, after a New Zealand Herald reference to scarce potatoes had apparently created a local potato famine. This order was finally removed on 18 January 1943. [131]

Japan's advance also caused some expressions of nervous exasperation with government authorities for lack of preparedness. Paul's diary of early 1942 [132] shows the Prime Minister at this stage also somewhat nervous, readily considering prosecutions, with Paul as a soothing influence. Thus:

2 Jan [1942]. P.M. raised question of publication of cablegram from Moscow… a piece of uninformed criticism. Written by M. Zazlavsky, chief leader writer on Pravda. P.M. considered release for publication was bad judgment. Saw him in evening and told him tel. censor had informed Mr Pollard [133] of cable. Told P.M. I would have approved it if consulted.

Jan 10. Letter to Attorney-General covering alleged subversive statement in letter, NZ Herald Dec 8—‘It is high time the military authorities stepped in to take control of New Zealand's destiny. No confidence can be placed in the muddling politicians and their talk. We want action not more words. Military Reserve.’ Copy of letter to Mr Cornish, Solicitor-General, as instructed by P.M.

Jan 15. P.M. ref. Mr Frost's article for Standard [29 January 1942], Alterations and deletions suggested. Approved. Indicated proposed to consider issuing order prohibiting publication of letters in [blank] without approval. P.M. expressed opinion that prosecution of NZ Herald should be taken on sentence in letter (page 12). My opinion weak case. Would like discussion with Attn-Gen. and P.M.

Jan 17. P.M. instructed me to examine In Print article ref. Fiji. Feb 6. P.M. rang ref. prosecution Truth Baume cable proposed by Police. Informed P.M. all Baume cables approved prior to publication. Saw P.M. later in afternoon. Discussed Auckland Herald leader and question of prosecution. Leader published January 29.

On legal advice, no prosecution was taken on the Herald's leader of 29 January 1942, [134] and legal advice damped prosecution zeal on other issues, mainly concerned with morale. For instance, over a paragraph by ‘McClure’ in the Auckland Star of 13 February 1942, headed ‘ Singapore’, the Crown Prosecutor doubted the wisdom of prosecution, pointing out, ‘with diffidence and hesitation’ as it was not really his province, the likelihood that in a jury a fairly strong proportion might hold views similar to those expressed, while freedom of the press would be well and thoroughly ventilated. [135] Again the Solicitor-General, while holding that an attack on the British governing caste in John A. Lee's Weekly of 20 January 1943 was subversive, had no feeling of confidence about a jury's verdict, so could not recommend prosecution. [136]

Early 1942 saw the first prosecutions (there were to be very few) of newspapers for military information transgressions. Under an order made just before Japan entered the war in December 1941 prohibiting reference to New Zealanders building a large air base at

Fiji, the editor of the crypto-communist weekly, In Print, R. A. K. Mason, [137] better known as a poet, was charged with oblique minor references thereto on 14 and 28 January. Luxford SM, saying that the presence of New Zealand troops there had already been mentioned in other news passed by the censor and that he was not merely a rubber stamp for prosecutions, dismissed these charges as far-fetched. [138] However, restrictions on In Print had been tightened by a special order on 27 January comprehensively forbidding any direct or indirect reference without prior approval to any service personnel, any camp or camp conditions, defence works or workers in or outside New Zealand, any food, equipment or lack of it, or the training, efficiency or administration of any unit. [139]

On 1 May 1942 the only successful prosecution of a daily paper for a security breach was taken against the Auckland Star for interviews with seamen who in February 1942 had been at Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, which the Japanese had raided but not occupied on 10 December 1941, smashing all radio and electrical equipment. These accounts, published on 31 March and 4 April, both referred to radio messages being sent from a surviving transmitter. The castaways assured the reporter that its presence was known to the Japanese, and the Star, seeing only straightforward stories displaying the courage and initiative of British merchant seamen, published them without reference to Paul. A medical officer at Tarawa who had been interrogated by the Japanese during their raid, and who had come to Auckland along with the talkative seamen, told the police he was positive that the Japanese did not know about the transmitter. [140]

The Naval Secretary stated that the article of 4 April could lead to the capture of a great patriot, the radio operator, and end valuable wireless intelligence from the island. [141]

The case was heard in camera, again by Luxford, who imposed fines totalling £75, saying that it was impossible to tell what items would contribute information to enemy intelligence; consequently the plea in mitigation that other published items also seemed to offend could not be accepted. [142]

Events culminating in the mid-February fall of Singapore, vaunted so secure and crumpled so readily, caused some New Zealanders to wonder if they too were living in a fool's paradise of soothing assurances. There were meetings in many places, the most purposeful often engendered by the ‘Awake New Zealand’ campaign. [143] As these meetings called for active, self-help home defence, with locally contrived weapons, they were critical of the status quo, and the sensitive

Standard commented on 2 April: ‘As these gatherings invariably contain a kick in the political pants for the Government they have received a favourable hearing from the daily newspapers, those great guardians of the public weal, the harbingers of truth and light, to whom the welfare of the public is a sacred trust.’ Some Labour members thought the ‘Awake’ movement should be suppressed, but Fraser, very much wiser, gave it interest and support, thereby minimising its anti-government aspects and channelling its energy into positive action.

Some newspapers, besides voicing uneasiness about soothing syrup and imposed imprecision, complained with new force about the lack of effort-kindling, rumour-dousing publicity on defence measures. The Press on 23 February said that censorship made it impossible for papers to discuss defence deficiencies except in terms so vague that discussion was worthless. At the same time it was disturbing to read in overseas publications grossly over-optimistic reports, presumably passed by the New Zealand censor here, denying the existence of local need to countries which might relieve it. Thus the

Wellington correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor on 11 December 1941 had stated that New Zealand had at least an Army corps abroad and a first line force approaching the same size at home, plus a considerable fleet of tanks and powerful artillery regiments, with plenty of heavy artillery along the coasts; the days when the Army had had to borrow rifles from civilians were over, there were plenty of rifles and ammunition, and a superlatively equipped air force. Any New Zealander knew that such statements were nonsense, said the Press, knowledgeable New Zealanders knew they were tragic nonsense. The New Zealand government, it would seem, was in danger of repeating the errors of Malaya, where censorship produced uniformly encouraging reports; these did not deceive the Japanese but deceived those who might have strengthened Malaya in time.

One whose opinions carried some weight, W. E. Barnard, Speaker and ex-soldier, said that Parliament's secret sessions, compared with the British practice, were over-secret. There should be open debates, not broadcast to be heard by the enemy, but reported in the press. He also advocated more use of the radio to expose the misrepresentations and suggestions that circulated, many from enemy broadcasts. He thought that national broadcasts could be improved; for instance making more use of Coates, the only ex-soldier in War Cabinet, could greatly hearten the public. [144]

The Press, endorsing the call for more Parliamentary openness, attacked existing publicity:

There is no need to say again all that has been many times said here. It is enough to state the broad fact, that the Department of Censorship and Publicity is, in respect of its second function, better called non-existent than incompetent. No country is worse served with information, in any valid and relevant sense, about its own war aims and efforts than New Zealand is; and this is true, not because full, vivid and dynamic publicity cannot be organised, but because the Government either does not want it or, with inconceivable blindness, believes that it has done everything necessary to secure it. [145]

In the Auckland Star of 20–3 April, four articles by ‘Sentinel’ surveyed the effect, mainly in Britain, during the Polish and French phases of the war, of restricting discussion on military matters in the interest of public morale and tranquillity, by which the British government itself was lulled into complacency and inaction. It was suggested that open facing of reality, including Allied weakness, might have prevented tragic loss. The last article stressed that criticism, to be effective, must be public; delivered through ‘proper channels’ it was lost in red tape and the innate conservatism of Service departments. In England recently and in Australia under General MacArthur, the creed that the public must be sheltered from the rough winds of reality had been largely abandoned. [146] It was firmly stated that New Zealand had not received from its government the false optimism, half truths and humbug dealt out in Britain, ‘but the censor has restrained public discussion and criticism on many matters of vital public concern and public interest.’ Restrictive censorship on the conduct of the war, particularly on the ground of morale, should be replaced by interest in information, uniting and kindling both troops and civilians. Experienced and skilled reporters, freed from the restrained, colourless and general terms induced by Service supervision and official censorship would evoke response, and editors could be trusted to see that nothing of value to the enemy was published. [147]

Truth complained that New Zealanders were treated like school children, that most of the uneasiness being expressed at meetings could be allayed by more official frankness. The Prime Minister himself had said that much well-meaning anxiety came from lack of appreciation of what was being done; the public wanted ‘tin tacks’, war talk straight and direct, not merely on camp facilities etc, but on New Zealand's defence position and strategic importance. [148]

Presumably it was these complaints on the lack of publicity that led to a government-sanctioned tour of the Northern Military District by the Auckland Star's chief reporter. After traveling hundreds of miles north and south, coast to coast, he said on 4 May that he was then able, both from observation and from information freely given by helpful officers, to punch out a series of stories to kill pessimism and inspire solid confidence. Thirteen stories appeared between the 2nd and the 16th May, explaining that while silence had been necessary when the Army first spilled out of its mobilisation camps to build and man northern defence positions, the veil could now be lifted. The articles, fluent, direct and colourful, told of hard, purposeful work and lively spirit, of improvisation, vigilance, abundant good food, plentiful camouflage and prudence with petrol; weapons could be referred to only in general terms, but accurate shooting was mentioned.

At about the same time, in a Sunday evening broadcast, General Puttick briefly outlined New Zealand's defence scheme, describing some of the difficulties overcome in bringing it from infancy to a man-sized organisation, adding that while the Army had received more criticism than praise, this was largely its own fault; it had been over-given to hush-hush, and civilians did not know many encouraging things that they might safely have known, but the Army was now inclined to be more communicative. [149] The Auckland Star with satisfaction commented that a real start had been made in this direction with its own articles, which had wide coverage in other papers.

After this burst of confidence, however, Service publicity subsided into its normal quietness. By 13 June 1942 the Auckland Star was again grumbling, this time on behalf of the Merchant Navy—due to ‘rigid unimaginative censorship and the almost complete lack of a publicity policy in New Zealand… the public now hears next to nothing of the merchant seaman, and thinks of him hardly at all.’

Behind the scenes, the Army's awareness of inadequate publicity and consequent criticism had caused it, probably in July 1942, to propose setting up a Publicity Office within its own body. Among the Paul Papers is an undated carbon copy headed ‘C.G.S. Draft Publicity–Censorship’, which states that recently J. G. Coates had pointed out to the Director of Publicity that publicity given to the forces, and particularly to the Army, was poor, lacking ‘life’ and imagination. The same opinion was held by members of the General Staff, who perceived that compared with practice in other countries their Army ‘failed to advertise’, thereby drawing uninformed and unfair ciriticism. For this they were themselves largely to blame through not having been concerned about publicity or about unwarranted criticism which left unanswered was accepted as fact. Also militating against effective publicity was the recent centralisation of control of newspaper articles and photographs under the Director of Publicity: previously he had delegated to certain responsible officers power to authorise publication of articles and photographs, but now all must be submitted to him. Decentralisation should be resumed and the General Staff, as the appropriate branch, should set up a publicity section, consisting of a ‘heavy weight’ journalist with one or two assistants and a typist-clerk, to inform the public, through words and photographs, on all aspects of Army activities; to bring to the notice of the General Officer Commanding and staff articles, local or overseas, which would merit counter-propaganda, or overseas articles which might be of use in training or administration; to establish close relations with the Press Association, and to scrutinise material submitted by the Director of Publicity. [150]

Paul's response, dated 30 July 1942, was hostile. The Army did not realise that publicity ‘handed out’ was not popular with newsmen; the best overseas publicity for armies was written by professional journalists, given aid and access (the word was stressed). ‘An obstructive officer, whether junior or highly placed, retards the journalist, and is the man who prevents publicity.’ Censorship was weakened by dispersal, and the Army had already in some instances shown the danger of it. [151] Nothing came of the Army proposal.

As for secret sessions, Fraser in a Sunday evening broadcast on 8 March rebutted accusations of silence; War Cabinet and Parliament in secret session were keeping back only what could be useful to the enemy or what our allies had asked should not be publicised. He deplored recent foolish talk and rumours, some derived from Tokyo. Certain newspapers, usually helpful, had promoted distrust by ‘inimical articles’ (he referred vaguely to three such), adding that any action necessary would be taken to ‘stop the dissemination of such false statements and perspectives which are bound to have a detrimental and depressing effect on the minds of the people.’ [152]

The Prime Minister, noted the watchful Press, ‘insisted strongly on this new phrase and new conception of the “false perspective”. It is not easy to see why he did so, unless he wanted to edge forward the rather awkward suggestion that anything is in “false perspective” if the Government does not approve and agree, and that the Government is entitled, and intends, to “take any necessary action” to correct and prevent it. To extend the use of the censorship to such an effect—making an end of free comment and discussion—would be an appalling error.’ Fraser had not answered the real charges that the government had failed to inform the public, as it safely and advantageously could, upon important policy issues; that it had not encouraged and led open debate in Parliament on the conduct of the war; that its publicity policy, both official and unofficial, had been narrow, timid and unconstructive. [153]

Fraser's speech alarmed the Dominion Council of New Zealand Journalists, which wrote to him that censorship beyond that of details useful to the enemy itself had a depressing effect because when people feel that something is withheld, they suspect their rulers fear to disclose the truth. In a democracy the government must not suppress statements that would enable the public to judge it merely because it thought these statements unfair or based on incorrect information, but should correct them by making known what the government regarded as the truth. In England criticism of war administration had brought reforms and ultimately strengthened morale. [154]

At the same time, British censorship was extended to news items going overseas after being published in Britain, which hitherto had not been censored. Late in March, partly at the behest of Dominion governments which said that news from London had done ‘appalling harm’ to their war efforts, it was decided that Home publications would when going overseas be censored like new material, largely to check stories which fomented ill-will between Britain and her Allies or neutral countries. [155]

The New Zealand Herald commented that unless faithfully limited this new British censorship might present British opinion as smugly content with the war administration, a picture that would be as false as some of the jaundiced reports issuing from some London correspondents. The British government's direction of the war had not always been perfect and it was reassuring to the Dominions to see how, in Britain, Parliament, press and people were alive to shortcomings and insisted on reform. If the Dominions were not so informed by their press—‘the radio is no longer free’—and were left to think that Britain was wrapped in complacency, the gravest forebodings would flourish. The peoples of the Dominions could be trusted with a fair presentation of facts. General MacArthur, ‘Amercias foremost general’, was quoted: ‘if the public does not know the truth, its imagination at once comes into play. If it does not know the truth, its confidence is reduced.’ And MacArthur had called the press ‘one of the most valuable components I have’ for getting the maximum out of the situation. [156]

The Auckland Star also attacked, linking this decision with a current threat to close down the Daily Mirror:‘Tighten the censor ship and win the war! That seems to be the notion with which the Churchill Government is playing just now.’ Grave blots on Britain's war effort, such as black markets, racketeering, petrol waste and too much sport, would still exist but for press criticism, which had also assisted in replacing Chamberlain with Churchill. It would be deeply disturbing to the Dominions' peoples if they were not to be aware of the vigilance of the British press and people. [157]

With America, bulwark against Japan, good relations were essential but some editors, early in 1942, were tactlessly critical. The New Zealand Herald, usually highly respectful, but now exasperated by

America's apparent slowness of response to attack, on 29 January 1942 assailed American statesmen for bringing on a war that they were not ready for, exposing Pacific peoples to conquest. On the other side of the coin, with totally different concern and linked with other issues, the fortnightly Social Credit News (renamed Democracy after 28 February 1942) on 30 January under the heading ‘Prepare for an American Invasion’ stated that within three months American forces would arrive, hailed as saviours by cheering crowds. Behind them lay Wall Street and the looming Frankenstein of financial interests, of international Federal Union, [158] the bogey of Social Credit, ‘our resistance to which may be irresistibly overwhelmed by our need for immediate aid.’ If the whole situation had been planned to eliminate hostility to the absorption of the British Commonwealth by American financial interests, it could not have been bettered.

On 4 March 1942 the clause in the original censorship regulations, dropped in February 1940, against reports ‘intended or likely to prejudice relations between His Majesty's subjects and any friendly foreign State or its subjects’, was restored.

Social Credit News, now Democracy, added to its errors by attacking government war loan policy in articles headed ‘Bomber Bonds Swindle’ (10 April) and ‘Debt Swindle Exposed’ (24 April). On 27 April the Director of Publicity forbad the editor John Hogan [159] to publish without approval any reference to government methods of financing the war effort, or reference to the prohibition itself. [160] On 12 May, after another issue of Democracy (8 May), with an article ‘Dictatorship in New Zealand’, the Attorney-General informed Hogan that as he was satisfied that subversive statements had appeared in Democracy and more were likely to do so, it must cease publication; Hogan was ordered not to be associated with any publication for three months. Thus began the long drawn out ‘Hogan case’.

A letter by Hogan, telling of this ‘autocratic action’, this threat to fundamental liberties, wanted the subversion charge tested in court, and quoted Benjamin Franklin [161] saying that they who would give up essential liberty for the illusion of temporary safety deserved neither liberty nor safety. The letter was published by both Dunedin papers on 26 May 1942 with supporting editorials, but did not appear in other city papers. The Southland Times of 30 May, however, commented that censorship was steadily overflowing into an area of news and opinion loosely defined as ‘harmful to the war effort’, and cited suppression of a small-circulation periodical advocating unorthodox finance. The suppression was also brought to the notice of an Auckland Farmers' Union conference, which wrote to the Prime Minister that such secret action, outside the courts, was against the spirit of British law. [162]

Early in May, Hogan had sent out petition forms, asking his supporters to collect signatures and send them to local members of Parliament. The petition protested against the suppression, claiming that free comment and criticism had already helped to overcome obsolete practice in the Allied war effort: many people believed

Democracy's, proposals to be justified, and that press and radio should be open to such progressive thought. A number of signatures were gathered, along with a few telegrams and letters. Official replies to the letters referred to both the ‘American invasion’ and the bomber bonds articles and explained that Hogan had tried to defeat the financial policy of the constitutional government in a very serious if unsuccessful attempt against the national war effort. To have allowed his disruptive campaign to continue would, apart from leading to internal division, have provided excuse for more definitely subversive organisations to claim similar newspaper rights of free speech; the country would soon be in a hopeless position and all talk of a united war effort would be futile. [163]

Also in May, Hogan had formed at Auckland the New Zealand Democracy Association, with the avowed aim of winning the war and extending democracy through the preservation of free speech. By exerting pressure on all members of Parliament, irrespective of party, democracy would be made effective and unnecessary electioneering be avoided. [164] To the report of its first public meeting on 14 May 1942, where Hogan quoted the article attacking the government's war finance policy which he considered the reason for the suppression, the Director of Publicity added a note that appeal against such an order could be made to a judge of the Supreme Court. [165] Hogan did not appeal until August, but continued his agitations meanwhile. On 18 June, Auckland's Town Hall was half filled to hear seven speakers for the Democracy Association; a long resolution was passed expressing concern at the slow destruction of essential rights by a censorship control more severe, while apparently less needed, than that in any other democratic country. It demanded that criticism of government methods and policy be recognised as necessary to national morale and efficiency; that any charges made under the censorship regulations should be tried by a jury, and that

Democracy and other suppressed publications be permitted to resume. [166]

This ‘free speech’ issue, along with others, was taken up by Doidge on 24 June 1942. Without defending the bomber bonds article— ‘the author was no doubt looking for trouble’—Doidge said that the government should prosecute the publisher rather than suppress the publication, which action was arousing much protest. [167]

Fraser's answer opened with one of the earliest references to the presence of Americans. There was need, said Fraser, for the utmost goodwill to be engendered towards the gallant visitors, so that when ‘a newspaper started to scare the people by saying this was an attempt on the part of Wall Street to financially capture the country, drastic action had to be taken; for that is nothing more or less than sub version. We cannot have anyone endeavouring, consciously or uncon sciously, to stir up ill-will.’ It was a ‘scandalous article about the invasion of Wall Street, the people being warned that it was a deep-laid scheme of Wall Street to send the boys to capture New Zealand. That sort of thing could not be tolerated.’ The government's financial policy could be criticised but the government would not tolerate ‘frustration or attempted frustration’, and Democracy's undermining of the effort to raise money could not be allowed. ‘The final thing was the attempt by the publication of letters from soldiers in camps, to stir up inside the camps particularly the Waiouru camp, action against the government's financial policy and the raising of money for the war, which came very near to undermining the loyalty of the soldiers. That is not going to be permitted. If that is the liberty of the press, it is something foreign to me in the name of liberty.’ [168]

The Christchurch Star–Sun, a paper usually temperate in its crit icism of the government in its war effort, now said that the suppression of Democracy was unwarranted and unsound from every point of view. The journal's criticisms would not have diverted a ten pound note from the loan, but even if its influence had been considerable there was no justification for its suppression, though there might have been for prosecution of the publisher. As a matter of fact, the newspapers were looking for arguments to help along the lagging loan campaign and an attack by the Douglas Credit champions would have stimulated the little extra punch that was needed in the governments propaganda. But in any case the political use of censorship was utterly wrong. [169] Paul, in a personal letter to the editor, repeated the argument that if, as was Democracy's intention, a paper could destroy financial measures in support of the war, other schools of thought and action should logically be allowed to express opposition to measures that government considered necessary; it was not a long step from such toleration to permitting a Fascist organisation to present its case in proof of the failure of democracy. [170]

In August 1942 Hogan asked the Attorney-General what would be his position when his three months' ban ran out. Mason replied: ‘The period of three months was fixed for the prohibition because it was expected that if you were not returning to Australia, you would be in military or other national service. There is certainly no intention of permitting your continuance of journalism in this coun try, and unless it appears that your energies are engaged in other channels, the prohibition will be re-imposed.’ This letter, with Hogan's comments, was published by the Auckland Star on 7 August, and by the Press on 14 August with a supporting editorial which, while disclaiming interest in Hogan's monetary policy or the rights and wrongs of his case, was concerned at the arbitrary and prolonged suspension, without trial in a court. [171]

In Hogan's case, as with some Communists and pacifists, press censorship was coupled with postal censorship. In the House on 9 July 1942, John A. Lee asked the Prime Minister, in view of recent action of his Department which had created feelings of uncertainty and uneasiness among many electors, to state government policy concerning interference with and detention of internal correspondence. Fraser dealt with the postal matters raised, [172] and went on to speak of Democracy. This time he did not mention Americans, but said that ‘some atrocious things’ had appeared in it. A statement, headed ‘Don't Buy Bonds’, read: ‘In spite of all the worked-up enthusiasm, we know at least one prominent business man who informed his staff that he was so strongly opposed to the Loan Racket that we would sack anyone who purchased Bonds. The method may be drastic, but the spirit was right!’ ‘It is only right,’ concluded Fraser, ‘that the Censor and the police and everybody else should keep a close watch on a person who so completely puts himself in opposition to the war effort; and I make no apology for what the Censor has done in that direction.’ [173]

Hogan continued to produce newsletters and occasional issues of

Democracy, some of which were intercepted in the mail and held without prosecution. [174] In the issue of October 1942 he stated that he had not since August received a further order restraining him from journalism, and he renewed his demand for trial in court before a jury: court hearings of his appeal against the original prohibition, served in August, had been stalled by government inactivity. He had volunteered for the Air Force, but headed this article, ‘No Trial— No Uniform’. The Director of Publicity on 9 October wrote to the Solicitor-General that this whole question of publications and challenges should be considered immediately, [175] but no prosecution ensued. There was understandable reluctance to focus attention on the silencing of Social Credit's anti-debt finance policy, to which some Labour members had been close during the early Thirties and to which J. A. Lee still held. [176] In March 1943 Lee and Atmore asked in the House that the ban on Democracy should be lifted, saying that Hogan was ready to conform to any condition generally applicable to the New Zealand press, and was anxious to proceed to his military duties. The following week the ban was removed, the Press commenting that this prohibition without court charges was ‘dictatorship pure and simple and an infringement of the rights of the individual which should not be tolerated in peace or in war.’ [177]

The intention that Hogan's energies should be engaged in other channels was maintained by the Manpower authorities. Democracy re-appeared on 15 April 1943 with Hogan as editor, but this was not rated an essential occupation and on 2 August, having appealed against military service, he was directed to an industrial job. The direction was withdrawn while he stood in the 1943 general election against Fraser, and was suspended, on domestic grounds, while he moved his family to Wellington. In July 1944 he appealed against a further direction to the Wellington Woollen Mills, claiming victimisation: no other managing editor of a newspaper, or proprietor of a business employing staff had been Manpowered, said his counsel, [178] and this claim was repeated at public meetings. [179] McLagan, Minister of Manpower, stated on 15 August that Hogan's direction was by no means unique; he had in fact been given special consideration. On 22 November Hogan's non-compliance with the order led to seven days in prison, [180] but he continued to protest and appeal. [181] On 25 July 1945, when he was fined £25, he said that National Service had for two years unsuccessfully tried to get him out of his job as editor and publisher; he had been prosecuted four times, acquitted twice and convicted twice, imprisoned for a week and now fined. [182]

As mentioned elsewhere [183] the American presence, with South Pacific Command requiring an unreal reticence, multiplied the problems of censorship. Paul rebutted an early proposal that all news of Allied forces' activities should be vetted at United States headquarters in Auckland, with a New Zealand forces censor attached thereto, thus relieving him of any responsibility in the Service area. The New Zealand censor, insisted Paul holding to sovereign rights, was the final arbiter, but there should be the closest liaison between him and the American Command, both governed by specific, listed prohibitions, such as the names of ships, forces, etc; photographs of ships or types of ships; speculation on future moves (except where the United States might desire it for strategic reasons), etc. [184]

Such a list, with a formidable number of reserved topics, was not established till November 1943, United States naval headquarters meanwhile claiming judgment theoretically over each mention of Americans, and exerting a firmly restrictive influence on news about these exotic targets of public interest, highly frustrating to reporters. After a long silence, occasional public relations stories were printed, along with social trivia. This narrow publicity possibly helped to confine civilian contact with Americans in the main to the clubs, the good hostesses, the girls and the exploiters.

South Pacific Command's reticence passed through several phases. On 8 April 1942, in response to American direction, it was laid down as most important that no reference to movements of American forces in New Zealand or the Pacific should be published without approval by the Director of Publicity, [185] and this blanket restriction remained till 20 November 1942, when the presence at least of Americans could be mentioned, subject to American censorship. The impracticability of submitting every non-military social reference to Americans, with thousands of them about, was more obvious to newsmen, including the Director of Publicity, than to some American officers, who held to the principle of deciding each case on its merits. Editorial discretion was in fact exercised, connived at, even supported, by Paul, provided that military details were not disclosed or news put forth likely to prejudice relations between Americans and New Zealanders. The limits of the latter were not defined, and the Chief Naval Censor at Auckland was highly sensitive; some of the issues are examined in Chapter 14.

In June 1943, with the position in the Pacific clearly much stronger, South Pacific Command directed that more news could be released, subject still to censorship. Paul on 21 June quoted this information to editors, adding, ‘In large measure, the principle of editorial censorship within the regulations and these directives will operate.’ [186] American authorities considered that this led to over-iberal releases, and by 3 November a code was devised prohibiting releases on various topics unless approved by the Director of Publicity or American censors acting on his behalf—this last phrase explicitly maintaining the legal sovereignty of New Zealand. The situation still provided plenty of irritation and Paul continued to receive complaints from both sides, especially over the reporting of court proceedings in which United States servicemen were involved in any way, a matter on which American authorities had long been dainty. But with the gradual withdrawal of American forces, which began soon after this, censorship tensions faded in this area.

Complaints against both censorship and lack of positive publicity, as voiced in the Press on 3 June 1941 and 4 March 1942, [187] continued during 1942, from provincial as well as city papers. Thus the Southland Times on 30 May, holding that censorship was tighter in New Zealand than elsewhere, said that timidity and lack of imagination were the main causes. Tired Cabinet ministers, instead of adopting a constructive publicity service to expand press relations with war-concerned departments, had appointed a Director of Publicity ‘whose function has become increasingly negative’, preferring silence to explanation. From military items, censorship was steadily overflowing into news and opinions loosely defined as ‘harmful to the war effort’, an effort in fact hampered by this mistaken faith in silence which, while it prevented rashness, could also protect inefficiency and breed rumour

Another provincial paper, the Timaru Herald, two months later, quoting Dr Samuel Johnson's [188] 1756 insistence on the right of every Englishman to be informed on national affairs, complained of timidity in censorship and incompetence in publicity. Effective publicity was a skilled craft, but the government still clung pathetically to the idea that one person could control the irreconcilable tasks of publicity and censorship. The easy way out was to concentrate on censorship, which ‘like any other bad habit, takes fast hold on those who practise it….they see no harm in indulging just a little bit more, and then a little more still.’ Withholding information bred rumour, hid mistakes and denied the democratic right of informed public opinion. The stage of gross abuse was not yet reached but the position was ‘exceedingly unsatisfactory.’ [189]

Generally it was not possible to refer to items that had been prohibited or delayed, but an example useful to restive editors was provided when news that Freyberg had been wounded in July's fight for Egypt reached New Zealanders through Churchill's referring to it; whereupon Fraser explained that publication had been delayed because it might be of distinct value to the enemy. The Otago Daily Times, drawing attention to this ‘minor embarrassment’, said that it was typical of the government's ‘close-mouthed silence applied … to matters significant and insignificant, domestic and international, encouraging and disturbing.’ [190]

An indication of the thought that ordinary citizens were giving to censorship and publicity in mid-1942 was given in a lunch address to businessmen. The speaker, Julius Hogben, [191] considered the bad Nazi uses of propaganda, to rouse hate and to stifle freedom and critical appraisal, and our own, which had been too passive, rejecting the proper principle of expression and depending on suppression. Official procrastination in releasing news, on the lines of ‘there is no confirmation in regard to reports of reverses’, leaving New Zealand to hear bad news from enemy sources, gravely affected morale. [192]

Here it seems appropriate to give Paul's own views on his publicity work which largely explain its low profile. The RSA was not alone in proposing, on 30 May 1941, [193] a Ministry of Information distinct from censorship. David Wilson, Minister of Broadcasting and Associate Minister of National Service, had in February 1941 advocated to the part-time Publicity Committee which assisted Paul in this aspect that there should be a full-time Director of Information, experienced in publicity work and able to estimate the value not only of newspaper articles and advertisements but of films, radio, brochures and other forms of modern propaganda. Granted any necessary help from government departments, he should devise schemes which would go to Paul for censorship, then to the Prime Minister for final decision. [194]

Paul thought ‘without egotism’ that his judgment, in practical results, would match that of any possible appointee. ‘A go-getter or publicity buccaneer could attract much more limelight with certain trouble for the Government and possibly harm to the national war effort. Whatever else may be said about my administration it is the single exception in the Empire which has not involved its Government in serious disputation.’ He claimed that to improve publicity he needed only another staff member, but there was great difficulty in finding the right man. Clashes between the proposed Director of Information and the ‘man who would act as censor’ would be inevitable. Publicity and censorship were complementary not antagonistic, ‘that is, always providing censorship is applied with brains’, and the censor had to be as keenly interested in any publicity assisting the war effort as he was careful in the exercise of censorship. [195]

Further, in a mid-1942 report to the Prime Minister on the work of his office, Paul explained that in any attempt to tell the public about the war effort the question arose whether the enemy was being told too much. He disliked the term ‘publicity’, preferring ‘information’;
next to propaganda, publicity was possibly the word most abused in its connotation, publicity buccaneers of all types being associated with legitimate as well as shady undertakings. “Publicity” for a war effort, it has seemed to me, must be basically true, and it must avoid exaggeration if it is to achieve that vital end: the retention of public confidence.

Newspapers, he continued, looked with suspicion, even distaste, on statements issued by government officers, preferring independent sources, such as their own writers. It was his policy to encourage papers to ‘see for themselves’, keeping the Director of Publicity in the background, though that must ‘sacrifice some of the public recognition his activities warrant.’ [196]

Paul, then, avoided the directly inspirational type of publicity. The few pamphlets produced by his office, such as New Zealand's War Effort: Two Years' Achievements (1941) and New Zealand at War: Marching to Victory (1943), commended the country's various achievements in laudatory but pedestrian style. Generally he led or allowed the media to examine activities which he thought it proper to display, and checked their portrayal. A notable instance was the series of articles on the Army defences of northern New Zealand in May 1942, produced by the Auckland Star. [197] Paul commended them to editors on 6 May 1942: they were ‘wholly independent… their value being that they convey the view of an experienced journalist’ and they should be credited to the senior reporter of the

Auckland Star. [198] Samples of publicity methods show the Auckland Star, ‘following the receipt of your permit’, photographing the manufacture of small arms ammunition and believing that some useful publicity for New Zealand's war effort would thus be gained: [199] the New Zealand Herald's, illustrations editor noted on 7 March 1941 that the Director particularly wanted a photograph of the Brengun carriers that were being made in Wellington. [200]

It seems that the Press and other critics were looking for sustained, detailed accounts of work and contrivance that might inspire others to effort, while Paul usually thought that anything but short stories and close-ups of workers would tell the enemy too much. It needs remembering that most papers were more than ready to find fault with any government department.

Much of the work of Paul's office lay in giving wide circulation to approved local material and reports from New Zealand Service correspondents abroad, along with material from the British Ministry of Information and from other countries on their war efforts and national life. News was also pumped overseas in weekly cables to

Cairo, for 2 NZEF Times, to the High Commissioner, London, and to Reuters, both the latter sources being available to the BBC. Photographs were circulated, plus ebonoid blocks and matrices, giving every paper in New Zealand opportunity to illustrate the war effort, while large photographs and posters were available for displays. Radio scripts on war effort at home and overseas were prescribed and checked. [201] Censorship had also to satisfy the concerned public: the Mayor of Rotorua complained to the Prime Minister on 15 June 1942 that in recent Sunday evening broadcasts, ‘New Zealand at Work’, the positions of the Whakatane paper mill and the large timber mill at Whakarewarewa had been given in such detail that the enemy could bomb them with certainty. [202]

The medium of film was not forgotten. The National Film Unit at Miramar, previously concerned only with tourist publicity, was re-organised and strengthened under Paul, in close co-operation with a devoted producer, E. S. Andrews, [203] and his small team. In August 1941 it began producing ‘The New Zealand Weekly Review’ [204] short films ranging from about 250 to 600 feet. Some showed New Zealanders overseas, such as ‘Desert Railway’, ‘New Zealand's Prime Minister in Egypt’, ‘Return from Crete’, ‘Hospital Ship’; some showed the home front, such as ‘Women at War’, ‘Emergency Fire Service Display’, ‘Aerodrome Builders’, ‘Coal from Westland’; in a few, such as ‘Easter Action in Bougainville’, New Zealand cameramen got very close to the guns. [205]

Censorship of broadcasting excited less criticism than that of the press or of mail. Broadcasting was, as the Opposition and its allies often complained, dominated by the government. In April 1937 the

National party, commenting on the Prime Minister's statement that the new high-powered 2YA station would be used to put the government's case to the people, said that the socialist drug would be thus injected, lulling people into false security with specious promises. [206] Seven years later, in August 1944, Doidge criticised government control of radio for its propaganda monopoly which became dangerous when it put out ‘either dope or dung’. [207]

In the field of war effort publicity, Fraser in July 1940 explained that the two radio services, national and commercial, were co-ordinated to give the widest possible coverage for important broadcasts. The Director of Publicity was in charge of all information and policy broadcasts on the war effort. As a first step in this development, the Minister of Finance had lately inaugurated a series of talks over all stations on Sunday evenings, the first entitled ‘Paying for the War’, while during the week several five-minute talks had explained points in the budget. [208] Not all speakers were members or employees of the government, but all scripts were examined before they were broadcast. From the Paul Papers a report of a meeting, on 10 December 1940, of the war publicity committee (David Wilson, J. T. Paul, A. D. McIntosh, [209] J. Robertson [210] and L. Greenberg) supplied a sample of routine. Greenberg reported that the next Sunday evening talk would be on life aboard an NZEF troopship; that on 22 December would deal with ‘ Greece, Past and Present’ in a dignified but light and popular manner with emphasis on Greece's present achievements. On 4 January a notable visitor, Noel Coward, [211] British dramatist and actor, would talk on the war effort and patriotic funds. A talk on ‘Pig Production’ was well in hand and future talks would summarise to date the success of the Home Guard, the WWSA, the EPS and life and training in the New Zealand Air Force. [212] Paul claimed that about 150 radio scripts were censored each month. [213] When Aircraftsman C. G. Scrimgeour, formerly ‘Scrim’ of the commercial service, stood against Fraser in the 1943 election, he cited instances of topics and of speakers banned on Fraser's instructions. [214]

War news itself came mainly from the BBC, in re-broadcasts from Daventry which were heard several times a day. In general these were regarded as reliable, but from time to time there were com- plaints that smooth half-truths had left listeners unprepared for bad news when it became inescapable. [215] There were no problems in the censorship of local news for this was not prepared by radio newsmen, who did not exist; excerpts from newspapers were broadcast daily.

On the security side, precautions were introduced early in the war. Personal messages and birthday greetings were banned and casual advertising copy was rewritten to avoid the possibility of code mesages, though copy for big advertisements, prepared months in advance, was not. The broadcasting of shipping news and weather forecasts was stopped and announcements about missing cars were accepted only from the police. Scripts for all broadcasts were prepared in advance and censored, microphones were always guarded. [216]

The Opposition was of course the main public critic of government policy and administration, while demanding coalition for a united war effort. Amid the criticism that greeted the ‘hybrid’ national administration established at the end of June 1942 [217] and intended to continue for the duration of the war and 12 months thereafter were fears that this unequal union would suppress effective criticism for an indefinite time. This was expressed from varying angles, for instance by Downie Stewart, [218] by R. M. Algie's Freedom Association and the Auckland Trades Council, [219] by leader writers, and by Minhinnick who over the caption ‘Prisoner of War’ showed a classic female figure, ‘Public Opinion’, in a cell bound and gagged ‘for the duration and 12 months’. [220]

One of the published letters which commented on members of Parliament thus prolonging their time in the House asked particularly sneering questions, such as what the War Administration men paid themselves, and what salaries and expenses were received by members or ‘Mavourneen Parliamentarians’. [221] This Fraser resented as an insult to Parliament and irresponsible misuse of the privileges of the press. ‘If the people editing and running newspapers cannot help the war effort of the country, instead of stirring up strife between classes of the community, they are betraying their trust’, he said,

prisoner of war?

and reminded them that the government controlled supplies of newsprint. [222]

On 15 July 1942 the Farmers' Union national conference voiced some ideas made familiar by the ‘Awake’ movement; soothing syrup should not be handed out to the people as in current national service broadcasts; they should be told of the very grave dangers and their fighting spirit kindled by every means. The farmers also resolved that as criticism of mistakes in the war effort by press and radio was now suppressed a central bureau, under a Supreme Court judge, should be set up to probe and where necessary expose all complaints indicating inefficiency, bungling, waste or culpable negligence. [223] The

Otago Daily Times, commenting on the charge of suppression, said: If this is not entirely the position as far as newspapers are concerned—the radio is, of course, the property of the Government in office—it is through no fault of authority. Not only is report of mistakes and of bungling, including political bungling, controlled so far as blanket censorship provisions can be made to cover it, but matters of fact, of everyday knowledge, are forbidden the merest reference unless some Cabinet member blurts something out. And even in that case, it need not be assumed that the press is entitled to report what the offending Minister says. The theory behind this policy—if a suppressive influence so enigmatic and random as is exerted by the Prime Minister's Office could be dignified by an exact noun—is apparently that rumour is a safer coin of exchange among ordinary men than fact is, and that the public will assume, if it has no official pronouncement to the contrary, that no such thing as a mistake, not even the merest occasion for a pin-point of criticism, mars the Governments's conduct of affairs in wartime. The contrary tends to become the case. [224]

The Auckland Star, also quoting the farmers on censorship, said that newspaper readers were entitled to know exactly what was implied.

They may think (and some undoubtedly do) that if reports intended for publication contain criticism of the war effort the censor, as a matter of course, prohibits their publication. Such an impression would be incorrect, and unfair to the censor. Parliament has laid it down that ‘reasonable and temperate discussion in good faith of any existing laws or measures’ shall be allowable, and although inevitably there have been differences of opinion over interpretation the censor has not disregarded this instruction. But there cannot be helpful discussion, including criticism, of any matter unless the writer or speaker is able to support his statements with facts. Anyone may make sweeping generalisations, but these will not receive or deserve attention unless the writer or speaker ‘comes down to cases.’ If he cannot do so, because the facts are withheld from him, or because though he has the facts he cannot publish them, then there is, in effect, a censorship of opinion, a prohibition of criticism.

This is the situation steadily developing in New Zealand. Facts are increasingly difficult to come by, for the reasons that persons in a position to make them available frequently refuse to do so. Sometimes they have good reasons to refuse, reasons of security, but increasingly often their real reason is convenience—their own, or their superiors', or the Government's. The attitude of the Government to criticism is such that any official, military or civil, or any non-official person, who has anything to hope for from the Government, can feel certain that he is more likely to save himself trouble by withholding than by giving information upon which criticism may be based. This feeling, of course, needs no encouragement in the armed services, in which there is a disposition, not universal but always evident, to think that the war is their own ‘show,’ and that the only part of the public is to supply the men and the money, and the only part of the Press to cultivate a belief that everything is always well. When this tendency is not resisted, the result is a surfeit of syrupy ‘blah,’ of the kind now unfortunately often associated with the B.B.C. bulletin and commentaries. Then, when there are military reverses abroad, there is a dangerous revulsion of public feeling against the information services, and a weakening of confidence in the Governments responsible for them. [225]

These long quotations, apart from their own arguments, cast light on the working and reception of censorship. Both indicate the exasperation of frustrated newsmen, but two reputable papers on the same occasion produced widely different analyses of censorship. To the Otago Daily Times, it all emanated from the Prime Minister's Department; the Auckland Star saw it with much wider origins, ranging from the arrogance of the Services to the caution of civilians who might want something from the government, and who yielded in advance to pressures not directly applied, withholding the details that would make criticism meaningful. It was against this unofficial censorship that Sir Henry Horton had protested in February 1941. [226] Possibly, by an extension of this process, newspapers themselves were timid in their interpretation of blanket restrictions.

Early in October 1942 the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, in a long statement, expressed grave anxiety at the rapid extension of censorship over facts and comment that had nothing to do with military security. There must be vigilance against its becoming a cloak for remediable political or Service weaknesses. Specific instances could not legally be quoted but the public should be aware of the maze of restrictions, many not related to security; only by fullest knowledge and freest criticism could New Zealand rise to do its best. Public morale was most endangered when there was suspicion that facts were being concealed, whereas sound morale was built up by telling the public the truth and enlisting their co-operation. Instead of censoring commodity shortages, industrial disputes and so on, strong attitudes of good citizenship, co-operation and constructive ideas should be created out of full information. General prohibitions, extending censorship from a particular incident and maintaining it after the need had passed, should be replaced by prohibitions for specific purposes. Censorship had meant a steady accumulation of restrictions on news of sabotage of production, shortcomings in the control of the necessities of life, administrative mistakes, extravagances that even war could not condone, and a number of minor but not unimportant matters.

This was published in almost every newspaper, city or provincial, on or about 7 October, copiously endorsed by editorials. The ‘Awake New Zealand’ campaign, ardent for the stimulus of criticism, promised the support of its 521 branches, working on local chambers of commerce, the Farmers' Union and the RSA for censorship reform [227] At Hamilton the RSA, the Chamber of Commerce and ‘Awake New Zealand’ met to discuss and support the newspaper proprietors' complaints [228] and in the House on 14 October Holland drew attention to their ‘very well-reasoned statement.’ [229]

Paul, commenting on that statement, wrote that ‘grave exaggeration’ was its most striking feature, and recalled the appreciation of the same body 18 months earlier. [230] He strongly denied that censorship was dictated by political expediency or was a cloak for remediable weaknesses. He instanced some particular shortages, for which the government had already scoured the world, which no amount of press criticism could produce, and about which there was no point in telling the enemy. Most general prohibitions provided for publication with the approval of the Director. If the censor could be certain that any newspaper would consult him before the publication of dangerous matter, there would be less need for general prohibitions, but isolated cases of gross carelessness proved that the risk could not be taken: ‘The least responsible editor makes the general prohibition necessary—and responsible editors know it.’ He claimed that censorship in New Zealand was less irksome and more co-operative than in any other British community, due both to the smallness of the country and to satisfactory relationships between censorship and editors generally. There had been the largest possible measure of voluntary censorship by the press itself, and he hoped that it would continue. With unwonted eloquence he went on:

The role of Sir Oracle sits easily on those who have spent their lives producing newspapers. Like all human institutions, censorship should be submitted to informed and unbiassed criticisms, but newspaper proprietors may not be ideal judges in their own cause. The infallibility ot the Press is not now universally accepted ….There is no other section of men who are always so terribly right; who never hesitate to criticise individuals and institutions; who have never lost a war; who express so profoundly the truth on all questions and who at the same time are immune from Press criticism.

He concluded by quoting General MacArthur's April utterance: ‘When you start to tear down, you destroy public confidence in the leaders of a military movement. You practically destroy an army.’ [231] This comment doubtless reached the Prime Minister, but was not given to the public. However, on 15 October 1942 Sullivan, Minister of Supply, took up one of the proprietors' points, the censoring of news on shortages, explaining that it was to avoid panic buying: in January 1942, following reports of increasing demands for sugar, the demands had multiplied, [232] some people who normally bought a few pounds buying 70-pound bags. This had led to the directive of 20 January, prohibiting references to shortages.

On the next day, however, Fraser effectively countered the whole attack by reading out two letters. In the first, dated 7 October 1942, the Director of Publicity asked the Newspaper Proprietors' Association to supply specific instances of the misuse of censorship in the areas listed in their complaint. The reply from the Association, dated 15 October, read:

There would, of course, be no difficulty in furnishing such details by quotation in full of official instructions and prohibitions issued by you but in our opinion no good purpose would be served by doing so.

The purpose of the Association's statement was not to promote a public investigation of the administration of the censorship regulations, but to direct attention to the need for a clear definition of the limits within which the censorship of news would be confined. This purpose will not be advanced by discussion of past events; it would be realised by a precise definition of news which in the interests of national security may not be published and an authoritative undertaking that no prohibitions would be imposed on news or comment outside those definitions.

Fraser pointedly made no comment; he would leave that to the public and the House. [233] He could well have said, ‘The Lord has delivered them into my hand’. The Association had retreated, not very convicingly, on to a new issue: its statement had not mentioned limiting censorship to listed topics, and its rejection of Paul's challenge suggests strongly that it had not kept records of actual news suppressions, that its charge was impressionist, not precisely documented. How, except by examination of past events, could the proposed list be compiled? The Press had explained on 7 October that regulations prevented those who drafted the statement from supporting general charges with particular instances, but ‘the public may assume it was drafted with care and that it has behind it three years' experience of the censorship by the New Zealand press as a whole.’ As the Auckland Star on 17 July 1942 had said, ‘Anyone may make sweeping generalisations, but these will not receive or deserve attention unless the writer or speaker “comes down to cases.”’

Censorship in another field was also aired in Parliament at this time. Holland and three other National party members had broken from the War Administration in September 1942, declaring that in the Waikato coal strike the government had failed to govern. [234] This was the main issue of a no-confidence debate of 14–15 October, but Holland also had complaints about censorship that drew from the Prime Minister some interesting information on its application to Ministers.

Holland as Minister of War Expenditure, seeing that large sums were being spent on defence construction without normal supervision by the House, had wished to set up an overseeing committee consisting of a member from each party and two outside experts. Fraser, seeing this proposal just as he was about to depart overseas, had given general approval, but told Holland to discuss it with the Commissioner of Defence Construction, James Fletcher, and with the Acting Prime Minister, Sullivan. Fletcher had made a very small amendment, Sullivan and Holland had agreed on the membership of the committee, and Holland had handed his statement launching the committee to the press, with a spare copy going to the Director of Publicity. He was astounded and outraged when the latter withheld it. ‘The Censor had overruled the Acting Prime Minister,’ declared Holland. He himself was a responsible person and a ‘system is wrong when it places in the hands of any one man the power to go over the heads of responsible Ministers and veto their right to tell the public anything that they think the public should be told.’ The Censor had never suggested that there was anything of value to the enemy in the statement; it had been suppressed in defence of the government. [235]

In Fraser's reply to the no confidence motion, it is not easy to disentangle the activities of the Prime Minister and the Censor, as the Director of Publicity was called throughout the debate. Fraser began by saying that there was no question of censorship being used in defence of the ordinary government; War Cabinet alone was concerned. He continued:

The whole explanation is that ever since the war started, Cabinet has laid it down—and I have carried it out; although, I do not know whether it has always been enforced when Ministers are not in Parliament Buildings—that a Minister must submit a proposed statement to the Prime Minister or Acting Prime Minister, and he should consult with the Minister concerned if a statement is thought to be inimical to the war effort…. The Censor, in a case like that, would not interfere. He has always come to the Prime Minister with Ministerial statements handed to him, so that the Prime Minister might look at them. I, myself, never make a statement on the war or any aspect of it without submitting it to the Censor. Even if I am in Christchurch, Dunedin, Auckland, or elsewhere, I telephone to the Censor and ask whether he thinks it is all right. Why should not I? Why should I make a statement without submitting it to the same conditions as other members of the public? Prime Ministers are not infallible. Many people might think them to be fallible. But they can make mistakes, and, when one writes something it often appears very different from what it does when it is published in the press. We have to be careful in… all statements during war-time…. [236]

When Polson said that the Prime Minister himself had seen the statement, Fraser answered, ‘And I think the statement ought to have been altered. The Censor did what he usually does—called the attention of the Acting Prime Minister, who was head of the team for the time being, to the document, so that it could be discussed and a document representative of the opinions of the War Cabinet as a whole could be issued. No statement ought to be issued by the members of the War Cabinet which is not representative of the whole of the War Cabinet. Otherwise there is no loyalty.’ [237]

Sullivan said, ‘The Censor only held the statement up—until the

War Cabinet had had an opportunity of considering it….the matter really did not come before me definitely until I received a letter from the Censor telling me he disapproved of portions of the statement, but was referring it to myself or War Cabinet for consideration’. [238]

Fraser repeated: ‘The Censor had instructions from the Government, at the commencement of the war, that any statement presented by a Minister had to come back to the Prime Minister.’ [239] And again:

The Censor did not censor the statement and has never censored any Ministers' statements. The Censor was told, when the war broke out, that in the interests of the safety of the country every Minister, including the Prime Minister, would have to submit his statements to him in case a matter inimical to the unity of the country and the war effort might be published or news might get out that might be of information to the enemy. The Censor does that duty, but he does not censor the matter…. The matter is returned to the Prime Minister, when necessary, for the purpose of consulting the Minister concerned. That has been done scores of times since the war broke out. The Leader of the Opposition is in no different position from anyone else. That has been the position all along. When any of my colleagues have a statement and I see that the statement is not conducive to the war effort, I say ‘How about talking this over’? [240]

It would appear that ministerial statements, at least those uttered in Wellington, were shown to the Censor before publication, and if the Censor found any grounds for uneasiness he informed the Prime Minister, who would talk it over with the Minister concerned. The vision of the Prime Minister himself calling the Censor on the telephone from Auckland or Dunedin or Christchurch to check whether a statement was ‘all right’ is engaging. The Observer of 28 October noted that the Director of Publicity ‘who was charged by Mr Holland with suppressing a Ministerial statement for political reasons was present while Mr Fraser was speaking’.

It seems that both the Prime Minister (who was in a hurry) and Acting Prime Minister Sullivan had been less perceptive, in the first instance, to criticism of War Cabinet contained or implied in Holland's statement than was the Director of Publicity, though after the latter had pointed it out they too insisted on redrafting. There followed various delays, suggested amendments were not acceptable to Holland, and it was agreed that the matter should await the return of the Prime Minister. Fraser arrived back shortly before the settlement of the strike. Holland's resignation from the War Cabinet followed swiftly, and his expenditure committee, with its introductory statement, never appeared.

While most papers concentrated mainly on the mining and political areas of the no-confidence debate, the suppression of Holland's statement was well ventilated in reports, and censorship-conscious papers, notably the Press and the Auckland Star, pointed out editorially that this was the sort of thing the Newspaper Proprietors' Association had had in mind a week or so earlier. Parliament, said the Press, should seek from the Prime Minister a plain statement of policy governing censorship: at present he seemed to be reserving to himself an unfettered discretion to use it as he pleased. [241] Would the war-lords of Japan, asked the Star, have rejoiced to learn that war expenditure in New Zealand, which hitherto had not been sufficiently scrutinised, would be so in future? Holland's proposals had not been given effect ‘because somebody thought, or because the censor thought somebody might think, that the statement reflected on Mr Holland's colleagues.’ It was this extending of censorship far beyond its proper purpose that was the essence of the newspapers' protest. [242]

Newspapers were not allowed to accept advertisements from pacifists and other disruptive people, but apparently there were no qualms about a large advertisement for a National party meeting:

WHAT THE NEWSPAPERS CANNOT PUBLISH. Mr S. G. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, will address Members, Friends and Supporters of the N.Z. National Party… to-night, Friday, Nov. 27. Mr Holland will give a frank explanation on the following and other cogent matters:—

1. | The War Administration Cabinet.
2. | The Truth behind the Coal Strike.
3. | The Political Situation—Principles or Expediency.
4. | All about the Censorship. Is it being used for Political Purposes?
5. | What the National Party should do—and why.

Keep to-night Free: the information to be given will repay you. [243]

At about this time G. H. Scholefield recorded how the compulsion to maintain morale, to claim that all was well in the best of all possible war efforts, was affecting the texture of public life. In his diary he wrote:

5 September [1942]. Discussing with Alan Mulgan [244] my belief that when this war is over democracy will have a more bitter fight still to reconquer truth and to re-establish sanity in public utterances, I said that we have allowed ourselves to enthrone flattery and insincerity to such a degree that sensible people are beginning to distrust everything that is said. Spontaneous action pictures have entirely disappeared from the press. Everything is a posed and staged demonstration of cordiality and friendship by numbers. Every malcontent and slacker is fulsomely flattered for the wonderful work he has done. Every New Zealand writer or singer is a paragon. Pat Lawlor [245] says that New Zealanders have given £40,000 worth of treasures to the Churchill auctions when he must know that the value is probably not one-eighth of that. In fact truth has fled. It can only have the effect of destroying all confidence in the press, the radio and official assurances and producing a race of unbelievers. In fact it will justify the generation that has just sneered its way through the interbellic degradation 1920–40.

A. M. laments that under present conditions truthful memoirs seem out of the question. Too many of the possible writers are in the pay of the Government which is not so broad minded as the BBC (which allows its own people to criticise its policy). Though it was inaugurated with the most benevolent intention this wartime dominion over opinion is going to be overthrown with the greatest difficulty. There will always be some slug whose job depends on perpetuating it.

Oliver Duff, another journalist of lucid and independent mind, talking on the press in wartime, said that in normal times newspapers were as free as the individuals who established them, either to plead a cause or make profits, and generally did both in New Zealand. In war the government must protect the country against the publication of information of use to the enemy or dangerous to its own people. New Zealand in three years had suppressed only two papers, one pacifist, one Communist; England, with 40 million people and in grave danger, had suppressed one communist paper and warned one sensational pictorial publication. While it could not be said that the government had not misused censorship, it could be said most emphatically that censorship had not been grossly abused: it had said ‘you must not print this’ but not ‘print this’; that would be tyranny. He stressed that government should not be blamed for any misuse of censorship, it was the duty of the public and the press to prevent misuse; they were the watchdogs of the community. [246]

In censorship, 1943 was a low-key year, apart from the triangular tension between the Americans, the newspapers and the Director of Publicity, which is treated elsewhere. [247] For the most part censorship was well away from public knowledge: it was a quiet year for industrial troubles and there were no resounding confrontations in Parliament, only a brief debate in March when Holland waved the banner of freedom for the police force. It was, however, the calm before the storm: three directives issued late in this year were to bring press censorship to its crisis in the Supreme Court.

From 1937, a six-day week of 48 hours was general in the police force, but when these hours were exceeded there were no overtime rates. [248] During 1942 the Police Association, pleading extra duty, asked for overtime pay rates. To avoid the impropriety of agitation by the police for more pay during war time, the Director of Publicity, instructed by the Prime Minister, also Minister of Police, [249] on 24 December 1942 told editors that there must be no publication of resolutions passed by any branch of the Police Association or by any officers of the Police Department, without his approval; and on 5 January another order also forbad papers to publish without approval ‘any discussion of or reference to the subject of police pay’, [250] the ban extending to the Police Journal, voice of the Police Association. It was the right of this body to be heard that Holland championed on 3 March, declaring that it was hamstrung and tongue-tied. [251]

Fraser said that there was no room or right in the wartime police force, as much a part of New Zealand's defence as the armed forces, for an agitation that might impair discipline or efficiency; action was taken to prevent the spread of disaffection, but at the same time police pay was improved. [252] Holland was in fact flogging a dead horse, for at the start of February the Commissioner of Police, the Prime Minister and the Stabilisation Committee had agreed on an overtime allowance on two hours a week, increasing the pay of policemen up to senior sergeants by one-sixteenth, as from 1 October 1942. [253]

The reluctance of the first furlough draft to return to the Middle East while there were still thousands of fit men reserved in industry called for a good deal of censorship in 1943–4. [254] On 5 August 1943 after the Oamaru RSA had advocated that the furlough men replace Grade I men from industry, Paul telegraphed to editors: ‘There must be no publication without submission to and approval by the Director of Publicity of any matter relating to the following topics, namely, replacing soldiers on furlough by exempted men now working on farms or in other essential occupations nor to the future composition or disposition of New Zealand forces overseas.’ [255]

This was the first of several directives designed to quieten talk and agitation on a sensitive topic that proved difficult to contain.

Holland, who believed that New Zealand was militarily over-committed, on 31 August said that long-service men now on furlough should have the choice of returning to the Division or to civil employment. This was broadcast and reported in several papers. On 2 September Paul telegraphed that as such reporting had destroyed the purpose of his 5 August directive it was revoked: ‘That purpose was primarily to discourage the publication of any matter which may be helpful and encouraging to the enemy, destructive of citizen morale in our own country or disruptive of unity of our forces at home or abroad.’ [256] On 1 October Fraser announced that married men with children, men over 41 and Maoris would remain in New Zealand unless they chose to return overseas, and others could appeal on grounds of personal hardship. The New Zealand Herald on 2 October said that sentiment must not rule in this decision. It was not always fair and could be ‘cruelly unfair’ to speak as if the fit men in industry were somehow at fault. These men could not, except with long training and experience, replace the veterans whose return to service was necessary if others were to have their turn on furlough. The concessions allowed were as far as the government could go if the Division, ‘one of the most famous units in the Mediterranean theatre’, were to be maintained there. Dissatisfaction remained, uttered in newspaper letters, while the Wellington RSA, endorsed by the NZRSA, urged combing-out of the thousands of fit men retained in so-called essential industry. [257]

On 21 October, editors were forbidden to publish without approval information or opinions about the return of men on furlough or their replacement by exempted men, or about appeal board hearings apart from name and basis of application. Next day, Paul explained that this order had been issued because some papers had ‘failed to exercise sufficient sense of responsibility concerning the serious issue at stake’. The position had been carefully considered at two sittings of the War Cabinet. The Division had, through training and experience, developed into one of the finest fighting forces in the war—‘as a complete whole it has no equal’; but ‘if the current agitation is effective the disintegration of the division is certain’. Grade I men, however fit, could not, without similar experience, be converted into comparable soldiers. Leave for others would possibly have to be cancelled, and there was no guarantee that the furlough men would willingly take up the jobs now held by those exempted. Most of the anonymous letters appearing arose from self-interest or prejudice, and many had been published ‘in direct contravention of the Regulations’. He added that in this matter he was now acting under direct instructions from the War Cabinet. [258]

For various reasons, only 1637 of the 6000 furlough men were called back to camp in the New Year. A core, largely from Hamilton, determined not to return and sought to persuade others, using leaflets and stickers, and patrolling Trentham-bound trains. [259] These actions, of course, were not reported and on 4 January Paul telegraphed his editors: ‘Please do not repeat references published by some newspapers to furlough men entering camp. Attention is directed to my notice of October 21 and to regulations regarding movement of forces.’ [260] Two days later he complained of unauthorised references to a watersiders' stoppage in protest against some of their members being called to the Army; there must be no such references direct or indirect to the forces, to the replacement of members, or their employment, civil or military. [261]

A Hamilton businessman, R. R. V. Challiner, with a fine record of service in both wars, who became interested in the cause of the

Hamilton campaigners, was arrested on a train at Taihape, on 9 January 1944, with circulars. These urged that, like the returned Forestry Company, furlough men should go back to civil work, warned that hundreds of defaulters would pick up the good jobs after the war, and advocated refusing to board troopships: Parliament should meet at once to consider the question. [262]

On 25 February 1944, the Director warned editors that without prior written consent they must not publish information relating to courts-martial of any furlough men or appeals therefrom, to persons counselling furlough men against returning overseas, or to persons trying to obtain for them release from or postponement of military service. [263]

Challiner was charged with subversion. After delay over where the case should be heard, the police being keen for Taihape, away from Hamilton sympathy, [264] he appeared at Taihape on 30 March and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. The censored report of the Taihape appearance, excluding reference to his patriotic record and to the furlough men, was considered unfair by the Press Association which did not distribute it. [265] In the Supreme Court at

Wanganui on 22 May a jury found Challiner not guilty, and reports published his record, still without linking the charge with the furlough men. [266]

The furlough men continued to be kept from the news. Some returned overseas but the recalcitrants, in batches, were court-martialled for desertion and sentenced to 90 days' detention, with all warrant officers and non-commissioned officers reduced to the ranks. [267] In the Court of Appeal, the court-martial verdict on 250 men who had returned punctually to Trentham, performing all duties save embarkation, was silently quashed on 5 April 1944. At the same time the War Cabinet decided that those still refusing service should be dismissed for misconduct with loss of deferred pay and other benefits, news of all this being withheld by further directives. [268] Finally, 552 men of both first and second furlough drafts (the second had arrived home on 10 February) were so dismissed in June and July 1944. By law their names had to be published in the New Zealand Gazette, but Paul on 20 June told editors that the War Cabinet especially requested the press to refrain from mention of the topic, adding that while the press generally had been most helpful over the furlough difficulties, an absolute ban had not been achieved: Radio Paris on 5 May had reported ‘There has been a mutiny among troops due to embark for the European front from Hamilton. A state of siege has been proclaimed in the town.’ Further care must be taken to prevent leakage that would tarnish the reputation of New Zealand soldiers and encourage the enemy. [269]

Paul continued careful watch for references to the furlough men, notably by the RSA, whose branches from time to time sought to admit them to membership and to secure them honourable discharge with its attendant benefits. On 25 November 1944, when the

Dominion published such a resolution by the Wellington RSA, Paul asked again for silence, explaining:

All the dangers of publication regarding the original action … are inherent in that report. The enemy, in possession of the facts of the original action, could now claim that the refusal by certain New Zealand soldiers to obey a lawful army order has now the backing of the Returned Services Association. The propaganda machines of our enemies are not hampered by facts. They need only the most slender published statements on which to build an impressive case and the publication in the Dominion provides all the evidence required by the enemy. [270]

However, reports appeared about 20 June 1945 that the RSA's annual conference had admitted the dismissed men to membership. Paul decided that despite the earlier wishes of the War Cabinet, ‘it would be most unwise at this stage’ to take legal proceedings against the press, and advised that censorship on this matter should be lifted; further suppression would be regarded as political, and though this would be illogical and baseless, ‘it is capable of successful agitation’. Reference to the furlough draft was certain to be made in Parliament and press reports thereof could not be censored. [271] Very soon such questions were asked and published. [272] On 18 August 1945 the Prime Minister announced cancellation of the dismissals and restoration of privileges. Within days several papers printed full accounts of the whole incident. [273]

In November 1943 two directives sought to preserve industrial quiet. When butter rationing was imposed at the end of October, the most valid and vigorous protests came from miners and bush timber workers. While some negotiations were going quietly through proper channels, the West Coast Timber Workers Union threatened to strike unless its members received one pound of butter a week. When Sullivan declared that the government would not be moved by threats or inflammatory language, the Union secretary on 15 November replied, among other things, ‘I have not known any Government in this country that could fool all the workers all the time into believing that strikes, or threats of strikes, have not compelled Governments to act’; fighting unions were heard, peaceful methods got little consideration. [274] Paul forthwith telegraphed editors:

In view of their tendency to result in unlawful action and to create widespread dissatisfaction prejudicially affecting national morale in time of war would appreciate your eliminating from all press matter (particularly in relation to rationing of butter or any other commodity) any suggestions that only by striking or threatening to strike can persons or bodies of persons with legitimate grievances obtain redress. [275]

The second industrial tranquilliser of November 1943 concerned the police force, its wives and manpower measures. In the interests of efficiency and integrity police regulations had long prohibited members of the force doing outside paid work in their spare time. Wives were included in this ban, thereby avoiding the possibility of policemen through their wives being involved in any dubious enterprises. But in 1943 by Manpower regulations, childless married women of 18 to 30 years were liable for direction to essential industry, and wives of policemen were not exempt. Since the outbreak of war, the Commissioner of Police had readily granted permission for wives to work in approved jobs—but not, for instance, in hotels. [276] Some policemen themselves at this time were doing outside work, mainly at night. [277] It had begun as patriotic effort in ship-loading emergencies, but this motive was soon merged in keenness for well paid casual work, principally for Americans. Widespread night-shift and weekend work caused fatigue and absenteeism that worried employers and the Labour Department. It would not do to have policemen either overtired or working with doubtful characters; to avoid both impropriety and rigidity, on 27 October an amending regulation (1943/174) forbad outside work to policemen and their wives unless approved by the Commissioner of Police. [278]

Some policemen, notably the general secretary of the Police Association, objected that this deprived the country of valuable manpower resources, and claimed that policemen should be free to live as they pleased when off duty. It was also suggested that the Police Department was in conflict with Manpower regulations over the employment of policemen's wives, while in a few instances, through misunderstanding or as an excuse, police regulations were invoked against Manpower directions. [279] For instance, in November an Auckland constable told the Post Office that his bride was not allowed to continue postal work, to which the chairman of the Manpower committee replied firmly that the excuse would not hold and that if the police were obstructive the matter would go before higher Manpower authority. [280]

Publicity of this sort caused Paul on 17 November to order: ‘There must be no publication without approval of the Director of Publicity of any statement or resolution containing any direct or indirect references to the topic of the employment of members of the Police Force in any occupation outside the Force or of the civil or military employment of wives of members of the Police Force.’ [281]

After the elections in September 1943, worker restiveness, under wage controls, Manpower restraints and prices that rose despite the manoeuvres of stabilisation, began to emerge. To prevent one agitation encouraging others and to hold fast the whole structure of emergency regulations, a directive of amazing width was issued on 3 December: ‘Being of opinion that unrestricted publication of information relating to the undermentioned topic would be prejudicial to the public safety I give you notice that without my previous written consent information is not to be published relating to any act of any person if such act amounts to a counselling or inciting of any person to commit an offence against any emergency regulations. On this point please see particularly section nine subsection one of Emergency Regulations Act 1939 and regulation four of Strike and Lockout Emergency Regulations 1939 and Regulation 21 of Control of Prices Emergency Regulations 1939.’ [282]

This produced at least two overt protests, from papers in Dunedin and Palmerston North. The Otago Daily Times, still resentful that its former employee now had extra editorial powers, pointed out that the United States was relaxing censorship while Australian newspapers were advocating its restriction to security matters and to war casualties until next of kin were notified. It declared that there was no conceivable reason for any stricter control.

New Zealand is, in the experience of its press, the most censor-ridden of the Allied countries. The public would be amazed and perhaps even shocked if it knew the extent to which the censorship deprives it of information that would be of interest to it about events that are occurring in this country. It is, through the deliberate action of the Prime Minister's office, of which the Publicity Department is officially a part, kept in ignorance of activities within the Dominion itself that have no relation to the war …. some of the restrictions to which the newspapers have felt themselves obliged to submit can have been prompted only by political considerations. It is regrettable enough when the censorship is extended to ban the publication of resolutions or statements or comments when the effect might be embarrassing to the Government through their being brought to the notice of the public. But it is worse if the inhibitory ‘directives,’ as they are called in the Prime Minister's office, are so peremptory in tone as to be lacking in courtesy. One of the most recent [283] received by us was, in fact, expressed in terms that may justly be described as grossly offensive. [284]

Paul's reply to this reproof was published in the correspondence column.

The notice to which you refer was in strict legal conformity with the regulation under which it was issued. The reasons will perhaps become more obvious later. It did include the word ‘please’, and it made specific reference to certain provisions of law which explained why the issuing of the notice was considered to be necessary. I was not obliged by law to furnish any such reference, but did so in order to avoid any appearance of arbitrariness ….

The same communication was sent to all editors of newspapers throughout New Zealand. You alone found it ‘grossly offensive.’

Your discovery was also somewhat belated, because, though you wrote me a letter on December 10 regarding my more recent memorandum of December 8, you then expressed no resentment at the terms of my notice of December 3.

I regret that when making this unfounded charge you did not appreciate the fact that a completely effective defence by me would involve a breach of regulations which I am charged faithfully to administer. I suggest with great respect that the publishing of a so manifestly factitious grievance does little service to the cause of responsible journalism. [285]

An editor's note, reminding that quotation was prohibited by regulation, maintained that the directive was grossly offensive and that the Director of Publicity deceived himself if he imagined other editors were not highly resentful of the manner in which he exercised or abused his powers. [286]

Witness to this last remark was borne by the Palmerston North

Times. The directive of 3 December, along with those in November concerning threats to strike over rations and with the employment of policemen and their wives, produced on 6 December an editorial headed ‘The Gag Again’ that led to the best-known incident in six years of censorship. Its most important paragraphs, the third, fourth and fifth, read:

Whenever an awkward domestic situation arises—and awkward situations seem to be almost a daily occurrence these days—the Director of Publicity is on the doorstep. Under the Emergency Regulations he has wide powers, and in his practised hand they become as elastic as a politician's conscience. They can be stretched to cover everything, because in the opinion of the Director of Publicity everything these days has some connection, near or remote, with the war effort. But New Zealand's war effort is hardly ever the prime consideration that moves the Director of Publicity to action. Distracted editors are painfully aware of that. What drives the gagging machine into top gear is a maternal solicitude for the Government. And the Government's gagging expert can be relied on to find an excuse for applying his gag at any moment of the day or night, and on any matter from growing onions to coal miners' strikes.

On three occasions recently the gag has been applied. We may be committing a breach of the Emergency Regulations by making that statement, for the peculiar technique which the Director of Publicity has developed, and which he uses with such persistency and so promiscuously, prevents the newspapers even from stating that they cannot publish certain news. Every communiqué issued from Publicity headquarters is marked ‘Confidential’ and readers must sometimes wonder why a ‘blackout’ suddenly descends just when a particular news story is developing to a climax that is of vital interest to the people of the Dominion—and particularly awkward for the Government

There is an element of grim humour in the fact that all three recent cases of suppression concern the workers, for whose special interest the Government exists—or claims to exist. The workers may or may not have genuine grievances. We are not concerned with that issue at the moment. What we are concerned with is whether the workers have or have not the right to air their grievances through the press, which, no matter whether they admire it or not, is the only Dominion-wide medium through which their grievances can be aired.

The editor, R. H. Billens, [287] was charged in the Magistrate's Court,

Palmerston North, on 20 March 1944 under Regulation 16, clause 5b. [288] The member for Manawatu, M. H. Oram, [289] defended Billens.

The Director of Publicity had sought on 16 March to extend obscurity by reminding editors, in view of this pending prosecution, of the clause on which it was based, adding, ‘In order that there should be no misunderstanding, I feel I should remind you that reports of Court proceedings, equally with statements of any other kind, are governed by this clause.’ [290]

When this was raised in court as a preliminary matter, the magistrate, H. P. Lawry, [291] asked if it was an attempt to muzzle the press over court proceedings. The Court adjourned, and the Crown prosecutor, Dr N. A. Foden, [292] after telephoning Paul in Wellington, stated that Paul's letter was to let editors know that they could not publish, in the guise of a court report, any matter which had been subject to censorship prohibition; it was not intended that there should be no reports of the proceedings. The magistrate remarked that the letter was less explicit than it might have been, and that the regulation in question [293] was not limited to matters of public safety and the war effort; it was ‘as wide open as the world’. Dr Foden said that it was of a kind found desirable on the experience of the last war, and that Australia had an almost identical regulation. [294]

Billens explained that he had received mountains of directives, most of which he thought went further than they should; the three referred to were the culmination of a long series, and none was so generalised as the last of these three (read in court but not reported) which had finally forced him to speak out, risking prosecution. [295]

In his reserved judgment on 6 April, Lawry discussed Regulations 15 and 16. Regulation 15 gave the Director of Publicity power to prohibit publication of matters that he as sole judge deemed prejudicial to the public safety, while Regulation 16 (5b) went infinitely further, applying to matters of all kinds, including political or industrial ones, whether or not they related to public safety. Billens was convicted; his editorial plainly indicated that the censor had refused permission for the publication of certain matters. He had acted from the highest motives, wanting to test the validity of the instructions A modest fine of £5 1 s, with costs totalling £3 13 s, was imposed, and the case went to appeal. [296]

March 1944 also saw the opening of two other attacks on press censorship. In the first, three editors visiting Britain on a press delegation, E. V. Dumbleton [297] ( Auckland Star), W. A. Whitlock [298] ( Hawke's Bay Herald–Tribune) and P. H. N. Freeth [299] ( Press), cabled a statement widely published on 8 March, telling of much greater freedom. Basically, they said, censorship in Britain was voluntary; it was compulsory in New Zealand, where certain classes of matter denned by the censor had to be submitted to him and approved before publication, and a paper committed an offence if it disobeyed an instruction, even unwittingly. In Britain, censorship was an insurance against violation of security; a newspaper referred to the censor for expert advice on doubtful points, but even if the newspaper then ignored the advice, that was not of itself an offence: it must be proved that the information published was useful to the enemy, and so far there had been only two such prosecutions. In Britain there was no censorship of policy as opposed to security; guidance memoranda were issued from time to time giving authentic ground information on current events, leaving editors to publish matter relating to policy as they thought fit. Newspapers could indicate plainly what censorship prevented them from saying, whereas in New Zealand it was an offence to indicate that any matter had been before the censor, or been cut. News and articles intended for publication outside Britain were subject to compulsory censorship as in New Zealand, but news from abroad was freely admitted: from a neutral country it was assumed that the enemy could learn it directly, from an Allied country it was assumed to have been passed by local censorship; New Zealand made no such assumptions. [300]

This information was not wholly new. Something very similar had appeared in the Auckland Star of 26 May 1942 and other papers, taken from an interview with Brendan Bracken, [301] British Minister of Information, and published in Life magazine. Paul hastened to claim that much of the editors' description was inaccurate. ‘Voluntary’ censorship in Britain involved scores of stops and releases regularly issued by the censorship authorities, saying what might not be published, what else must be submitted to censorship and what should be carefully scrutinised; evidence of this could be viewed by accredited pressmen at Paul's office. In New Zealand, as in Britain, certain matter had to be submitted to censorship, but voluntary censorship was immeasurably greater than compulsory censorship; some leading New Zealand daily newspapers did not submit on the average even one item a week for censorship. ‘The regulations are clear, and after four and a half years of war pressmen should know what published information will or will not help the enemy.’ In the

United Kingdom, as in New Zealand, censorship was based on common sense and fairness, but that had not prevented periodical outbursts of hostile press criticism, or agitation for changes of Ministers of Information. In a recent censorship agitation, the night news editor of the Daily Mirror had declared that 60 per cent of his work and that of his colleagues was being suppressed—‘There is a deliberate, definite, and damnable censorship of opinion going on.’ Paul quoted Brendan Bracken from the Life article: ‘Censorship is no simple art. Any fact may be news, and any fact from a country at war may be of some value to the enemy. A shortage of this or that, a strike here—all such facts are watched for by the enemy.’ [302]

Concluding in good public relations style, Paul quoted the last sentence of a recent leading article in one of New Zealand's most responsible dailies. ‘Words cannot win wars but they can go a long way towards losing them’ Of all words the published word may be the most dangerous as the conveyor of information to the enemy. There is a very sound case for the New Zealand censorship in law and in practice. Some day, too, the full story of helpful co-operation between the New Zealand press and the censorship will be told. Few editors publicise the censor as a nuisance—fortunately many regard him as a co-operator with them in the [ sic] furthering the national war effort. [303]

Despite this goodwill message, several editors questioned Paul's presentation, notably the Press, which said that the New Zealand editors were aware of the obvious: naturally British censorship commonly issued stops, releases and submission instructions. Paul destroyed his own careful case by saying that after four and a half years of war pressmen should know what published information would or would not help the enemy. They did know, and when in doubt would gladly seek and defer to his opinion; but they objected to rulings imposed, and rulings again and again bent far from the necessary objects of security. [304]

The Southland Times agreed with Paul that the British system did not in practice differ much from New Zealand's, for though British editors could disregard the stops and qualified releases, they knew that the censor's military information was fuller than their own; but the big difference was Britain's position in the front line of fighting, whereas New Zealand, especially with the Japanese threat completely gone, was remote from military activity. [305] Truth compared the two systems point by point, stressing in the week before Billens's first trial that in New Zealand it was an offence to make it known where censorship had operated. [306]

Censorship's third public appearance in March 1944 was in Parliament. On the 16th, a few days before Billens's trial Doidge, claiming that censorship was suppressing political comment, read an article that had been posted to the New Statesman, London, and returned with a note that it was not approved for publication overseas and therefore could not be released for outward transmission. The writer, G. le F. Young, [307] had handed the issue to Doidge. The article did not refer to the war at all. It was a post-election comment on New Zealand's ‘somewhat gloomy’ political future. Labour had more space than the other parties, in such terms as: ‘At the present time the New Zealand Labour Party affords an interesting study of the decay that overtakes a Socialist Government when it fails to introduce Socialism. Idealism has fled, the pressure groups have taken charge, and the Government's main policy seems to be self presservation. The three most powerful unions in the country, the Freezing Workers, the Watersiders, and the Miners, call the tune, and the Government lifts up its weary old feet and dances.’ The deposit-losing failure of Lee's group in the election was described, and the

National party was disparagingly dismissed, in terms such as: ‘The Right damns the unions by bell, book and candle, and calls on the Government to show who is master, to use the big stick &c…. Parliamentary opposition… will be based on the familiar cries of “less regimentation”, “abolish controls”, “give private enterprise freedom to operate” and “down with Socialism”.’ [308]

On 22 March Fraser explained. He could find no trace of political partisanship in the refusal to transmit the article, which was hostile to both the Opposition and the government. ‘I think it was a silly article, and quite wrong, probably, about both parties. I do not think it would have got space in the New Statesman and Nation, but that is only a matter of opinion.’ He had inquired into the refusal, and with the answer had received another article by the same author which had been in the same envelope with the political commentary. ‘The person who wrote an article of this type, containing innuendoes and reflecting upon the girlhood and womenhood of New Zealand in the most outrageous language, must have a warped mind. It would never be accepted by Mr Kingsley Martin.’ [309] The Prime Minister allowed that each article should have been considered on its own merits, but ‘the postal Censor who opened the letter saw this filth, and sent it to the press Censor. He assures me that he read this indecent article first; and I can understand him being moved to stop the lot by disgust and a feeling that he had to protect New Zealand from stuff like that.’ He could not read the article, nor would members wish him to quote from it, but it was available to members though the Speaker.

If it could be established that the postal Censor or press Censor was using his power to stultify reasonable political criticism, it would be a very serious matter indeed, and I would not stand for it for one second, nor would the Government…. The purpose of the censorship is to prevent information from leaking out of the country which will be of service to the enemy, to prevent publication of matter that will injure the country's war effort, and to prevent the publication, by the press or any other medium, of anything that will undermine the morale of the people and weaken the fight we are putting up. Anything apart from that, if it is simply political, without any of those repercussions, has no right to be censored. All I can say is that, had I been in the Censor's position, and read that reflection on New Zealand women and girls, I do not know whether my indignation might not have moved me to take similar action, and throw the whole lot into the waste-paper basket. I will leave that matter there…. [310]

Broadfoot, however, returned to it, saying that there were hundreds of grosser books in the Parliamentary Library, and that there were only two words to which any exception could be taken. The article referred to people of ill-repute, and to social diseases. The censor had set himself up as censor of morals, and was presuming too far. [311] Broadfoot went on to complain of interference with mail: a clipping from Truth on election results had been cut off below the headlines, while the letter of a woman who quoted political news to her soldier son was returned with a note advising her to stick to the truth. Fraser called this an impertinence, and said, ‘We had better get a Committee of the House to investigate the matter. I am quite willing.’ [312] A committee was promptly appointed to examine postal censorship. Thus, as Dr Lochore remarked, a debate mainly concerned with publicity censorship ended with setting up a Parliamentary committee to enquire into postal censorship only. [313]

In the debate H. E. Combs [314] explained government attitudes to censorship, both press and postal, with even more clarity than Fraser. It was, he said, especially necessary now that the trials of war were further from our shores, to avoid any indication that the people of New Zealand were tired, or not prepared to continue the war effort. Any such reference in a newspaper or letter ‘would be—quite properly—deleted’. New Zealanders were safeguarded ‘by trained minds that are interested in the correct point of view going out and the incorrect view not going out. That practice has been in operation in the Publicity Section of the Censorship Department ever since it was established, and it has been faithfully carried out. Then, there is the question of the width to which the censorship shall be applied; and, by necessity, it has been widely applied.’ The newspapers had a duty, which most sustained, ‘to keep up the morale of the general public, and make it honestly believe that what is being done and has been done in the best spirit and to maintain a solid front [ sic]. The newspapers have to keep up the confidence of the people in the general direction of the war effort.’ Labour members could reasonably complain that every item of criticism levelled at the government by the Opposition had ‘at least a tendency to undermine the confidence of the people in the control of the war effort… by the Government. That is a very important factor and… all the time they are criticising so drastically everything that is being done, they are poisoning the minds of the people.’ He spoke of the need to eliminate unrelated facts that the enemy could build together into something of value, or information that could sow dissension in the armed forces or civil population. ‘The field of censorship is about as wide as it could possibly be’ and any one who expected that there would be no mistakes or errors of judgment was expecting far too much. ‘The success of the censorship is to be found in this: that so few comments are made in the correspondence columns of the newspapers… on the exercise of the censorship or any wrong use of it.’ [315]

Paul and the three editors [316] had another bout of exchanges in May 1944, when the editors returned. The editors disagreed on 16 May with Paul's 9 March presentation of British censorship as not voluntary, quoting from an official memorandum which stated that matter for publication within the United Kingdom was not subject to compulsory censorship. They concluded by quoting the chief correspondent of the New York Times: ‘“Admiral Thomson [317] (the British chief press censor) and his officials are largely responsible for developing the wartime censorship as a strict rule of law, and for the prevention of its extension to matters of domestic and foreign politics, or in fact anything beyond the bare necessities of military security.”’ [318]

Paul criticised this criticism of 18 May, the editors replied on 19 May, and Paul again on 20 May. In this dialogue the editors' main theme was that in Britain censorship, over a wide field of internal news, was voluntary and disregarding the censor's advice was not in itself an offence. Paul held, with increasing firmness, that although within certain limits British newsmen might ‘flout’ the censorship, in actual practice they did not do so, which meant that censorship in Britain and New Zealand was very similar.

The Press on 22 May, besides reminding that in Britain censorship and publicity were not one but two separate functions served by separate departments, dwelt on the point that while censorship on a particular topic could be indicated in Britain, this was forbidden in New Zealand, placing papers in the embarrassment of appearing to suppress news and views without reasonable justification. ‘The Director of Publicity may continue to spin words ad infinitum but he will not be able to dispose of these very essential differences— and they are only a few of the many that could be mentioned between the two systems.’

In Australia during April and May conflict gathered over censorship, producing a crisis out of which censorship emerged limited solely to security, as related to existing conditions, so that what had been censorable in 1942 was not necessarily censorable in 1944; principles were laid down in a comprehensive code. [319] Naturally

New Zealand newspapers were impatient for like developments, and they were joined by the Chamber ot Commerce. On 28 June, the Associated Chambers advocated to the Prime Minister that New Zealand's censorship should be amended likewise. The Prime Minister replied: ‘“defence security” is a variable term which must be interpreted in relation to the degree of danger to the nation when any particular decision must be made…. With the danger receding, censorship has been relaxed in important respects and this has been done in accord with practice and commonsense and without amendment of the regulations.’ [320]

Billens's appeal, [321] heard in the Supreme Court (Full Court) on 7 July 1944 by three judges, was widely reported in Australia as well as in New Zealand. The Solicitor-General, H. H. Cornish, in prosecuting, placed a good deal of weight on the reference to the gag being applied on three occasions and that all three concerned the workers, which would cause people to wonder what the suppressions were. Both in court and in the judgments, attention was strongly turned to the very wide power, quite without check, of the Director to decide what was prejudicial to public safety. ‘The powers of the Pontiff were nothing compared to those of the Director of Publicity’ was a much quoted comment by the Chief Justice; and what, he asked, had the employment of policemen's wives to do with public safety? Why not include sisters, cousins and aunts, suggested Mr Justice Northcroft, who also remarked that the Director had become editor-in-chief of all papers on topics which he himself selected.

Their judgments, given on 11 August, quashed the conviction 2:1, finding that Paul had exceeded his powers. All three discussed the need for and the proper limits of wartime censorship. The Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, dissenting, held that the first four paragraphs of the editorial, though severe criticism, in no way infringed the regulations, but the fifth paragraph, by indicating that the Director of Publicity had refused authority for the publication of a ‘kind of matter’, the airing of grievances by workers, contravened the regulation. [322]

Mr Justice Johnston was more expansive: … the relations between ‘Censorship’ and the ‘Press’ must in the nature of things be frequently strained and mutual distrust give way to actual animosity. The Press has won only by many a hard-fought battle a freedom of publication every editor thinks it his bounden duty to the public to preserve. Like pantry-maids who in the presence of crockery seemed seized with an irresistible urge to destruction, censorship seems, when it faces the Press, powerless to restrain an inborn lust of suppression. In this inflammable atmosphere the censor struck a match by issuing a set of directives, to which, unless content to surrender its freedom, the Press could well feel obliged to make protest…. The directives, which proved the last straw, explain the indignation they aroused in the breast of appellant and illustrate a propensity on the part of the Director of Publicity to expand his sphere of activity to an astonishing extent.

He found that the article did not indicate a refusal to authorise the publication of news or information since there was no evidence of application for approval to publish. It did not give information on a prohibited subject, and the Director could not in good faith declare that information on the subjects of the directives endangered public safety. [323]

Mr Justice Northcroft wrote:

It is difficult to see how any one of the three directives involved in this case deals in the slightest degree with public safety as defined. The directives are claimed to be authorised by Reg. 15 which makes the issuing of a notice depend upon the opinion of the Director of Publicity; but the Director must be of opinion that the information prohibited ‘would be prejudicial to the public safety’. … it was maintained that the mere issue of the prohibition is sufficient to establish the opinion of the Director and that justification of his opinion need not be shown. In my opinion, this states the matter too widely. If it is apparent upon a perusal of the prohibition of the Director that public safety is not involved, then his order cannot be validated by a mere assumption that the Director must have been ‘of opinion’ that public safety would be prejudiced…. These are regulations for the public safety in time of war and are not to be construed narrowly to the prejudice of the public safety. At the same time the regulations are not to be given such a construction as will interfere, without regard for public safety, with the customary freedom of discussion of matters of general interest to the community. If this was intended as one of the functions of the regulations, then it should have been stated in clear and unequivocal language. [324]

On 11 August, just before the verdict was delivered, a debate was going on in the House on censorship, both press and postal, with new complaints made and old ones remembered. Doidge opened by saying that, with the war at its peak and victory in sight, the government should introduce economies and relax controls, beginning with the tyranny of censorship. Press censorship should go overnight. He quoted Brendan Bracken, Priestley and Laski, [325] spoke of Australia's recent reforms and wondered why New Zealand continued its drastic censorship. He referred to the political instance he had revealed in March, the criticism of the Labour party intended for the New States man, banned because it shared an envelope with an article which the censor said was immoral. [326] One might call the article ‘cheap and nasty’ but it was not without literary merit of the New Statesman sort. It was about an American in a taxi squeezing a girl so hard that she nearly swallowed her false teeth. [327]

Fraser said that there was no limitation when attacking the government, but Doidge was excusing rank filth which it would be wrong to release, besmirching the reputation of New Zealand women. The House being off the air, saving electricity, he quoted a sample: ‘“What are the girls like’? Depends on what you want. There are whores of course. I guess whores are just the same where ever you go…. Far as I can see there's no difference between a whore in South Bend and one in Christchurch, New Zealand. The pox is just the same, too, they tell me.” “No whores for this Marine.” ‘Did the Opposition say that the censor was wrong in stopping that filth from going out of the country’? To have the mothers of America thinking that women in New Zealand were an immoral lot would hinder the joint war effort; it was not merely a matter of public safety, it was a question of the war effort and relations with allies. ‘I make no apology for anything the Censor did in that respect,’ continued Fraser. ‘One case of censorship action has gone to the Supreme Court. Let the Court decide. If the Censor has exceeded his duty in that or any other case, he will have to take the conse quences and his authority in future will be adjusted in accordance with the law.’ [328]

Amid the usual posturing of debate, some things had the ring of truth. It was here that Fraser spoke out as quoted above, [329] asking if in any country the press had real freedom. Every day the New

Zealand press attacked the Labour government, magnifying little matters and stirring up strife. The press backed up the Opposition because it knew that while Labour was on the Treasury benches the privileges of the rich were in danger. [330]

In the midst of this debate came the news of Billens's acquittal, and the attack on Paul sharpened. Bowden [331] inveighed strongly against Paul's absolute power. Was there not a Censorship Board? Had it ever met? Censorship was in the hands of one man, subject to the corruption of absolute power. Bowden had no faith in the man appointed, his background saturated with political bias, appointed by the Prime Minister as reward for past service to the government and the Labour party and to continue that service, distrusted throughout New Zealand. [332]

Oram, who as a lawyer had acted for Billens, pushed the attack home firmly. Had the Director of Publicity been selected for his ability to form unbiased judgments, had he the training, ability and qualifications for that particular job? ‘No. Once again we have the principle of spoils to the victors, and we have appointed as Director of Publicity Mr Paul, whose only claim to that job was that he had served the New Zealand Labour Party well and truly and had been its first president.’ Oram then examined the regulations, explaining that public safety (covering service operations, the maintenance of industry and the prevention of subversive utterances) should guide determination whether anything should be censored or not, and dwelt on the muzzling effect of the clause under which Billens had been tried. He quoted extensively from the judgments, read the three directives that had precipitated the Billens editorial, and read the editorial itself. [333]

Nash, fighting back, said that the judiciary could not interfere with law passed by Parliament, it could only interpret the law. The judiciary had said that the Director of Publicity had exceeded the powers provided under regulations adopted by Parliament. It was imperative that the country should have absolute faith in and respect for the courts, and he was fearful that some day it might be said that the judges were not interpreting the law. [334]

The Billens case was widely and prominently reported, and there was general jubilation in the editorials, with only the Grey River

Argus saying that the Opposition was making party capital of cen sorship. [335] The Associated Chambers of Commerce on 1 September declared their approval of the press in its fight for freedom. [336] New Zealand, however, did not follow Australia into a limited security code of censorship. Paul's diary on 16 August 1944 briefly noted: ‘P.M. Censorship code. No capitulation.’ [337]

During September 1944 several censorship themes were reiterated. The Prime Minister on 6 September, in the budget debate, repeated that freedom of the press meant simply the right of newspapers to express the opinions of their owners, agreeing that the same was true of Labour's weekly, the Standard. It was, he said, a problem for democracy that would have to be met in a sensible and sane way. It would be good if any newspaper which attacked individuals for statements made were obliged to publish any refutation with equal prominence. He claimed that this system had operated for a time in France and that it had been recommended to the Menzies government in Australia by a leading newspaper proprietor, Sir Keith Murdoch. [338]

A few days later, replying to a question asked by Broadfoot on the continuance of censorship of internal mail, Fraser said that it could not be removed entirely until the end of the war with Japan, although it had already been greatly reduced. He added that it was maintained solely for security reasons, to prevent the communication of anything which might prejudice military success or the safety of shipping. [339] The Auckland Star, applying this statement to press censorship, said that logically it should be followed by overhaul of the censorship regulations. These, ‘as the public is now fully aware,’ empowered the censor to prohibit publication of much which had no bearing on military matters or on shipping. It was their wideness which had caused so much objection to them. In Australia the government had recognised the changed war situation by discarding its regulations for a new code devised in consultation with the newspapers. New Zealand should do likewise. ‘While any regulation remains in force it can be used, or its existence can be mentioned as a covert threat. The way to ensure—and to convince the public— that non-security regulations will not be used is to repeal them.’ [340]

On 20 September, the annual conference of newspaper proprietors, having considered correspondence between its president and the Prime Minister, unanimously supported adoption of the principles of the code agreed upon in Australia. In particular: censorship should be imposed exclusively for defence security, not for the maintenance of morale; it should not prevent the reporting of industrial disputes or stoppages; in prosecutions, the onus of proof should be upon the prosecution. The conference considered the Prime Minister's reply to its president completely unsatisfactory, since it did not give adequate reason for not accepting the Australian code's principles, merely asserting that censorship in New Zealand ‘had been progressively relaxed over a considerable period of time.’ The only relaxations of which the conference had had official advice related to weather reports, the movements of coastal shipping and a few minor domestic matters. ‘Directives’ forbidding publication of news with no bearing on security had not been modified or withdrawn and any of these, ‘which it is considered should never have been issued’, might be invoked in prosecutions involving heavy penalties. Finally, the conference was emphatic that to secure a conviction the prosecution should have to prove that the publication prejudiced defence security. [341]

Auckland's RSA considered that the war situation made the censorship stringency of the past three years unnecessary and that the time had arrived when people could enjoy the freedom of speech which was part of their democratic rights. It urged Dominion headquarters to support the efforts of the press towards modification of censorship. [342] In fact, censoring activity diminished greatly all through 1944. After March the files reveal no more general orders against publishing items of news within New Zealand, except those relating to the furlough rebels. [343] In May 1944 Paul, replying to an editor critic, wrote:

You will not have failed to notice that with the improved war situation and the receding danger of direct Japanese attack on New Zealand, censorship direction affecting industrial reports in the Press has disappeared. More than six months have elapsed since any request or order has been issued by me which has any reference to an industrial dispute as such. During that time there have been many disputes, including strikes in the Railway bus service, in the mines, on the waterfront, and in other occupations.

There has been not the slightest curbing by censorship in any of these disputes, and it has been a wide-open season for Press reports and comments. [344]

Government's policy thus was to relax censorship through inactivity, without altering the regulation or cancelling most of the directives.

The Auckland Star on 1 May 1945 drew attention to a further complaint, of the New Zealand Journalists' Association, that it was increasingly hard to obtain information on the work of government departments, the heads of some having been instructed by their ministers not to make statements of any kind to the press. This reticence was attributed to the influence of the Director of Publicity, whose work was ‘one of the necessary evils of the war’. He had required to see public statements from government officers, such as members of the Price Tribunal, before publication, and there was danger of this supervision spreading. This criticism would suggest that censorship by the Director seemed to be being taken over by ministers. [345]

When the war in Europe ended Paul wrote to editors that many matters could then be published which previously would have given valuable information to the enemy; even Japan was a diminished danger, and ‘my policy has long been the progressive relaxation of censorship in relation to the immediate danger to the Dominion.’ It was now possible and desirable to give publicity to matters such as the former luxury liners, exotics in New Zealand waters, that were carrying troops—‘many New Zealanders are of course aware of the coming of the big ships and descriptive articles and photo graphs relating to their voyages would make interesting reading’, though the Navy asked that shipping references should be checked before publication, [346] Moreover, British naval authorities required silence about some shipping until the Japanese forces had surrendered and it was 4 September 1945 before this last restriction ended. [347]

Fraser, on 15 August, immediately after announcing the end of the war with Japan, said that press censorship would end right away. The Dominion saluted this news with a brief recapitulation, giving a few examples. It summarised the regulations, explaining that through Paul security-risk material had been submitted to the Services concerned, by whom much of the physical act of censorship was carried out. Dozens of events were never described, such as the crash of an American bomber near Whenuapai early in 1942, killing about

12 men and damaging houses, while even the presence of Americans who arrived in June 1942 was not admitted by the press until November. Japan's entry had greatly extended restrictions: camps could not be named nor the sites of air raid shelters, beach defences, tank blocks; new weapons were taboo. Also ‘there were many instances when the security applications were not so obvious’, such as the Woburn workshops' dispute about Saturday morning overtime in March 1941, police pay claims in January 1943, and policemen doing outside work or their wives being employed in November 1943; shortages were not to be mentioned to avoid panic buying and hoarding. In all ‘much that happened from day to day in New Zealand during the war was never published.’ [348]

Over the years, how easy or rigorous was New Zealand's censorship? It seems clear that it started harmoniously, with editors thankful that their censor understood newspapers, their routines, values and deadlines; several, during 1940, referred to the censor as helpful, courteous, a friend. They fully accepted the need for silence on what could be useful to the enemy and as Paul himself said, censorship was possible only through the active co-operation of the newspapers in general, working on the ‘honour system’; [349] such slips as that leading to the prosecution of the Auckland Star [350] and the mentions of biscuits [351] and bacon [352] showed that newsmen could sometimes miss implications. Obviously some suppressions as well as those dealing with shipping, troops and defences were necessary: news that the Niagara carried ammunition would have been interesting to the enemy and knowing of the furlough controversy might, besides obvious propaganda value, have caused the Division to have been written down as a fighting unit. But in attempting, to the extent described by speakers such as Fraser, Nash and H. E. Combs, to present an almost totalitarian unity for the sake of Dr Goebbels, ends did not justify means. Nor were suppressions complete or consistent: the railings of, say, the Press or the Otago Daily Times against censorship, in the non-specific terms permitted, could well have provided material for Goebbels's team; there had been no attempt to suppress grumbling columns on the shortage of eggs and honey.

Paul was 65 years old when the war started. It could be expected that as he grew used to power and as pressures multiplied, he would become less patient, more anxious, more crabbed, his sense of proportion sinking under obsession with detail. It must be remembered that he was very close to Fraser who, despite his intelligence, was often in his protective devotion to the Labour government as intolerant as a religious fanatic. At any hour of the day or night, the telephone could bring the Prime Minister's disapproval of a disparaging passage. Meanwhile pressmen, as the war physically receded, were increasingly impatient with restrictions for ‘morale’, or for defence of the administration, rather than for security, especially as other Allied countries seemed much more liberal. At the end of 1942 Oliver Duff, a thoughtful witness, said most emphatically that censorship had not been grossly abused. [353] By 1944, even allowing for political inclination, criticism was much stronger. Broadly, in the censorship field the theme so familiar throughout the war was worked over: the government felt that complete loyalty was its due in running the war, and any defection should be silenced, while those basically opposed to the government's administration felt that, for the sake of the war effort, their criticisms should be heard.

However at the end, on 26 June 1945, the editor of the Christchurch Star–Sun could write to Paul: ‘We have had our arguments, but both of us have been too long in politics to confuse persons with principles. I ought to say now that the editors were fortunate to find a censor as tolerant and as helpful as you have been. We might so easily have had a censor with a military mind and no understanding of journalism.’ [354]

As a postscript, it might be worth looking at the end of February 1946 annual meeting of the New Zealand Press Association for a view on wartime censorship and its aftermath. Sir Cecil Leys, Association chairman, acknowledged appreciatively that, through the action of the Prime Minister, censorship of collected news had been removed very soon after the war, its only real justification, ended. He regretted another form of censorship that in fact remained, the censorship of news at its source. This was a hangover from the war, a conception of news as something that was issued by an official at times and in circumstances of his own choosing. Leys saw this as the enemy of good journalism, and he held that the public interest was superior to the interest of public officials. Neither was he happy about the creation of the Information Section of the Prime Minister's Office in the room of the wartime Director of Publicity, with the task of centralising and controlling the issue of official news. Local bodies, too, were attempting to control the flow of information to the press. It was essential, said Leys, that a strong, free press should give the public all the information that they were entitled to have, without regard to sectional interests, great or small, that would suppress it, colour it, or tone it down. [355]

Post and Telegraph censorship was closely entwined within normal Post and Telegraph functions. Under the Controller of Censorship, George McNamara, a retired Director-General of the Department, two senior departmental officers were respectively Chief Postal Censor and Chief Telegraph Censor. [356] Overseas telegrams, both incoming and outgoing, were concentrated on Auckland, the cable terminal, and Wellington, terminal of radio channels to the United States. Together these offices employed 16 full-time trained operators as censors. At other overseas telegraph censorship points selected officers, as an extra duty, handled these telegrams, which were reviewed at Auckland or Wellington. [357]

Postal censorship, a larger matter, with district centres covering the country, employed at the peak about 250 officers. At first they were almost all permanent Post and Telegraph staff, but as these were eroded by conscription censors were recruited from retired civil servants, bank officials and schoolteachers. Letters in foreign languages were sent to a special section in Wellington, where a supervisor, a clerk and up to six full-time translators worked, assisted by part-time translators. Of these only the supervisor, a retired chief postmaster, actually censored letters.

Except in French, linguists where far from plentiful in New Zealand during the 1940s. Early in the war post office notices advised aliens to write only in French, German or Italian, but some could not even read the notices. Apart from language ability, censorship work demanded political reliability and personal integrity. The translation section was able to muster several persons with good knowlege of German, the most important language for refugee letters; one Hungarian translator; at least one with command of Italian and Spanish; another with thorough knowledge of one Slav language and enterprise to tackle the rest, especially the Serbo-Croat of New Zealand's Yugoslavs. There were also several part-time translators such as the Chinese and Greek consuls, but it was often neither satisfactory nor fair to place the correspondence of a small national group before one member of it. Of 44 languages encountered, 22 were handled by full-time and seven by part-time translators, while Thai and three Indian languages were forwarded to British censorship overseas. The remaining 11, including such impenetrable languages as Latvian, Welsh, Maltese and Arabic, were variously treated according to the section's knowledge of the sender: returned as non-transmissable where the sender was unknown; forwarded with more or less delay when the sender was known as more or less reliable; forwarded for overseas censorship if it was thought that translation might be informative. Letters from overseas were usually passed, with or without delay; internal letters, especially between known correspondents, were usually passed promptly. [358]

The correspondence of each alien was allotted to one translator, who kept a record of it, gradually building up a case history very useful in ascertaining the alien's good faith or otherwise. There was consultation with other translators where multi-lingual aliens made this necessary. This casework, possible only where aliens were relatively few, enabled censorship to extract the maximum of both information and reassurance from correspondence and made up for halting knowledge of some minor languages. Translators, who in time learned which people had long been exchanging innocuous letters, could pass these more quickly, concentrating on more doubtful ones. Early in 1944 a ‘frank’ system was authorised, whereby translators could pass unread any correspondence which could reasonably be regarded as innocuous, and this made two translators redundant. [359]

Not all outgoing mail was censored; except in 1942–3, probably less than half the letters in English were examined. [360] All airmail was opened, including letters to servicemen. Censorship was complete on mail for Europe from early 1940 onwards, and on Far East mail from 1941, but surface mail with the United Kingdom was examined less. United States mail was scarcely touched until 1942 when, to prevent the relatives of American servicemen from learning that their units were in New Zealand, all States-bound mail was opened. Americans' letters were supposed to go through their camp censors, but some might use ordinary post offices, or get New Zealand friends to write home. Censors stopped hundreds of letters such as: ‘Dear Mamie, Excuse me being so familiar as I do not know you, but this is just to say that I saw Sam yesterday, he is OK and wants me to tell you, etc.’ [361] Surface mail with Australia and the Pacific islands went freely for the first two years, but thereafter all was examined. The years 1942–3 were high-pressure ones for censors, with a routine delay of about a fortnight on all mail leaving New Zealand. In 1944 examination of surface American mail was again reduced to token level. [362]

There was also personal censorship on about 2200 people, mainly enemy aliens. It began with the 1650 Germans who were not exempt from registration in the early days of the war. After June 1940, New Zealand's 800 Italians and far less numerous French were included, also Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians on account of German Balts among them. Czechs and Poles were added so that censorship would cover all refugees, as were, in due course, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Finns and Thailanders.

Mail to or from particular countries was readily collected, but with internal mail collection was more difficult. Letters written by a listed person to non-listed people within New Zealand were not discovered, but each postman (or woman) was expected to memorise listed names on his round, and take any letters to these which did not already bear the censor's stamp back to the post office for examination. Postmen changed often and some uncensored mail slipped through their hands by mistake. Generally, censored mail would be delayed a week or so, especially if it were in a foreign language which required reference to Wellington.

Postal censorship sought to extract information militarily and economically useful to the war effort, including information on local aliens, and to withhold such information, plus money in any form, from the enemy, remembering that when many letters were read together seemingly innocent references could add up to useful information. Withholding information was the main function of censorship in New Zealand. Repression of propaganda helpful to the enemy was another purpose, more difficult in perception and varying between censors. Pacifist literature published in the United Kingdom, diatribes against the New Zealand government, criticism of New Zealand, especially New Zealand in the war, were some of the subjects that taxed judgment. Dr Lochore, senior translator, wrote:

It took us some time to realise that the truth or untruth of a statement had nothing to do with its censorability, but in time we learned the necessity of cutting the truth and passing lies on occasion. An untruth was never suppressed on the ground of its untruth, but only on the ground of adverse military or propaganda effect. At times we even found ourselves cutting pro-Allied sentiments from mail destined for Germany for the protection of people of anti-Nazi sympathies in enemy territory. [363]

At the outset no clear statement was made to officers on what was or was not permitted and in the early weeks censors, too anxious about enemy propaganda or encouragement, were over-busy with their scissors. On 5 December 1939 a memorandum from the Chief Postal Censor went forth:

Difficulty may be experienced at times in deciding to what extent criticism of Government policy is permitted in censored correspondence. In this respect each case is to be considered on its merits. The Controller of Censorship has laid down that generally most of the views expressed in letters which have so far come under notice are merely personal views. Where, however, these views are likely to mislead, are exaggerated, or are likely to damage the reputation of the country, the portions should be excised.

A different political opinion is of no moment if it is not likely to be damaging to the country's standing, and what might be passed in domestic exchanges might be open to objection if addressed to business firms overseas.

It is appreciated that Censors have cases which are difficult to decide. They can only use a wise discretion, submitting to this Office any letter about which they are uncertain. [364]

In January 1940 the Auckland Chamber of Commerce asked for a guiding list of topics to be avoided, alleging that passages of no military significance had been deleted and that censorship in New Zealand seemed to be more severe than elsewhere. One overseas firm had advised that none of its mail from Canada or Australia was censored but every one of four letters from New Zealand had been opened. The Controller replied that deletions were largely determined by the general tenor of the correspondence. It would hardly be practicable to outline what topics should be excluded but ‘no reference must be made, of course, to any matter which would be likely to prejudice the steps being taken in the Dominion to assist the armed forces of Great Britain.’ [365]

A few days later, under the heading, ‘What are the Rules?’, the

Dominion featured a letter from England which complained strongly of political opinions (for instance, on the social security scheme) having been cut out of letters from the writer's parents in New Zealand. It claimed that the excisions suggested unpleasantly that protecting the government from criticism was seen as protecting the security of the State. [366]

Fraser, seeing this, declared that the government had given no instructions for censoring political opinion, nor could he imagine circumstances in which it could be justified. ‘Such extreme and unwarranted interference would be an intolerable perversion of the intentions of the censorship, and if it had occurred it was entirely opposed to the wishes and directions of the Government.’ [367]

The Controller explained that not all deletions from letters referred to military matters and it was difficult to set out the censorship rules for the information of the public. New Zealand's censorship was based on rules embodied in a 200-page book issued by the British Government as guidance for the Commonwealth. In those rules the only reference to political matters appeared under the heading ‘Preventions’: ‘Political—containing matter inimical to national interests, especially propaganda.’ There were many censors in New Zealand and possibly a few had interpreted this rule somewhat widely. Very few—not a dozen—complaints had been received; often excision of indiscretions carried away less disturbing passages on the reverse side of the paper. He concluded: Political opinions for or against the Government are of no interest to the censorship. I desire to say that the censorship is being conducted as far as practicable in accord with the British Governments rules, and that the Government has not directed me at any stage to have references to political affairs eliminated from cables or letters. [368]

The Controller, on 5 February 1940, drawing the attention of all censors to this exchange, instructed that ‘legitimate criticism of the Government is not a matter for censorship.’ He again quoted the British prescription for elimination from letters of what would be classified as political and continued: ‘Note should be taken that “National interests” is not to be confused with “party interests,” and criticism of the Government from the point of view of the opponents of the Government should not be eliminated so long as it does not affect the interests of the nation.’ On the other hand, references to ‘corrupt Government’, to ‘tricky Government’ and to ‘trickery land’ were cited as definitely damaging to New Zealand and dangerous to British interests. References to shipping and to the forces must be course be cut out and if this excision removed news on the other side of the paper it would be annoying but unavoidable.

‘Censors are enjoined to avoid permitting their personal opinions to intrude into their work. The Censor must always act impersonally and remember that every person has the right in New Zealand to express his own opinion on political matters. It is only when in doing so the writer suggests misbehaviour in administration that action is necessary in the nation's interests.’

In order to check on what officers were doing, all censors should for a while show objectionable passages, marked in pencil, to the senior on duty. ‘New Zealanders are not likely’, concluded McNamara, ‘to take kindly to censorship, and complaints are likely to come in thick and strong—some no doubt justifiably and some as an indication of annoyance. So far the work has been well done, but perhaps some Censors have been a little hard in their “cutting” of matters criticising the Government.’ [369]

To recollect, or to guess, what the censor had cut out was difficult. As the Press of 6 February 1940 said, ‘nobody remembers clearly what he wrote or did not write on page 3 of a weeks-old letter; and the clues reported by a correspondent peering through the obliterant are more likely to stimulate imagination than memory.’ The time elapsed could be much more than a week and there were carbon copies of few but business letters. The New Zealand Herald gave two instances of early cutting. The sentence, ‘Business as far as I am concerned is in chaos, and I hope there will be a change of Government’, was cut from a letter written by an Auckland importer. A woman sent to the Herald two almost unreadable letters, returned by her son in England, which had mentioned prices, restrictions on sending money out of New Zealand, government spending, rationing, and difficulties anticipated with rents and interest when many firms were reducing staffs. [370]

A month later the Herald, recalling Fraser's spirited rejection of ‘intolerable perversion’, claimed that the carbon copies of businessmen's letters proved deletion of passages with only political significance. Fraser should ‘see to it that the questionable zeal of departmental officers is sensibly curbed.’ [371] Late in August 1940, when W. A. Bodkin said in the House that whole pages were reportedly cut from letters, Fraser replied that censorship deleted only references to defence and shipping. At first in some confusion, censors had cut letters unreasonably, but since his inquiries months ago nothing had been cut ‘except references dangerous to the war effort.’ [372]

Unless newspapers were unusually silent, complaints did not come to them ‘thick and strong’ as the Controller had feared. A few he answered firmly in their columns. In September 1940 a writer to the Evening Post told of a letter taking 17 weeks to get to England and complained of political censorship, saying that the Prime Minister's remark about ‘intolerable perversion’ had produced some improvement which had since disappeared. [373] McNamara in reply charged that the writer was listening to rumours, then pointed out that New Zealand's quick mail service had been impaired by the war and that the censor had ‘power to amend’ any letters containing information likely to be of value to the enemy. Criticism of ‘the socialist Government’ did not concern the censorship but ‘if A.A.C.W.'s letters arrive in England cut to pieces he must be one of the many people who want to tell their friends about the nice ships we occasionally see in our harbours.’ Further he should make his complaints ‘direct to me’, either personally or by letter. [374] In August 1942 there was complaint that a letter from abroad had been opened and stamped by the New Zealand censor; as it had arrived safely in New Zealand there was no possibility that it could be captured and injure the Allied cause. McNamara replied that ‘for certain very good reasons’ censorship was not confined to outward correspondence. The answer to the complaint was ‘governed by conditions, such as the name of the addressee, where the letter came from, and certain other conditions.’ He would always be glad to investigate. [375]

In May 1940 the Minister of Defence found it incredible that after eight months of war, in letters to and from New Zealand forces, most dangerous references to military matters were still coming under notice. He was more precise in his prohibitions than McNamara had been: there should be no reference to the names of ships, dates of sailing, projected routes or destinations, numbers of troops, composition of a convoy, or any other matter which might assist the enemy to locate a ship or trace its movements. Letters with such references would be delayed and prosecutions might be necessary to impress on people the gravity of the offence. [376]

In May and June 1940 there were three convictions for evasion of censorship by sending letters bound for England with travelling friends to be posted in Sydney, where they had been opened by the

Australian censor. One was an attempt to hasten despatch in the mail and another had sought to avoid import restriction. [377] The third contained trenchant criticism of the New Zealand censorship which the prosecuting police stated would never have passed the local authorities, while admitting that it did not refer to the war and would be unlikely to assist the enemy. Defence counsel declared that in this the censorship authorities condemned themselves. [378] The Herald noted on 18 May that criticism would not get past the local censorship, recalled the Prime Minister's statement that criticism of the government was not matter for deletion, and pointed to an ‘obvious discrepancy’ between the censor's practice and the Prime Minister's policy; a supporting letter-writer vouched that there was political censorship in New Zealand. [379]

Meanwhile the censor had increasing work in deleting security indiscretions. On 18 June 1940 the Prime Minister advised those writing to servicemen overseas to avoid references to ships, troops and ports of call, also to write clearly in ink, post early, give the sender's name on the back of the envelope and leave a clear margin on the front of it for the censor's label. It was usual during the first two years of the war for censors to post out printed notices to indiscreet writers, saying that security deletions had been made in specified letters. This led some people, keen to make their letters interesting, to rely on the censorship to decide what was dangerous and what might go forward, as some later explained in court. [380] In March 1942 prosecutions began for references to shipping, troop movements or defence works, [381] 20 Mar 42, p. 6 and early in August McNamara stated that about 75 prosecutions had so far been taken by the police. [382] The courts accepted that thoughtlessness, not disloyalty, had led to the transgressions, but stressed that as the censors could not read every letter, each writer should be responsible for avoiding what should not be read by the enemy. Awareness of what could not be written was greatly increased by magisterial admonitions and by fines. The departmental view was that people must be trained to avoid any reference, no matter how innocuous, to Service and shipping matters, since they had not the expert knowledge to judge whether it would be of use to the enemy. [383]

Although McNamara in February 1940 had said that it was difficult to set out the censorship rules for the public, it was expected that all references to ships and to defence and Service matters were to be avoided. Paul, Director of Publicity, commenting in November 1942 on the frequent postal prosecutions of recent weeks, said that defence counsel, besides pleading their clients' unquestioned loyalty, usually claimed that no definite instructions had been issued for public guidance on what was or was not permitted. They were not, Paul said, charged with disloyalty; one of the censorship's functions was to prevent unintentional disclosures by loyal subjects. The fundamental principle of censorship had been stated many times, by press, radio and in the courts; he went on to give one of the clearest press statements thereon:

A duty has thus been imposed on the public as a whole to weigh every written word and to leave unwritten anything which could be even remotely construed as information useful to the enemy. In the main, instructions to the public regarding censorship have had to be in general terms, but the Government and the Service authorities are entitled to expect in wartime a sensible application of general instructions to particular instances.

Any New Zealander could see large and important defence works, troop movements or ships, and must have the good sense not to write about them. Many thoughtless people hurried to send such news overseas and many had been prosecuted. No great exception could be taken to ‘Jack is in the Army but has not gone overseas’, but if Jack's unit were named, or its strength or location given, full penalties would be deserved for stupid thoughtlessness. Fundamentally, no letter should contain anything which might directly or indirectly convey information about Service movements, operations, plans or dispositions, or the movements or projected movements of British or Allied merchant ships or hospital ships; or the location of defence works or about munitions programmes or establishments; or any other information which might be of value to the enemy. [384]

In August 1943, Luxford, a senior magistrate, dismissed a charge for the mention of a hospital ship, saying that serious censorship breaches had been treated as such but ‘far too many technical and venial charges’ had been brought. He appeared to think that the Director of Publicity was responsible, which Paul denied, while ‘respectfully’ dissenting from Luxford's views on over-many technical and venial charges and the mention of hospital ships in particular. Luxford, dismissing another charge against a young woman who had written that someone might have been missing had he been on a certain ship, asked who was responsible for these prosecutions. The police replied that in future more consideration would be given to such cases, and Luxford suggested that sometimes a police interview, without a court appearance, would suffice. [385]

Some months later another magistrate, during a press censorship trial, spoke out against the reticence of postal censorship authorities on forbidden topics:

How are the public to know how to keep within bounds if the papers do not tell them? It means waiting till some innocent person oversteps the mark and then they are brought before me and I am asked to put a penalty on them. I know of a case where a letter was returned by a censor because it contained an unfavourable reference to the Prime Minister, or some other functionary. It is causing comment all over the country the way the censorship is exercised not specifically in the interest of public safety or the war effort. [386]

While the Controller avoided listing topics, apart from the obvious ones of shipping and military news, that should not be mentioned, he gave other advice. Notably, in October 1942, he suggested that letters should be kept to ‘reasonable’ length, hinting that the overlong would be suspected of hidden meaning and be set aside for special examination, perhaps missing a mail. [387] Four marathons mentioned, each of more than 100 pages, were clearly excessive, but, said the Auckland Star, the ‘censor is on dangerous ground when he says that “what the correspondent overseas wants to know mainly is whether his family and friends are well and happy. That does not need a great deal of writing.” What qualification or right has a censor to make such a pronouncement?’ [388]

Other difficulties arose over pen-friend letters. In 1942 London authorities advised that pen-friends should be discouraged: enemy agents in neutral countries were trying to cultivate pen-friends in British countries. In October a press statement to this effect appeared, adding that though no penalties would be imposed on the writers very few such letters would pass the censorship: all pen-friend correspondence, even that of long standing, should stop immediately. [389] Meanwhile patriotic, religious and educational organisations were urging people to adopt lonely soldiers as pen-friends. At some post office branches anxious censors, wrote Dr Lochore, began submitting pen-friend letters to the Controller's office in such overwhelming numbers that these branches were told, by telephone, to detain pen-friend correspondence without consulting Wellington. At the end of the war more than 50 bags of detained outward pen-friend correspondence were destroyed—‘probably nine tenths of it favourable to the war effort, probably not one per cent of it intended for neutral countries, and probably not a single letter directed to an enemy agent. Other branches which used their discretion in the matter received no instructions to detain, and held up only an infinitesimal proportion of pen-friend mail.’ [390]

Few people were aware that internal letters, apart from those to aliens, were censored, until inquiries by the Press in August 1941 drew this disquieting information from the Controller. He said that he could not disclose how many internal letters were opened, though they could be but a small percentage among the daily thousands; the only persons totally exempt were the Governor-General, ministers of the Crown and consuls in New Zealand. McNamara's statement, despite its official imprecision, was not soothing:

I do not think it is necessary to state the reasons for this course of action. Some letters are opened just at random, and others quite deliberately. Of course we might be definitely chasing somebody; at times we are working under orders from the Army, and Navy, or the Police Department. However, no letter is ever opened without proper notification on the envelope. [391]

Internal security in New Zealand is just as important as the security of the British Empire, and the general public does not understand the dangers of the information that is being sent by post. When we realise what people do say, then we must realise that it is necessary to have some sort of check. [392]

The phrase ‘at random’ was disturbing and, despite the statement that all censored mail was stamped, many people if letters were delayed or crumpled would believe that they had been opened surreptitiously. Nash, enquired of as Acting Prime Minister, was also imprecise, if milder. He said that it was not desirable, necessary or possible to censor all internal mail. ‘There are no instructions as to which letters should be subject to censorship, and there are no rules’, but it might be necessary to open certain letters, for example to or from aliens living in New Zealand, ‘if such action is considered advisable or information reaching the authorities makes it expedient.’ [393] Meanwhile Australian authorities stated that though they had power to examine internal mail they would not do so unless

Australia became a theatre of war. [394]

Editorial response varied. The Otago Daily Times, though restive against press censorship, was not perturbed: these were abnormal times, and the enemy could derive much from the trivialities of correspondence. Self censorship was best, and one should avoid all reference to shipping, military matters or rumour. [395]

The Press accepted the need for censorship to intercept, check or trace any leakage of information to the enemy and thought that it was better to take one chance in a million, a random dip, than none at all. Censorship, however, should be closely watched and any abuse brought out into the open. Early in the war, complaints that in overseas mail fair comments on the political and economic situation were being cut had led to inquiry, admission of error and correction. Certainly internal censorship was open to abuse through private or commercial information being improperly used; in any such case protests should be strong and driven home. [396]

The Evening Post thought that while people might not be disturbed at knowing there was power to open private letters, they were disturbed at letters being opened ‘just at random’, surely neither useful nor justifiable. The public should be told why this censorship was done, by whom and under whose instruction. [397] The Auckland Star, while agreeing that the police should have power to intercept a suspected hostile document in the post, was perturbed that ‘we’ may open letters at the order of unnamed persons in three departments without apparently any reason being given. If so, the system was plainly open to abuse and should be tightened. The prior permission of the Postmaster-General or the Minister of Police should be necessary before any letter was opened. Opening letters ‘just at random’ was thoroughly objectionable and suggested that some officials had not enough to do. From the Acting Prime Minister's statement that there were no restrictions and no rules, it appeared that the government had given loose authority for a practice without realising its undesirable possibilities. ‘If a censor may, under “orders,”

or “just at random,” open any letter, to whom is he authorised to communicate the contents?’ [398]

Two members of Parliament, J. A. Lee and H. S. S. Kyle, inquired with temperate disapproval whether postal authorities dipped into mail bags and took odd letters at random for censoring, suggesting that this might be very unproductive and might encourage fraud. The Postmaster-General, P. C. Webb, with characteristic imprecision, answered that censorship was controlled by the censor, who by law was entitled to investigate mail and had nothing to do with the Post and Telegraph Department; he could not say how many letters had been opened, and while it might appear that inland censoring was wrong, he was sure that if members saw some of the letters they would say that it was fully justified. [399] The Auckland Chamber of Commerce, again seeking clarification and holding that inland censorship could be justified only for letters addressed to persons suspected by the military or the police, sought assurance that this was what happened. [400] Dr Lochore believed that most non-partisan people shared the Chamber's view, ‘and in the main’ this was the case. The chief supporters of inland censorship were the Army and the police. The Army thought it necessary to prevent hypothetical enemy agents in Auckland and Wellington from communicating by mail with the hypothetical enemy agent possessing a transmitter. The police profited by a wealth of miscellaneous information, useful though not very significant, concerning aliens, Communists, pacifists, black markets, Army and ship deserters, all of which information had at least a remote connection with the war effort. Concerning matters further afield, the censorship attitude was that any evidence of serious crime discovered in correspondence would have to be communicated to the police; such a case probably did not arise. But the Controller refused to communicate to the police evidence of minor offences by British subjects, such as bookmaking or tax evasion. [401] In October 1944 Sidney Holland said that censorship should not be used as a branch of the Police Department; members perhaps did not know that the censor sent information from letters to other departments which might be interested. He thought K. J. Holyoakes interjected phrase ‘A departmental pimp’ came very near the mark and urged that such practices should not be tolerated for another day. [402]

Within this framework, it was not surprising that a letter from the Auckland Carpenters Union to the secretary of the local anti-conscription council should be opened; [403] or that a letter by a conscientious objector, written the day after his successful appeal and revealing insincerity, should have sent him to prison. [404] A well known Communist, A. J. Birchfield, [405] stated in August 1942 that despite protests every letter and parcel that he received was censored, adding: ‘when special attention is paid to the correspondence of certain members of the bitterest anti-Axis agency, it is more than a joke.’ [406]

Dr Lochore could not see that the war effort was helped by censoring the mail of John Hogan, Social Credit publicist, this being the only case of political interference of which he was aware. [407] However when J. A. Lee, guardedly referring to Hogan, inquired into government policy on interfering with and detaining inland mail, Fraser answered that the censor could legally open, delay or detain any postal packet, but only those in conflict with censorship regulations or the laws of the country need be concerned. [408] The vigilance with which postal censorship was applied to Hogan was indicated by two abortive court charges. A well known Social Credit party member of the Matamata area who sent a 2 s 6 d subscription intended for Hogan not to his own address but to a contact was summoned to answer a censorship evasion charge on 5 August 1942. A similar charge had been laid against a Hawera resident to be heard on 22 July. When the New Zealand Democracy Association wrote to the Minister of Justice about the Hawera case, Mason replied on 20 July that his office had nothing to do with the prosecution, which would not proceed; on 4 August the Matamata case was also withdrawn. [409]

The ‘random’ aspect seemed dominant when a letter from the Mayor of Dunedin to a naval officer arrived four days late and censor-stamped. [410] Similarly, W. P. Endean, member for Remuera, thought it unnecessary that an envelope printed with the name of a reputable insurance company should be opened. [411] The most resounding mistake with internal mail at the censor's table occurred in January 1943 when an airmail letter-packet from the Leader of the Opposition, posted in the South Island to his secretary in Wellington, arrived marked ‘Opened and passed by Censor in New Zealand’. According to statements of censorship officers, it had not actually been read. In the interest of air safety, it was a long-standing post office practice to examine parcels and letter-packets going by inland airmail. With censorship pressure easing as the war improved, this was sometimes done by the censor's section, Holland's letter-packet was thus given the routine post office examination, but marked with the censor's stamp. [412] Holland naturally made the most of it. On 22 January he entered the ‘strongest possible protest’ against this interference. Fraser agreed that he had every right to indignation, adding that his own correspondence had been opened by censorship on several occasions, obviously by mistake. McNamara said that there was ‘very little censorship of inland mail’ and that only by accident would a tired censor inadvertently open letters to or from members of Parliament, which were not subject to censorship; the letter, clearly on official paper, should never have been opened. [413]

The Opposition's proposal, arising from the Holland letter, for an inquiry into postal censorship, [414] was not taken up. A year later, after debate arising from articles intended for the New Statesman which the censor, instructed by the Director of Publicity, refused to transmit, [415] and from other postal complaints, an inquiry was instituted. A committee was set up on 25 March 1944 [416] to inquire into and report upon the allegations made by members of the House on the operations of postal censorship. These terms restricted inquiries, keeping them well away from the Director of Publicity in the narrower, less controversial postal field, where undue censorship would in the main have destroyed evidence of itself. Not many people would produce New Zealand letters that had been censored, or precise descriptions of excisions.

The Committee reported seven months later, on 13 October 1944. It found that there was some confusion in the minds of its members as to the division of authority between postal, press and military censorship. In some postal complaints the evidence was inconclusive, for some there were adequate explanations; in others it was admitted that censors had exceeded their duty; eight examples were published, along with the only written instructions to censors, dated 5 December 1939 and 5 February 1940. [417] The Committee found no evidence of serious departure from these instructions; no instructions had been given by the non-functioning Board of Censorship authorising the excision of political matter from letters; it was clear and was admitted that some errors of judgment were made by the censors, but postal censorship, in all, had been carried out with the maximum of consideration for the convenience and susceptibilities of the public, having regard to the vital duties involved. [418]

The report did not excite much public notice. Though originally allocated an hour of Parliament's time, its debate took most of a Friday. Some papers, such as the Otago Daily Times, the Press and the New Zealand Herald, reported it very briefly; others, including the Dominion, Evening Post and Auckland Star, gave it about two columns. There was in fact very little to bite on; apart from the eight instances examined Committee members had had to fall back on their own experience and hearsay. Lowry remarked that he had never sat on a committee where there was such a paucity of evidence on such an important subject; Oram spoke of a ‘mass of material’ cut away but of this there was not, nor could there be, concrete evidence. Sheat [419] maintained that there was no reason to believe that the cases mentioned to the Committee were the only instances of political censorship. Many letters from men overseas complaining of censorship would not have been kept and in other instances parents would be reluctant to bring forward complaints for fear of consequences for the boys overseas. [420] The Evening Post thought that there were several reasons for this paucity:

The scope of the inquiry was strictly limited, and there were probably a number of people who were prevented from giving evidence on this account. Little publicity was given to the fact that the committee was to sit, and the proceedings were not reported in the Press. Also, the committee confined its sittings to Wellington, and some people in other centres who should have given evidence probably considered it not worth their while to come here. However, the fact that the question has been raised and fully discussed in Parliament should go a long way towards removing cause for complaint in the future. There is one aspect of the question which must be watched very carefully. The Prime Minister stated yesterday that the Censorship Board would not stand for any curtailment of political expression. Any criticism of the Government which did not damage the country should be allowed. This is very wide. Who is to decide what is damaging to the Government without being damaging to the country? During the depression years members of the present Government, then in Opposition, were very severe in their criticism of the then Government, and it would have been easy to make out a case for suppression of many of their statements on the ground that they were damaging to the country. … as soon as the need for security has passed all forms of censorship should be abolished. In the meantime there should be the greatest vigilance to assure that, while full effect is given to security needs, censoring does not encroach on free expression. [421]

Criticism by the Auckland Star of 14 October, in an editorial headed ‘Snooping to Continue’, was stronger. The war, against both

Germany and Japan, was far away and there was not the slightest prospect of it coming nearer. If the postal censorship, based on British regulations, were ever justified in New Zealand, ‘which is doubtful’, how could it be justified now? Britain was a few minutes away from the enemy, was a great base of military operations, and its population included thousands of various nationalities; leakage of information could bring quick and deadly consequences. In contrast, in New Zealand the population was remarkably homogeneous, there was no disaffection, no organisation hostile to the war; opportunities of transmitting information to the enemy were few and easily controlled. Yet censorship of both overseas and internal correspondence was continued and the House had considered only how much the officials concerned had abused their powers without asking why a censorship should be continued at all. The report, said the Star, had lost much of its whitewash when the Opposition members spoke. Oram had said that the Committee's function did not enable it to make a complete report and its members were thrown back on personal knowledge and hearsay. ‘Moreover there was no proof— how could there be?—of the type of matter excised–. A committee which did not, or was so circumscribed that it could not, take account of the strong conviction (especially among servicemen abroad and their relatives at home) that letters are examined and censored for political opinions, or… that the effect of this conviction on servicemen who have been long abroad is harmful, might as well have used otherwise the time it spent on the inquiry.’ Instructions had been issued that party interests were not to be confused with national interest; government members had stressed the difficulty of finding competent staff; yet this staff had to distinguish between political remarks that were not in the interests of the nation and those which might pass. [422]

The Star's, indignation was not echoed widely. Perhaps hope that the war and its censorship would soon be over eased irritation. A month earlier, in September, Broadfoot in the House had asked when internal postal censorship would cease, saying that in the Albany and Silverdale districts numerous letters had been opened. The Prime Minister answered that the Postal Censorship Committee could give a good explanation. It was considered important that news about certain operations in that area should not go out and ‘those in authority’ felt justified in opening letters. Otherwise he did not see any reason for continuing strict letter censorship at all. [423]

McNamara, however, did not shed his responsibilities lightly. In April 1945, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, which had asked for relaxation of postal censorship on the grounds that Australia and the United States no longer found it necessary, stated that the Controller had replied that there had been considerable relaxation during the past six months. There would be more from time to time, but for security reasons the extent could not be made known, nor could the examination of certain classes of mail be discontinued. [424] A few days later McNamara corrected this report, saying that there had been no general relaxation; the change was in volume. As the war receded the number of offending letters diminished, partly because New Zealanders were no longer tempted to mention camps, aerodromes or shipping. Meanwhile, as countries were released from the enemy letters could be sent to them, for instance to France. Internal censorship had decreased also—‘the authorities, now knowing the troublesome correspondents, being able to confine the work more than earlier in the war.’ [425]

Early in June it was stated that as New Zealand was in the Japanese war zone censorship could not be relaxed beyond certain limits, but that internal censorship had been dropped soon after hostilities ceased in Europe. Censorship of mail for liberated and Allied-occupied territories on the Continent would be reduced progressively, as their governments became firmly established. Restrictions on sending to Europe books, newspapers, photographs and other goods ordinarily posted had, following a British decision, recently been lifted. [426] Thus, piecemeal, with no unseemly haste, postal censorship withered away.

As stated earlier, [427] the regulations on 1 September 1939, which created the several engines of censorship, set up as supreme authority the Censorship and Publicity Board, with the Prime Minister as chairman. The Board seldom met. Its last meeting was on 26 April 1940, although it was referred to in correspondence for much longer; supreme censorship control passed quietly to the Prime Minister. At that last meeting the Prime Minister inquired as to the nature of communist and pacifist literature entering the country by post. The Controller of Censorship, McNamara, replied on 8 May:

The volume is fairly heavy and is continuous. As most of it is definitely antagonistic to British ideals and of a subversive character, it is being detained, but some may be reaching the country in larger packages as cargo.

All of it is aimed at converting our people to Communism or other isms, and is definitely against the war effort. [428]

On 26 June the Controller sent the Prime Minister a list of publications of a ‘more or less subversive character which have been received by post from overseas and which are being withheld from delivery.’ He asked what action government desired on this literature and anything similar in future, [429] and on 15 July he sent to the Prime Minister, as requested, a typical selection, varying from ‘outright communistic propaganda to matter of more or less pronounced pacifist leanings.’

So far, booksellers had not been told that such imports were being withheld, and did not know whether non-arrival was due to errors by the publishers, to shipping delays or to enemy action. In due course bills and invoices showed that goods had been shipped, and it could be deduced that packages were either in the censor's office or in the sea. The Customs Department made the issue more clear at the end of July 1940 by telling importers that books and periodicals deemed subversive under the regulations [430] would not be delivered and must not be purchased under import licences. Newspapers reporting this noted that the definition of ‘subversive’ covered a very wide range, which was described briefly. [431] Meanwhile, parcels of withheld books were piling up in censorship offices.

Nash took charge of this branch of censorship, under Fraser. He was Minister of Customs and was interested in books—he had once been a bookseller's agent. To advise on the entry of doubtful publications, he set up an ad hoc and invisible committee of four responsible officials in relevant departments, all more informed in the literary field than were most leading public servants: A. D. McIntosh, Assistant Secretary in the Prime Minister's Department; G. T. Alley [432] of the Country Library Service; J. S. Reid, [433] private secretary to Nash, and, originally, G. R. Laking [434] of Customs. A high degree of discretion marked all book censorship and the existence of this committee was not made known. [435] With a view to releasing as much as possible, the committee was first to tackle the substantial backlog of books and periodicals held under the Controller's policy of stopping all publications connected with Communism, wherever published. [436] Further incoming questionables were to be referred to it as they arrived.

The committee's first report was made in October 1940. [437] Some publications were to be released immediately, sometimes with the remark that they should never have been withheld. Such were the periodicals New Statesman and Nation and New Republic, H. P. Adams's Karl Marx in his Earlier Writings (Allen and Unwin, 1940), ‘academic and not propagandist, by reputable author [and] publisher and sponsored by Birmingham University’; Freedom Calling, the Story of the Secret German Radio, ‘a pro-Ally pamphlet’; Rebels and

Reformers (Allen and Unwin, 1917) by Arthur (Lord) and Dorothy Ponsonby, ‘A book for young people giving short biographical sketches of twelve great scholarly men. No possible justification for stopping it’; Rosa Luxemburg (Gollancz, 1940) by Paul Frolich— ‘Must be dozens of copies in the country. It is not only a biography of a Communist heroine but an attack on Hitlerism. No point in stopping it’; Karl Marx ( Cassell, 1940) by L. Trotsky—‘A highly reputable work setting out the main points in Marxian economics and philosophy. Its author should be an added commendation.’ India Today by R. Palme Dutt (Gollancz, 1940) ‘could reasonably pass’. It was ‘Factual history and statement of case for Indian independence—naturally anti-British in sentiment but not violently so. Greatest objection must be the author whose anti-Imperialist writings have vogue and influence.’

Some material was banned, notably anti-imperialist propaganda urging trade union opposition to the war, such as War and the Labour Movement by Harry Pollitt, secretary of the British Communist party, and several 1940 items from the Workers Library Publisher, New York: W. Y. Z. Foster's The War Crisis, Ernst Fischer's Is this a War for Freedom?, V. I. Jerome's Social Democracy and the War. Other banned categories were advocacy of the Russian regime as in several periodicals, such as Soviets Today, published in

Australia, Moscow News, published in Russia, Labour Monthly, from

Britain, Communist International and New Masses from the United States, and pacifist anti-war propaganda, such as H. R. Shapiro's

What Every Young Man should know about War. On this the committee's comment was: ‘A most pernicious book in present circumstances—a collection of war horrors … given out in the form of questions and answers. Designed to weaken morale of soldiers or recruits’.

Other books were on the borderline, hardly warranting suppression but unhelpful in existing circumstances, and were to be held for decision by the government or the Censorship and Publicity Board. A number of works by or about Lenin and Marx were in this group. So was The Land of Socialism Today and Tomorrow: Reports and Speeches at the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, March 10–12, 1939, from the Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, but with the comment, ‘Very useful publication— would recommend its purchase by Parliamentary Library.’ Molotov's

Soviet Foreign Policy, the meaning of the War in Finland (Workers Library Publisher, 1940) was noted: ‘Text of Molotov's speech. In conformity with present policy towards official propaganda from the Soviet Union, this could also be held.’ Other examples were J. R. Campbell's Questions and Answers on Communism (Lawrence and Wishart, 1938)—‘Communist propaganda—not subversive except in so far as Communism may be regarded as subversive’; Steven MacGregor's Truth and Mr Chamberlain (Fore Publications, London 1939)—‘Anti-Chamberlain—fair enough but unwise to circulate it just now’; Falsehood in War Time by Arthur (Lord) Ponsonby—‘First published in 1928—an analysis of lies circulated throughout the countries engaged in the last war. This highly respectable book had a very wide circulation and there may still be hundreds of copies in New Zealand in libraries and on sale, but insofar as it throws doubts on the authenticity of official news and the integrity of official propagandists, it may do harm now.’ [438]

It should be remembered that in 1940, with long-standing suspicion of Russia exacerbated by the pact with Germany and the war with Finland, many people felt that Britain would yet be at war with Russia and Communists were regarded as the enemy within. The publications committee suggested that long-established doctrinaire works could be permitted unless they had direct harmful application to existing circumstances, which should not occur often. The main test was the use likely to be made of them: ‘it does seem reasonable to assume that the importation of hundreds of any one title can only be for proselytising purposes and the dissemination of large numbers must be regarded as a serious matter, even though these are well-known doctrinaire publications of some age.’ Thus 20 pamphlets by Lenin on Communist doctrine and history, printed in the Little Lenin Library series (Lawrence and Wishart, New York) and sold for sixpence, were highly dubious. There were also considerable numbers of more substantial works by Marx and Engels and their disciples, selling at about 2 s 6 d, in the Marxist–Lenin Library series, published by the Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Writers, Moscow. Each group should be judged as a whole. They were already classics, largely of historical interest, and likely to be studied only by enthusiastic Communists and left intellectuals, but communist believers opposed to the war would doubtless derive much comfort and guidance from them. They were not subversive under the regulations, but if it were government policy to prevent people from getting communist literature these publications should be withheld. ‘If it is not considered worth while using the censorship for such purposes then they could be passed after perusal by the censor.’ Meanwhile, as examples, The Communist Manifesto, The Poverty of Philosophy and Critique of the Gotha Programme by Marx and Engels along with Lenin's The State and Revolution, Imperialism, Religion and Letters from Afar were withheld from their importers, pending the decision of higher authority.

Contemporary works on Communism should each be judged on its merits, stated the report. Many came from Russia. Some were factual analyses and descriptions of Russian economic and social conditions, some were theoretical expositions on Communism, others were well produced propaganda with no direct reference to politics. ‘It does not seem that any reasonable objection can be sustained against the release of these publications unless it is decided to ban all publications from Russia. If this is not to be the policy of the Government, then a small proportion of this propaganda material could be released.’ [439]

Periodicals were a pressing and serious problem. Some which should never have been stopped were already months out of date. Others which should be banned were a loss to traders who, if told earlier that they were prohibited, could have cancelled their orders. The committee suggested that where those finally released had become unsaleable through official delay, the trader should choose whether to take them or to send them back to the publisher, with the government paying postage; if the publisher refused to make a refund, the government should compensate the bookseller for his loss. With those prohibited, he could choose between destroying them or returning them at his own expense.

For the future, the committee recommended that when publiccations were withheld the bookseller should be informed and given the option of returning them to the publisher at his own expense. A confidential list of those prohibited should be sent to postal censorship and customs authorities for use in checking applications for import licences as well as in arresting parcels.

The situation at the end of 1940 boiled down to this: booksellers repeatedly asked to be told what titles were proscribed; censorship, showing much skill in dodging questions, refused this information and was itself uncertain about many books and periodicals on which it awaited higher direction. Postal and customs authorities had further confused the issue by withholding some obviously virtuous books, guilty only by association in packages with suspected ones, thereby increasing the bewilderment and exasperation of booksellers.

The traders most concerned were the Progressive bookshops in

Auckland and Christchurch and Modern Books in Wellington. These represented book demands which were in varying degrees leftist or intellectual. In Modern Books during 1940 a leftist group had gained dominance on the management committee and had stepped up orders for communist literature. On 15 November 1940 the manager, Roy Parsons, [440] sent to several Labour members of Parliament a statement of the difficulties and anomalies created by current censorship. Forwarding a copy to Nash on 21 November, J. C. Beaglehole [441] explained that the incoming committee had been ‘directed to mobilise New Zealand against the censorship, but has preferred to go a bit more quietly for a start. This letter has been sent to a few Labour M.P.'s, four or five in all I think (none of the wild men) in the hope that the matter may be brought up in caucus in a reasonable way.’ [442] Parsons's letter described the bookshop's uncertainties and losses, pointing out that even its enlarged communist material orders (196 copies of Stalin's Foundations of Leninism, 100 of Lenin's The State and Revolution, 53 sets of Readings in Leninism) were still only a minor part of its total trade, and that these books did not themselves transgress the censorship regulations. He claimed that the current process wasted both the trader's money and sterling funds, and strongly urged that government should make its censorship policy known, inform importers promptly when their books were withheld for more than a week for examination, allow them to return prohibited ones immediately, and publish in the Gazette, as during the last war, a list of those refused admission. He added that the Wellington Co-operative Book Society Ltd's (Modern Books') annual general meeting had criticised current censorship, stressing the paradox that in England, so close to the battle, there was more freedom to read and to write than there was in New Zealand, and holding that any standards established in England should be the absolute maximum here.

The publications committee, [443] regretting the delay and the retention of innocuous books, accepted that importers should have full and immediate opportunity to return forbidden books. But it was disturbed by the influx of cheap pamphlets designed to educate people in Marxian ideology, even though these in many cases did not offend against the regulations and for that very reason had been held for ministerial ruling. As Communists and pacifists opposed the war, they were hardly reasonable in expecting their literature to enter freely. The committee did not wish to give publicity to banned books by listing them in the Gazette [444] remarking further that ‘objections to the adoption of the rule that all literature which circulates in England should be freely admitted here are obvious.’

This comment is explained by events in other areas of censorship. Throughout the war, the Director of Publicity did not accept publication in another part of the Commonwealth as justification for publication in New Zealand. [445] Moreover, a few days earlier, on 14 November 1940, Fraser had complained to the British government that it had allowed criticisms of its conduct of the war to be published which he would not have allowed to be released here had his attention been drawn to them previously, and he could not understand why they were allowed to pass United Kingdom censorship. [446] Robustly, Churchill replied:

We dwell under a drizzle of carping criticism from a few members and from writers in certain [columns?] of the Press. This has an irritating effect and would not be tolerated in any other country exposed to our present stresses. On the other hand it is a good thing that any Government should be … made aware of any shortcomings in time to remedy them. You must not suppose that everything is perfect, but we are all trying our best, and the war effort is enormous and the morale admirable. All good wishes. [447]

Any suggestion at this time that English censorship standards should be enough for New Zealand obviously would not have been acceptable to J. T. Paul and Peter Fraser.

The publications committee pressed for decisions on its uncertainties. On 15 January 1941 the Prime Minister decreed that no books or papers should be admitted which would in any way interfere with the war effort, and this would include all literature advocating communism; a list of publications already banned would be circulated confidentially to Censorship and Customs authorities, but no public list would be issued. Importers would be warned that their licences would be cancelled if they tried to import subversive material. When stock was withheld, the Controller of Censorship should notify the importer, giving him the option of returning it at his own expense or having it interned till the war's end. For periodicals that should have been released but had been kept overlong, the government paid the wholesale purchase price, and also paid for some publications damaged by rats in the censor's office. [448]

With this guidance the committee, on which Johnsen [449] of Customs now replaced George Laking, worked through more than one hundred parcels of books. Early in May 1941 it sent to the Controller of Censorship a list of 109 banned books, pamphlets and periodicals, together with 91 titles released from suspension. The former included the 20 Little Lenin Library pamphlets and many more recent works on Russia and on communism. Most of Marx was released but not the Manifesto of the Communist Party; pacifist and anti-war publications were banned. Further judgments and revisions were made from time to time. On 22 August 1941 the publications committee gave 19 ‘stop’ and 46 ‘release’ decisions on a list submitted a ‘short time ago’. Some of the cleared titles show the wide-ranging concern of Customs and postal examiners: Nehru's

Autobiography (John Lane, 1941); A. H. Arlitt's Adolescent Psychology (Allen and Unwin, 1937); Lust for Life (John Lane, 1940), a biographical novel on the painter Van Gogh by Irving Stone; E. F. Griffith's Modern Marriage and Birth Control (Gollancz, 1940), and Susan Isaacs's The Children we Teach (University of London, 1939). In the political area those released included R. S. W. Pollard's Conscience and Liberty (Allen and Unwin, 1940); S. Hook's

Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx (Gollancz, 1933); H. P. Adams's Karl Marx in his Earlier Writings (Allen and Unwin, 1940), which had been on the banned list of May 1941; Maxim Gorki's Culture and the People (Lawrence and Wishart, 1939); J. Strachey's Why you should be a Socialist (Gollancz, 1938); W. Gallacher's Revolt on the Clyde (John Lane, 1940); Post-War History of the British Working Class (Gollancz, 1937) by Allen Hutt;

Is this an Imperialist War? ( British Labour Party) by H. Laski, and

Soviet Communism (Gollancz, 1937) by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

Pacifist literature, such as A. Baxter's [450] We Will Not Cease (Gollancz, 1939) and publications of the British Central Board for Conscientious Objectors continued under the ban, as did Stalin's Leninism (Allen and Unwin, 1940), Lenin on Religion (Little Lenin Library) and W. Hannington's Industrial History in Wartime (Lawrence and Wishart, 1940).

Censorship procedures in mid-1941 were instanced by the efforts of Modern Books to learn what was being withheld. At an interview between the bookshop's acting-secretary and a censorship official on 19 June no information was given on the points raised, namely, the numbers and titles of books held by the Censor at present and likely to be withheld in future shipments. [451] McNamara wrote:

Apparently the writer desires to be informed of the titles of certain publications deemed to be unsuitable for releasal. This information has not been furnished for the reason that Cabinet decision as conveyed to me is to the effect that the list of prohibited publications is (a) to be circulated confidentially for the guidance of Censorship and Customs Authorities, and (b) to be withheld from publication.

It is obvious that the latter direction would be nullified by appraising the writer of the list of banned publications.

It is open to the importers of unsuitable literature to request that it be returned to the publishers. This can be arranged without disclosing the titles of books so returned. [452]

Nash's committee members held that such reticence was impractical. Importers should be told what books could not be released; ‘Even if the censorship authorities return them, the importer would some time get a credit note, and his knowledge of the titles would only be delayed.’ The committee thought that McNamara was attempting to impose more obscurity than was proposed by Eraser's direction on 15 January 1941 that an importer should be notified when his stock was withheld and given the option of returning it at his own expense or having it held until the war's end. [453]

Correspondence in 1942 shows that the committee's view was adopted; it also shows that although for nearly a year Russia had been actively in the war as an ally and the Communist party in New Zealand had strenuously reversed its opposition to the war, these facts were not quickly reflected in the prohibition or release of books. In June 1942 the Progressive Book Society of Auckland was advised by the Collector of Customs that certain books were being held. These were: the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels; two works by Stalin on Leninism; W. Gallacher's Twenty Years (about the Communist party in Britain); five titles by Lenin from the Little Lenin Library; two of the Marxist Text Book series—No 5, W. Hannington's Industrial History in Wartime, and No 7, British Trade Unionism, a short history by Allen Hutt. [454] The manager of Progressive Books stated: ‘Every one of these titles has been passed by the censors during the present conflict either to us or to an importer in another centre. The position seems anomalous.’ Lenin's Imperialism seemed to be the book most consistently seized, although its concepts were widely established in the field of political economy. While press and radio statements were currently paying tributes to Lenin, the ‘present policy of censorship results, however unevenly and irrationally, in restricting access to his writings.’ There were sufficient quantities of all his works in New Zealand for any one taking a little trouble to obtain them; many of the ideas of Lenin are not those commonly accepted in this country but this in itself is no ground for suppression. Mein Kampf, for example, can enter the country freely. It seems to us that the time is appropriate for the free admission of Lenin's works into the country.

Stalin's works were likewise well known and he was the head of a friendly state. The Communist Manifesto, written in 1847, was an historical document; it was a set book at Victoria University College in 1941, but students could not obtain it. In England, censorship prohibited the export of books which were subversive or likely to damage the war effort, and this should be sufficient safeguard for New Zealand. [455] In reply the Minister of Customs, on 27 June, regretted that the books listed could not be released; they could be returned to the publisher ‘at your expense’ or held until the end of the war. The suggestions concerning the works of Lenin and Stalin and books exported by the United Kingdom had been referred to the Censorship and Publicity Board. [456]

Occasional questions in the House on books withheld were adroitly answered by Eraser. On 19 March 1942 Lee said that copies of Sir

Richard Acland's [457] What Will it be Like? (Left Book Club) and

H. G. Wells's Guide to the New World; a handbook of Constructive World Revolution were being withheld from Wellington booksellers: was the standing of these authors appreciated? Fraser replied that the House would not expect him to give any estimate of the literary standards and attainments of the Censor; he did not know whether the Censor had ever heard of H. G. Wells or Sir Richard Acland— ‘I cannot honestly vouch for that.’ He had no knowledge of the withholding himself but he would make enquiries. There had been many revelations from H. G. Wells which had not amounted to much, but perhaps this one would be more successful. Fraser was anxious to see both his book and the other by ‘that able writer Acland’, which sounded ‘most enticing’, as soon as possible. [458] Again, on 9 July 1942 Atmore, spokesman for the Society for Closer Relations with Russia, asked if the Prime Minister knew that Leninism by Stalin and the cheap books of the Little Lenin Library were not allowed to circulate freely, although the more expensive books by Lenin were not withheld from sale and circulation. [459] Fraser replied that ‘the matter is being investigated with a view to its receiving further consideration.’ The government would gladly ensure that any books currently published in or about Russia were given wide distribution. However there were a number of speeches and pamphlets written before Russia entered the war which in the interests of the

United Nations were unsuitable for circulation, stirring up undesirable feeling in the community when unity was all important. [460]

During November 1942, in censorship as on several other fronts, the tide turned. While snow fell on the defenders of Stalingrad, the banned list was shortened. The Communist Manifesto was released, along with the works of Lenin and Stalin, Hutt's British Trade Unionism, Hannington's Industrial History in Wartime and others of the Marxist Text Book series; Questions and Answers on Communism by J. R. Campbell; the Daily Worker (British newspaper) and Hands off the Daily Worker by J. B. S. Haldane; R. Kidd's British Liberty in Danger, W. Holmes's Britain and Russia, and Pat Sloan's Revolution for Socialism and Russia and the League of Nations (these last three published by the Russia Today Society); Political and Social Doctrines of Communism by Palme Dutt, and Serving my Time by

Harry Pollitt. The periodicals Moscow News, New Masses, Communist: International and Communist Review all became admissible.

The banned list now had only 60 titles. Some were straightforward pacifism, such as C. O.'s Hansard by the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors, or Baxter's We Will Not Cease. Some were anti-war on other grounds, such as Hawkers of Death (on private arms trading) by P. Noel Baker; others by communist writers and publishers exposed the exploitation of the working class in war: Fair Play for Servicemen and their Families by D. F. Springhall, Men behind the War by J. Johnson, Wartime Profits by the British Labour Research Department, The Empire & the War by the Communist party of Britain, Democracy for Whom by L. L. Sharkey. Some were pre-1941 expositions of Russian foreign policy, now embarrassing for everyone; several concerned India, such as India's demand for freedom by the University Labour Federation, and Why must India fight? by Krishna Menon. Lord Ponsonby's Falsehood in Wartime and Steven MacGregor's Truth and Mr Chamberlain were still banned, along with Aldous Huxley's What are you going to do about it?

An unsigned carbon copy of a personal note to the Director of the WEA at Auckland on 24 December 1942, very probably by A. D. McIntosh, tells much about the underground ramifications of book censorship: Just a note to say Merry Christmas and to tell you that it was found possible to arrange that the ban on the Classics should be lifted. Distribution is taking place in small batches so as not to shock—

(a) | the Booksellers,
(b) | the general public,
(c) | the Censorship Authorities, and
(d) | the Prime Minister.

It would be tactful and helpful to me if no public complaint was made about the way in which the said publications were being released; but after all it is better to have a slice of cake than no bread at all. [461]

Most books were banned for their political content, but one among those condemned in November 1942 was held to be disruptive on religious grounds. No Friend of Democracy; a study of Roman Catholic Politics— their Influence on the Course of the Present War and the Growth of Fascism by Edith Moore (published by Watts and Co.,

London, 1941) attacked the Church vigorously for its hand-in-glove dealing with Fascism. It came into prominence after the censorship authorities confiscated a packet addressed to the Rationalist Association. This ‘stupid seizure’ was the subject of a telegram from J. A. Lee to the Prime Minister, who in June 1943 referred to A. D. McIntosh the task of defending the ban. As it was never intended that the existence of the publications committee should be known, McIntosh suggested that the Controller of Censorship should sign an attached memorandum addressed to the chairman of the Censorship and Publicity Board (Fraser himself). This stated that

No Friend of Democracy was withheld because of a direction given in January 1941 [462] that no books or papers were to be admitted which would in any way interfere with the war effort, and the further direction that no books, pamphlets or documents calculated or likely to cause strong sectarian strife or bitterness should be allowed circulation during the war period. The prohibition was similar to that imposed by the Minister of Customs on 7 November 1940 on Jehovah's Witnesses' literature as subversive. [463] Theological and sectarian matters normally were outside the range of the censorship authorities, but what in peace time would merely be subject of controversy in time of war could divide people into hostile camps, thus hampering the unity of the war effort. No Friend of Democracy, giving offence to a large section of the community by impugning its loyalty to the cause of democracy, could harm the unity of the country. [464]

This memorandum was the basis of a letter from Fraser to Lee. [465] Lee in reply claimed that No Friend of Democracy was not sectarian but was factual history and that Fraser's argument would justify the banning of rationalistic literature, a history of the Popes, and attacks on clericalism's support of Franco's dictatorship or its praise of Salazar's [466] Portugal. He also claimed that the Witnesses of Jehovah were banned not for criticism of the Roman Catholic Church but for their early anti-war stand. [467]

Fraser answered with what he held to be the New Zealand attitude. When Catholic boys, equally with boys of all faiths, were away risking and losing their lives, I certainly would not be a consenting party to having the Church they belong to and for which they and their parents have such devoted love attacked in the land for which they are fighting. My only test at the moment is, will this publication help the war effort or injure it; will it unite our people or divide them; will it spread good will, friendship, and solidarity in our cause inside the Dominion, or start bitter strife? [468] I am convinced that the circulation of this particular book will create disunity, bad feeling and bitterness, and will divide instead of unite the people of the Dominion. I cannot see that in a country where all the Churches are solidly united in support of our cause anything but harm can result from attacks upon any particular Church.

The Rationalistic movement circulated a petition urging that censorship involved important questions of principle and expedience. Had the Censor acted on sound principles with full appreciation of the proper limits of his authority? Was there pressure upon the Censor from political, religious, social, industrial or other agencies? It asked for a full inquiry into the censorship and its propriety or expediency in regard to civil and religious liberty. It was presented to Parliament on 19 May 1943, signed by 700 persons including, from Wellington, four university professors and three lecturers, a research worker, a librarian, a teacher and a solicitor. [469] The petitions committee, on 25 August, made no recommendations. In the ensuing debate, Lee listed other publications which could as reasonably be banned. Fraser read out his correspondence with Lee and said that while there was probably a case to be stated on the petition's basis, ‘over and above and dominating everything is the necessity for preventing sectarian strife among our people, setting creed against creed, when all should be united in the war effort.’ [470] The petition lay upon the table.

In libraries, censorship was mainly self-imposed. [471] In August 1940, prompted by the Customs warning against the importing of subversive literature, [472] the official bulletin of the New Zealand

Library Association recommended that librarians should themselves censor their stocks by war standards. In these times, ‘what must be ruled out as dangerous to the State comes to include activities which in peace time were considered undesirable but not dangerous. Subversion, instead of being watched and controlled, must be stamped out.’ Before the war, librarians had rightly felt it their duty to allow all shades of political opinion upon their shelves, but books and periodicals then not dangerous might become so. The Customs warning should place every librarian on his guard; it was the duty of each to ‘examine his shelves and his periodical files to ascertain what he has which could, if placed in the wrong hands, be dangerous to the common good’. Ignorance would be no excuse, either in law or in ethics. [473]

Six months later Dr G. H. Scholefield, General Assembly Librarian, in his presidential address to the Association, repeated this theme. Normally librarians opposed censorship and it was their duty to provide fullest information, including works that might in some circumstances encourage defiance of authority; but in war democracy, to save itself, must yield up temporarily some of its privileges and liberties, surrendering to its rulers some of the authority that in the long run belonged to the people themselves. Whether they said so or not, librarians all recognised that it was not advisable nor in common sense to make as freely available as at normal times literature that had a subversive tendency and that might encourage minorities, perhaps of well-meaning and high-minded people, to action inimical to the full efficiency of the State at war. When the whole democratic system was in danger, the individual librarian had a definite responsibility to see that books which clearly tended to wean a reader from his sense of duty and loyalty to constituted authority were not made too freely available in quarters where such peril might arise. It might be said, Scholefield continued, that the librarian was taking too much on himself in judging what was subversive and what was not. ‘We are only human and liable to be wrong, but we cannot surrender our responsibility for seeing that there is not a broadcast presentation of shades of opinion which might make the task of governing and of making war in any degree less effective.’ [474]

This was well considered, well expressed, dignified; but how, without example, should an individual librarian interpret such phrases as ‘books which clearly tended to wean a reader from his sense of duty and loyalty to constituted authority’? Presumably there would be subjective and varying judgments, with the more timid being the most restrictive. Nor was the matter left to the librarian's own conscience or opinion: public-minded citizens could exert pressure. For instance an RSA activist pointed out certain books on the shelves of the Wellington Public Library to Mayor Hislop, who promptly had them removed and informed the Commissioner of Police, who was surprised that such literature had been allowed into the country. [475]

But however willing librarians were to exercise their own discretion they were aware by mid-1941 that others were checking and delaying their imports. The New Zealand Library Association at its annual conference asked the government if any powers were granted under emergency regulations for censoring books, on what principles censorship was based, and to whom it was entrusted. Further, if there was a list of prohibited books, the Association would be glad to receive a copy of it. [476] Nash, as Acting Prime Minister, signed a reply drafted by McNamara:

I have to advise that, as a general principle, the transmission is prohibited of all classes of literature which, after careful examination, may reasonably be deemed to be subversive or prejudicial to the prosecution of the war effort in New Zealand. I have also to advise that, at present, there is no specific list of books which are prohibited from transmission. [477]

This bromide did not satisfy the librarians' secretary, J. Norrie, [478] who again inquired firmly ‘to what officers the examination of books is entrusted’, both for prohibiting literature which might be deemed subversive or prejudicial to the war effort and for censorship within the range of the Indecent Publications Act. Were they qualified to judge what they examined, and could the Controller give any further particulars about the principles on which they worked? In several instances, well known classics which should not have been questioned had been delayed for investigation. [479] Nash did not sign a brief letter proffered by McNamara, which merely stated that examination was delegated to persons considered fully competent to undertake that class of work; he signed a longer and more amiable letter, explaining that the Controller was assisted by a Government-appointed committee of men considered competent to interpret the regulations fairly and also, through familiarity with a wide range of literature, able to form balanced judgments. ‘You will realise that this matter of censorship is not the easiest nor the most pleasant of tasks and it is with considerable reluctance that the Government has had to exercise this form of supervision, but it is inevitable in time of war. I am quite willing to arrange for you personally to have a confidential discussion with one of the officers responsible for this work.’ [480]

On 28 August Norrie, after consulting his central executive, asked for such a discussion. This was authorised by Nash, despite awareness that Norrie's main purpose would be ‘to get the list of prohibited books which Cabinet said was to be kept “secret.”’ [481] This list, however, was not divulged until two years later. In October 1943 a committee of university and public librarians, charged to recommend the purchase of books which it believed should be available but of which there were no copies in New Zealand, was told by a local Customs authority that a book requested by a university English department was on a prohibited list. The committee's secretary then asked for and received, confidentially, a list showing decisions to date by the Minister of Customs on the importation of doubtful publications. [482]

Thus as the war moved on, the censorship of books, while remaining almost invisible save to the knowledgeable few, adjusted to several pressures. Booksellers and librarians, reluctant to waste money or to risk import licenses, avoided books which they thought might be withheld. The authorities, while anxious to avoid public controversy, were wary lest dissension should be fanned by communist literature and by this premise were led to check even classics such as the Communist Manifesto. With Russia established as the stalwart ally-in-arms this attitude was less and less tenable, but Nash was notorious for delaying decisions, and the Labour hierarchy's dislike of local Communists remained. Belatedly, however, the forbidden list was shortened and by the end of 1943 was made known, in confidence, to responsible persons.

Thereafter both the press and the files are silent on book censorship. Increasingly, book supplies were severely curtailed at source and booksellers more and more tended to order only ‘safe’ literature, while hoping that the war's conclusion would soon end the problem. People at large were by then, in any case, conditioned to accept many gaps in imports.

[1] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap I, pp. 1–12

[2] see p. 997

[3] Radio news had then not developed beyond the nightly reading of news from the main daily papers. The re-broadcasting of BBC bulletins was the important news function.

[4] That is, summarised, to bring into hatred or conrempt or to excite disaffection against His Majesty's person, the government or constitution of the United Kingdom or New Zealand or the administrarion of justice; to attempt ro procure other than by lawful means alteration to the constitution, laws or government of the United Kingdom or New Zealand; to raise discontent or disaffection among His Majesty's subjects, or hostility between different classes. It was not seditious to intend in good faith to show that Crown measures were mistaken or misled, to point out errors or defects in the government or constitution of the United Kingdom or New Zealand or in the administration of justice, or to attempt alteration by lawful means; or to point out, for their removal, matters producing ill-will between classes.

[5] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap I, pp. 8a, 9

[6] Ibid., p. 9, quoting ONS 89, chap IV, p. 3

[7] Ibid., p. 10, quoting ONS 89

[8] Created in 1937 by expanding the Defence Committee of Cabinet into a kind of‘“Defence Policy and Requirements” Committee’. See McGibbon, pp. 273–4

[9] McNamara, George, CBE('52) (1881–1953): Dir-Gen P & T 1926–39: Controller Censorship from 1939

[10] Hall, John Herbert, OBE(‘67) (1897–1975): Ed Hawera Star, 1925, Christchurch Sun 1927, Dominion 1933–7; NZ rep Glasgow Exhibition 1937; at LoN 1938–9; Dep Dir Publicity 1939–40; official war corres with NZ forces overseas 1940–1, PRO 2NZEF 1941, POW to 1945; Publicity Mngr, Rlwys Dept 1945–6; C'wealth Relations Trust bursar in b'casting 1952; exec positions NZBS 1956 to Asst Dir 1962, establishing NZBC news service; official historian NZBC

[11] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 2

[12] McLintock, in NZ Encyclopaedia, vol II, p. 758

[13] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, pp. 3–4, with note by A. D. McIntosh

[14] see p. 979

[15] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 9

[16] NZ Herald, 7 Mar 40, p. 10; Dominion, 30 Jan 41, p. 9

[17] see p. 928

[18] Press, 12 May 41

[19] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 10, quoting Dir Publicity to Acting PM, 9 May 41, C & P 1/5

[20] Ibid., chap II, p. 7

[21] Ibid., chap II, p. 10

[22] see p. 854

[23] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 4, quoting C & P 3/16

[24] Ibid., chap II, p. 5; NZPD, vol 257, p. 226; see p. 897, fn 36

[25] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 5

[26] Ibid., chap VI, p. 8; see p. 919

[27] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 9

[28] See chapter V

[29] See pp. 886– 7

[30] See p. 213

[31] See p. 216

[32] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap III, p. 3

[33] Henderson, Andrew Kennaway: d 1960 aet 81; Ed Tomorrow 1933–40

[34] Copies of this note are bound in many collections of Tomorrow

[35] Press, 16 Sep 40, p. 10. Letter by L. A. Efford, a Christchurch pacifist, with comment by H. G. R. Mason, Attorney-General, that he did not have to secure a conviction before seizing a printing press; appeal could be made to the Supreme Court, where decision was final.

[36] In Australia, where censorship of the Niagara sinking was less close than in New Zealand, some passengers' reference to ‘a smell of cordite’ led to speculation which Paul thought ‘mischievous and unhelpful’. He explained to an editor: ‘The plain fact in this connection is that we did not want to advertise that Britain was in such sore need that she wanted cartridges from us, and that we sent supplies that were badly needed here.’ Director of Publicity to F. A. Clarke, Auckland Star, 26 Jul 40, Paul Papers, File 432. Later, however, a 1943 publicity pamphlet produced by Paul stated: ‘After Dunkirk we shipped half our rifle ammunition to Britain, where it was urgently needed. Unfortunately this ammunition was lost with the “ Niagara”’. New Zealand at War, p. 8

[37] Auckland Star, 3 Jul 40

[38] Truth, 18, 30 Dec 40, pp. 12, 7

[39] Cornish, Hon Henry Havelock, KC('34) (1887–1952): co-founder, first headmaster, Wellesley College, Wgtn; barrister & solicitor Wgtn 1918–30, Professor Law VUC 1930–4; Solicitor-General 1934–44; Judge Supreme Court 1945–50

[40] Paul's statement later given to newspaper conference at Rotorua. Napier Daily Telegraph, 26 Feb 41, p. 8; Standard, 27 Feb 41, p. 7

[41] Ostler and Christie both received the maximum sentence, 12 months, upheld on appeal ( Press, 18, 19, 21 Mar, 4 Apr 41, pp. 10, 2, 12, 10), and were not allowed bail in the interval, although a petition to the Prime Minister seeking bail was signed by more than 1300 persons. NZ Herald, 4 Mar 41, p. 6

[42] Otago Daily Times, 18 Feb 41

[43] Napier Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb 41, p. 8

[44] Standard, 27 Feb 41, p. 7

[45] Press, 26 Feb 41, p. 9

[46] Star–Sun, 3 Mar 41

[47] Press, 4 Mar 41. The Press stated in conclusion that contrary to the Director's claim ‘part of the report of the case was excised on his instructions’. This referred to Christie's denunciation of the Public Safety regulations as Fascist, deleted from the Press Association report on Paul's order. WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 3

[48] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 4, quoting Dir Publicity to A. Burns, 22 Feb 41, C & P D20

[49] Evening Post, 27 Feb 41, p. 10

[50] Horton, Sir Henry, Kt('35) (1870–1943): Managing Dir NZ Herald, Auckland Weekly News; chmn NZ, branch Empire Press Union

[51] Evening Post, 21 Feb 41, p. 6

[52] Dominion, 11 Mar 41, p. 8

[53] Ibid., 10 Mar 41, p. 9

[54] Evening Post, 10 Mar 41, p. 8

[55] NZ Herald, 11 Mar 41, p. 6

[56] This phrase came from the Dominion, though other papers approached the same idea. Actually there were no bodies appointed ready to handle industrial disputes, while betweeen workers and management, representations and refusals could go on for a long time, for months, even years.

[57] One of 1941's minor Japanese crises was alarming the Pacific, and Germany was moving into the Balkans.

[58] NZ Herald, 11 Mar 41

[59] Auckland Star, 11 Mar 41

[60] Otago Daily Times, 10 Mar 41

[61] Evening Post, 11 Mar 41, p. 8; Dominion, 11 Mar 41, p. 8

[62] NZ Herald, 12 Mar 1941, p. 8

[63] NZPD, vol 259, p. 73

[64] Discussions were obviously going on.

[65] Press, 13 Mar 41

[66] Dominion, 13 Mar 41

[67] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 7

[68] Information supplied to author by the Sec RTA. Feb 74

[69] Ibid.

[70] Information from Gen Mngr Rlwys, 29 Apr 75

[71] Otago Daily Times, 18 Mar 41

[72] NZPD, vol 259, pp. 73, 76

[73] Ibid., pp. 77–80, 82

[74] Ibid., pp. 101–3

[75] Evening Star, 20 Mar 41

[76] Evening Post, 21 Mar 41

[77] Dominion, 21 Mar 41

[78] Otago Daily Times, 21 Mar 41

[79] Ibid., 22 Mar 41, p. 13. The Industrial Worker had communist connections: it began after the People's Voice was suppressed and later merged with In Print, which again merged with the People's Voice when it resumed in July 1943. Silverstone later became secretary of the Wellington branch of the Communist party. WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 6

[80] Auckland Star, 20 Mar 41

[81] Press, 21 Mar 41

[82] NZ Herald, 20 Mar 41

[83] Mansfield, Lord Justice William (1773–1821): Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas 1756–88

[84] NZ Herald, 22 Mar 41

[85] Ibid., 21 Mar 41

[86] Auckland Star, 22 Mar 41

[87] Star–Sun, 20 Mar 41

[88] Ibid., 29 Mar 41

[89] Paul Papers, File 419

[90] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VI, p. 13, referring to C & P telegram files. See chap XI for course of strikes

[91] NZPD, vol 261, p. 685

[92] see p. 904

[93] Dominion, 31 Mar 41, p. 8, report sent to Fraser by Jordan, NZHC London

[94] NZPD, vol 257, pp. 134–5

[95] Munro, James Wright (1870–1945): MP (Lab) Dunedin Nth 1922–5, 1928–

[96] NZPD, vol 259, p. 610

[97] Ibid., p. 668

[98] Seddon, Richard John (1845–1906): b UK, to NZ 1866; MP (Lib) Hokitika 1879–81, Kumara 1881–90, Westland 1890–1906; Min Public Works, Mines, Defence 1890, Treasury, P & T 1896, PM 1893–1906

[99] NZPD, vol 259, p. 679

[100] Evening Post, 31 Jul 41

[101] Press, 15 Mar 44, p. 2; NZPD, vol 264, p. 378

[102] Auckland Star, 11 Aug 44, p. 6; NZPD, vol 265, pp. 345–6

[103] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap XI, p. 4, quoting Dir Publicity to Acting PM, 6 Jun 41, C & P 3/5

[104] See p. 298

[105] NZPD, vol 259, p. 286

[106] Ibid., pp. 287–8

[107] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap V, p. 6, referring to Officer i/c Publicity to Dir Publicity, 26 Aug 40, C & P 3/5

[108] Ibid., chap V, pp. 6–7

[109] Ibid., chap V, p. 7, quoting Dir Publicity to Acting PM, 22 Jul 41, C & P 3/5

[110] Ibid., chap IV, p. 10

[111] see p. 892

[112] Leys, Sir Cecil, Kt('31) (1877–1950): chmn N7 Newspapers Ltd from 1929; delegate Empire Press Conf 1925; chmn United Press 1932, 1938–9

[113] Auckland Star, Star–Sun, NZ Woman's Weekly and Farmers Weekly

[114] Evening Post, 21 May 41, p. 8. Here Paul was able to reply that while no editor would willingly inform the enemy, that very day under the heading ‘Bacon Congestion Relieved by British Shipment’ a paper had said that 8000 tons would be uplifted within the next three months. WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IV, p. 12, quoting Dir Publicity to editors, 23 May 41

[115] Evening Post, 21 May 41, p. 8

[116] Grey River Argus, 28 May 41

[117] Otago Daily Times, 31 May 41, p. 8

[118] Ibid., 4 Jun 41

[119] Auckland Star, 29 May 41; Dominion, 5 Jun 41

[120] Press, 3 Jun 41. This was the criticism that evoked the letter from Paul to Nash quoted above, p. 914

[121] NZPD, vol 259, p. 733; Dominion, 7 Aug 41, p. 8

[122] Auckland Star, 10 Jul 41, p. 10

[123] Ibid., 7 Aug 41; Star–Sun, 7 Aug 41; Press, 8 Aug 41

[124] See p. 578

[125] eg, ‘The Roman Catholic Church is at best a dangerous ally to any cause… the supreme opportunist, no less crafty than Nazism….The Vatican sits astride the fence, feet dangling on both sides… ready to pop on the winning side just as soon as it is possible to estimate which will be the winning side. Neither the Church, the Pope, the Vatican, nor any good Catholic is anti-Hitler or anti-Fascist.’ WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap V, p. 3

[126] Ibid., chap V, pp. 3–5

[127] McKeefry, Cardinal Peter Thomas Bertram (1889–1975): Sec to Bishop Liston of Auckland 1930–47; Co-adjutor to Archbishop O'Shea of Wellington 1947; Archbishop Wellington from 1954; Cardinal 1969

[128] John A. Lee's Weekly during August and September had several articles accepting Russia as an ally and hoping that both Russia and the democracies might be improved by associating with each other. ‘If Russia stands Europe is free, and Hitler and Mussolini and lesser thug Franco and his evil ring of jackals who deny education and voting rights to common men, will be feeling for their throats.’ (13 Aug 41, p. 9) The articles reviled Franco, put into power by Hitler and Mussolini and by Finance Capitalists more fearful of Russian Sovietism than of Fascism and Nazism. Franco was ‘a beast’, lacking the ‘intellect and dynamism of Hitler–Mussolini, not even like these the beast with the brains of the engineer.’ (6 Aug 41, p. 2)

[129] Paul Papers, File 638

[130] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VI, p. 1, quoting memo by Paul to editors on 2 Jan 42. see also p. 923

[131] Ibid., chap VI, pp. 1–2

[132] In the Paul Papers, File 682, are diaries for 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1945, with irregular entries. Entries usually record meetings, telephoning, etc, very briefly; on crisis dates they are often very brief indeed.

[133] Pollard, John James Weippert (1888–1944): journalist, asst to Dir Publicity

[134] See pp. 334, 929

[135] Paul Papers, File 461

[136] Ibid., File 415

[137] Mason, Ronald Alison Kells (1905–71): poet; Ed In Print 1940–43, Challenge 1943–54; 1st Pres NZ–China Soc

[138] Auckland Star, 25 Feb 42, p. 8

[139] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VI, p. 3, quoting from note on PM 84/13/8

[140] Statements by Dr K. R. Steenson to police, 1, 8 Apr 42, Paul Papers, File 461

[141] Naval Sec to Paul, 14 Apr 42, Ibid.

[142] NZ Herald, 2, 7 May 42, pp. 9, 9

[143] See p. 345

[144] Press, 4 Mar 42, p. 2

[145] Ibid.

[146] see p. 929

[147] Auckland Star, 23 Apr 42, p. 6

[148] Truth, 29 Apr, 13 May 42, pp. 14, 12

[149] Auckland Star, 18 May 42, p. 3

[150] Paul Papers, File 414

[151] Memo by Dir Publicity on Army Plan re ‘Publicity–Censorship’, 30 Jul 42, Ibid.

[152] Dominion, 9 Mar 42, p. 4

[153] Press, 10 Mar 42

[154] Dominion, 21 Mar 42, p. 6

[155] Ibid., 28 Mar 42, p. 8; see p. 890

[156] NZ Herald, 30 Mar 42

[157] Auckland Star, 30 Mar 42

[158] A US-dominated scheme for a federation of states to control foreign policy, munitions, currency, tariffs, etc.

[159] Hogan, John Herbert (1916-): b UK, to NZ 1941; Ed Democracy from 1941; nat organiser NZ Social Credit Movement 1940–1; Ed NZ Jaycee 1952–7; Dir Technical Books Auck, Wgtn

[160] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VI, p. 9, referring to C & P 3/5; Hogan circular, 30 Apr 42, Paul Papers, File 435

[161] Franklin, Benjamin (1706–90): US statesman, ambassador, scientist; largely responsible for drafting US Declaration of Independence 1776

[162] Auckland Star, 29 May 42, p. 6

[163] Dir Publicity to P. Neilson MP, 27 Jun 42; PM to J. T. Head, Waitemata LRC, 19 Jun 42, Paul Papers, File 435

[164] Auckland Star, 7 May 42, p. 8

[165] Ibid., 15 May 42, p. 6

[166] Ibid., 19 Jun 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 19 Jun 42, p. 4

[167] NZPD, vol 261, p. 390; Evening Post, 25 Jun 42, p. 5

[168] NZPD, vol 261, pp. 397–8

[169] Star–Sun, 27 Jun 42

[170] Paul to A. G. Henderson, Ed Star–San, 29 Jun 42, Paul Papers, File 435

[171] Press, 15 Aug 42

[172] see p. 992

[173] NZPD, vol 261, p. 502

[174] McNamara to Paul, 5, 18 Nov 42, Paul Papers, File 435

[175] Paul Papers, File 435

[176] Lee in 1937 had declared that the debt-free doctrines of the Douglas Credit Movement, of Social Credit, in the 1930s weaned away from capitalist beliefs many people who then turned to the practical proposals of Labour: it was the ‘corridor through which thousands of voters entered the Labour Party’. Lee, J. A., Money Power for the People, pp. 5–6

[177] Press, 22 Mar 43

[178] Dominion, 11 Jul 44, p. 6

[179] Press, 25 Jul 44, p. 4

[180] Dominion, 23 Nov 44, p. 5

[181] Evening Post, 7 Feb, 1 May 45, pp. 6, 4

[182] Ibid., 25 Jul 45, p. 8

[183] See p. 624ff

[184] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap VII, p. 4, quoting Dir Publicity to US–Naval Attaché, 26 Jun 42

[185] Ibid., chap VII, p. 1

[186] Ibid, chap VIII, p. 7

[187] See pp.918, 925

[188] Johnson, Dr Samuel (1709–84): English lexicographer, cricic and poet

[189] Timaru Herald, 3 Aug 42

[190] Otago Daily Times, 18 Jul 42

[191] Hogben, Julius McLachland, OBE('61) (1887–1973): businessman; to Russia in NZ arts delegation 1959; founder Auckland Festival Soc

[192] Auckland Star, 25 Jun 42, p. 4

[193] See p. 918

[194] Meeting of Publicity Cmte, 24 Feb 41, Paul Papers, File 455

[195] Draft, Paul to Wilson, 22 Feb 41, ibid.

[196] Dir Publicity to PM, 8 Jul 42, ibid.

[197] see p. 926

[198] Paul Papers, File 414

[199] Illustrations Ed, Auckland Star, to Dir Publicity, 17 Feb 41, ibid., File 390

[200] Ibid.

[201] Dir Publicity to PM, 8 Jul 42, Ibid., File 455

[202] Ibid., File 435

[203] Andrews, Ernest Stanhope (1908–): producer, manager National Film Unit 1941–50; Auck Technical Institute staff; author Close-up of Guadalcanal., 1944

[204] The day paris was liberated [25 August 1944] and Roumania fell was a big day for New Zealand's National Film Unit. It was their third birthday, for on that day city theatres were screening the 156 edition of their Weekly Review, Undated, unsigned article, Paul Papers, File 151

[205] Film Production Committee meeting, 26 Feb 41, Ibid., File 153; Mngr Dept Industries & Commerce to Dir Publicity, 16 Jul 42, Ibid., File 471; Dir Publicity to editors (A 68) May [1945] on article ‘Camera in Battle’, about film ‘Easter Action in Bougainville’, Ibid. ‘The Information Service of the Government’, by R. S. Odell [post-war], p. 2, ibid., File 455; E. S. Andrews to Dir Publicity, 1 Oct 43, 6 Jan 44, Ibid., File 613, 21 May 44, File 441

[206] Dominion, 24 Apr 37, p. 12

[207] Auckland Star, 11 Aug 44, p. 6

[208] Dominion, 3 Jul 40, p. 8

[209] McIntosh, Sir Alister Donald, KCMG('73) (1906–78); PM's Dept 1935, Permanent Head 1945–66; Sec War Cab 1943–5; Sec Ext Aff 1943–66; NZ Amb Rome 1966–70

[210] Robertson, Hon John (1875–1952): b Scotland, to NZ 1902; associated early Lab movement UK, foundation member ILP 1892; pioneer NZ Socialist and Lab party; MP (Lab) Otaki 1911–14 as only direct Lab rep in Parl, Masterton 1935–43; MLC 1946–; Dom Sec NZ Motion Picture Exhibitors' Assn 1927, served on govt film advisory cmssns, Film Industry Board

[211] Coward, Sir Noel, Kt('70) (1899–1973): British stage, film, actor & producer, musical entertainer, author from 1910

[212] Paul Papers, File 455

[213] Dir Publicity to PM, 8 Jul 42, Ibid.

[214] Dominion, 20 Sep 43, p. 6

[215] Auckland Star, 6 May 40

[216] Dominion, 30 Jan 41, p. 10

[217] See p. 418, fn 237

[218] Dominion, 2 Jul 42, p. 4. Stewart, Hon William Downie (1878–1949): MP (Reform) Dunedin W 1914–35; Min Internal Aff et al 1921–8; Acting PM 1926

[219] NZ Herald, 8 Jul 42, p. 4

[220] Ibid., 7 Jul 42; Evening Star, 10 Jul 42

[221] Dominion, 8 Jul 42, p. 6

[222] NZPD, vol 261, p. 477; Dominion, 9, 11 Jul 42, pp. 6, 6 (editorial). That control of paper supplies could become an avenue of censorship was maintained by R. M. Algie MP in July 1943 when announcing that his New Zealand Freedom League would cease action. It was denied all access to the radio, and regulations about paper for printing made great difficulties: ‘the heaviest blow of all’ was being unable to use the League's own stocks of paper without first submitting ‘to the bureaucracy that dominates us’ a draft of the intended publication. ‘This was an indirect form of censorship which we regarded as being utterly intolerable in a so-called free country.’ Dominion, 17 Jul 43, p. 6

[223] Ibid., 16 Jul 42, p. 6

[224] Otago Daily Times, 18 Jul 42

[225] Auckland Star, 17 Jul 42

[226] see p. 902

[227] Anckland Star, 10 Oct 42, p. 6

[228] NZ Herald, 9 Oct 42. p. 4

[229] NZPD. vol 261, p. 637

[230] see p. 901

[231] Comment by Dir Publicity, 27 Oct [42], on statement by Newspaper Proprietors' Association, Paul Papers, File 419

[232] NZPD, vol 261, p. 686

[233] Ibid., p. 720

[234] See p. 407ff

[235] NZPD, vol 261, pp. 635–7

[236] Ibid., p. 638

[237] Ibid., p. 639

[238] Ibid., pp. 689 690–1

[239] Ibid., p. 689

[240] Ibid., p. 690

[241] Press, 17 Oct 42

[242] Auckland Star, 17 Oct 42

[243] Press, 27 Nov 42, p. 6

[244] Mulgan, Alan Edward, OBE('47) (1881–1962): newspaperman, author, then Supervisor Talks NBS 1935–46

[245] Lawlor, Patrick Anthony, OBE('76) (1893–1979): author, journalist; Sec State Literary Fund 1947–55

[246] Wanganui Herald, 7 Dec 42, p. 4

[247] see p. 935

[248] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 18

[249] NZPD, vol 262, p. 324

[250] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 1

[251] NZPD, vol 262, p. 73

[252] Ibid., p. 324

[253] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 20

[254] For first furlough scheme see p. 726ff

[255] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IX, p. 3

[256] Ibid.; Wood, p. 267

[257] Dominion, 20, 21 Oct 43, pp. 6, 4

[258] Dir Publicity to editors, 22 Oct 43, Paul Papers, File 471

[259] Dominion, 1 Sep 45, p. 9

[260] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IX, p. 8; Paul Papers, File 471

[261] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IX, p. 9

[262] Ibid., chap IX, p. 7, quoting from police file S 44/2

[263] Paul Papers, File 471

[264] Taihape Times, 7, 14, 28 Feb 44, pp. 2, 3, 3

[265] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IX, p. 8, referring to Mngr Press Assn to PM, 31 Mar 44, on PM 87/13/4

[266] Dominion, 23 May 44, p. 4

[267] See Wood, pp. 268–70, for these and later events

[268] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap IX, pp. 9–10

[269] Ibid., chap IX, p. 11

[270] Ibid., chap IX, p. 12

[271] Ibid., chap IX, p. 13, quoting Dir Publicity to Acting PM, 22 Jun 45, on PM 87/13/14

[272] NZ Herald, 30 Jun, 19 Jul 45, pp. 9, 4; Evening Post, 5 Jul 45, p. 9

[273] NZ Herald, 20 Aug 45, p. 4; Dominion, 1 Sep 45, p. 9

[274] Auckland Star, 15 Nov 43, p. 4

[275] Paul Papers, File 471; see p. 824

[276] WHN. ‘Police Department’, p. 27

[277] Ibid., pp. 25, 29

[278] Official thinking was made clear by Paul himself later, writing to the editor of the

Hawera Star on 6 May 1944: The Commissioner of Police believes that employment in certain places would not be conducive to public confidence in the integrity of the Police Force. If wives were employed in certain places it would quickly be urged that the police were quite familiar with every irregularity or breach of the law which occurred in these establishments'. WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 2

[279] WHN, ‘Police Department’, pp. 27–8

[280] Auckland Star, 16 Nov 43, p. 4

[281] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 2; Paul Papers, File 471

[282] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 3; the references defined or provided penalties

[283] ie, the Directive of 3 December

[284] Otago Daily Times, 16 Dec 43

[285] Ibid., 23 Dec 43, p. 3

[286] Ibid.

[287] Billens, Robert Hewitt (1882–1959): Ed Palmerston North Times; Mngr Manawatu Daily Times Co 1951

[288] ‘No person shall print or publish in any periodical, publication, or in any other printed document (a) any matter or statement which in any manner indicates, or may be reasonably supposed to indicate, the existence in that document of any omission, alteration, or addition due to the exercise of the powers of censorship conferred by these regulations; or (b) any statement or indication that any matter or kind of matter has been required to be submitted to censorship under these regulations, or that a censor has refused his authority for the printing or publication ol any matter, or kind of matter.’

[289] Oram, Hon Sir Matthew, MBE('19), Kt('52) (1885–1969): lawyer Palmerston Nth from 1912; MP (Nat) Manawatu 1943–57; Speaker HoR 1950–7

[290] Dominion, 21 Mar 44, p. 6; Evening Post, 21 Mar 44, p. 4

[291] Lawry, Herbert Percival (1883–1948): solicitor Reefton 1906–23; SM Westport, Chch, Wgtn, Palmerston North from 1923

[292] Foden, Dr Norman Archer: b 1894; Crown Law Officer from 1935; lecturer Commercial Law VUC; Victoria University Councillor 1945–9; NZ constitutional historian

[293] See p. 962, fn 288

[294] In September 1938 the Crown Solicitor had commented that although this clause appeared in the Additional War Regulations of 22 February 1916 and the Censorship Regulations of 23 July 1918, it ‘is perhaps the most oppressive provision in the draft; and unless experience in 1914–18 showed that it was definitely necessary, I suggest that it might without serious disadvantage be omitted.’ Crown Solicitor to Sec ONS, 28 Sep 38, on PM 84/2/1, quoted in WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap 1, p. 16

[295] Dominion, 21 Mar 44, p. 6; Evening Post, 21 Mar 44, p. 4

[296] Evening Post, 6 Apr 44, p. 6; for appeal see p. 970. A fine of more than £5 was needed before an appeal could be lodged.

[297] Dumbleton, Eric Vernon (1901–70); Managing Dir Auckland Star 1951, Editor-in- Chief 1954; Dir NZPA

[298] Whitlock, William Arthur, CBE('61) (1891–1977): editorial work from 1912; 10 years chmn provincial section Newspaper Proprietors' Assn; Pres NZ. Employers' Federation 1960–1

[299] Freeth, Pierce Hugo Napier (1895–1957): Ed Press from 1932

[300] NZ Herald, 8 Mar 44, p. 6

[301] Bracken, Brendan, 1st Viscount of Christchurch ('52), PC (1901–58): UK politician, MP (Cons) 1929–51; Parly Private Sec to PM 1940–1; Min Information 1941–5; 1st Lord Admlty 1945

[302] Bracken had also said: ‘Solely from the security point of view it might be better not to publish anything at all, but that would keep our own people in the dark’. He spoke of a savage censorship playing no small part in the fall of France, and of the right of people to criticise and demand that wrong things be put right, adding. ‘The censor has to keep the balance between the official wish to publish nothing and the public's right to be acquainted with events. Somehow this has been done in Britain—otherwise voluntary censorship would have broken down.’ Auckland Star, 26 May 42, p. 5

[303] NZ Herald, 9 Mar 44, p. 6

[304] Press, 9 Mar 44

[305] Southland Times, 9 Mar 44

[306] Truth, 15 Mar 44

[307] Young, Guy le Fanu (d 1957 oct 37): writer and critic; later well known for his contributions to the Listener and to Landfall; his papers are now with Alexander Turnbull Library

[308] NZPD, vol 264, pp. 478–9

[309] Martin, Kingsley (1897–1969): Ed New Statesman & Nation 1930–60

[310] NZPD, vol 264, p. 532. There is a copy of the offending article in Paul's Papers, File 416. It is a bar-room story, straight reporting style, in which the drinking habits of high-country shepherds and their ways with dogs have place along with an American's comments on the accessibility of New Zealand girls, their ‘store teeth’ and their ignorance of jazz musicians, comments which present a credible if unpleasing sketch of the American himself.

[311] NZPD, vol 264, p. 542

[312] Ibid., p. 543–4

[313] War History Narrative, ‘Postal and Telegraphic Censorship’ (hereinafter WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’), p. 30

[314] Combs was to be chairman of the committee inquiring into postal censorship, which came to inconclusive conclusions. see p. 994

[315] NZPD, vol 264, pp. 578–80

[316] see p. 963

[317] Thomson, Rear Admiral Sir George, Kr('63), CB('46) (1887–1965): 2nd member Naval Bd Australia 1937–9; Chief Press Censor Miny Information UK 1940–5

[318] Evening Post, 16 May 44, p. 4

[319] Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 44

[320] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 12, quoting letters on C & P 3/7/8

[321] see p. 963

[322] New Zealand Law Reports1944, pp. 721–2

[323] Ibid., pp. 722—3, 726—7

[324] Ibid., pp. 733–5

[325] Laski, Harold J. (1893–1950): Prof Economics from 1920; leading thinker and writer on political economy

[326] see p. 966

[327] NZPD, vol 265, pp. 340—3

[328] Ibid., pp. 343–8

[329] See pp. 913– 14

[330] NZPD, vol 265, p. 345

[331] Bowden, Hon Charles Moore, JP (1886–1972): MP (Nat) Karori 1943–54; Min Customs, Associate Min Finance 1949–54, Industries & Commerce 1949–50

[332] NZPD, vol 265, pp. 368–9

[333] Ibid., pp. 371–6

[334] Ibid., pp. 377–8

[335] Grey River Argus, 12 Aug 44

[336] Auckland Star, 2 Sep 44, p. 4

[337] Paul Papers, File 682

[338] NZPD, vol 266, pp. 135–6; Auckland Star, 7 Sep 44, p. 4; Murdoch, Sir Keith Arthur, Kr('33) (1886–1952): b Aust; journalist; war correspondent 1915–18; Dir-Gen Information Aust 1939–40; dir numerous Aust newspapers from 1942; former chmn Aust section Empire Press Union; founder Aust Newsprint Mills Pry Ltd

[339] Auckland Star. 14 Sep 44, p. 5, see p. 996

[340] Auckland Star, 15 Sep 44

[341] Dominion, 21 Sep 44, p. 4

[342] Aiifkland Star, 22 Sep 44, p. 3

[343] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap X, p. 15

[344] Ibid., quoting Dir Publicity to Ed, Hawera Star, 26 May 44, on C & P 3/5

[345] Auckland Star, 1 May 45, p. 4

[346] Undated draft, Paul Papers, File 635

[347] Ibid.

[348] Dominion, 18 Aug 45, p. 8

[349] Dir Publicity to PM, 8 Jul 42, Paul Papers, File 455

[350] see p. 923

[351] see p. 892

[352] see p. 916, fn 114

[353] see p. 952

[354] Paul Papers, File 454

[355] Evening Post, 1 Mar 46, p. 8

[356] see p. 890

[357] Report by W. G. Cooper, Sec to Controller Censorship, Sep 44, p. 5, in WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’

[358] Ibid., pp. 36–42

[359] Ibid., pp. 45–7, 50

[360] Ibid., p. 51

[361] Ibid., p. 4

[362] Ibid., p. 5

[363] Ibid., p. 11

[364] A to J1944, 1–17, p. 1

[365] NZ Herald, 29 Jan, 2 Feb 40, pp. 8, 8; WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, p. 24

[366] Dominion, 3 Feb 40, p. 10

[367] Ibid., 5 Feb 40, p. 6

[368] Ibid.

[369] A to J1944, 1–17, p. 2

[370] NZ Herald, 8 Feb 40, p. 10

[371] Ibid., 5 Mar 40

[372] NZPD, vol 257, p. 932

[373] Evening Post, 9 Sep 40, p. 6

[374] Ibid., 10 Sep 40, p. 6

[375] Ibid., 11 Aug 42, p. 4

[376] Ibid., 30 May 40, p. 6

[377] NZ Herald, 29 Jun 40, p. 10; Auckland Star, 24 May 40, p. 9

[378] Evening Post, 17 May 40, p. 8; WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, p. 24

[379] NZ Herald, 22 May 40, p. 13

[380] Evening post, 16 Jul 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 20 Oct 42, p. 2

[381] Auckland Star,

[382] Ibid., 5 Aug 42, p. 6

[383] WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, pp. 24–5 and App G, p. 4

[384] Evening Post, 11 Nov 42, p. 4

[385] Auckland Star, 20, 23, 27 Aug 43, pp. 4, 4, 4; Evening Post, 23, 24 Aug 43, pp. 4, 6

[386] Dominion, 21 Mar 44, p. 6

[387] Auckland Star, 13 Oct 42, p. 4

[388] Ibid., 15 Oct 42

[389] Otago Daily Times, 13 Oct 42, p. 2

[390] WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, pp. 11–12

[391] Dr Lochore wrote: ‘The surreptitious opening of letters as practised by some overseas British censorships was never countenanced in NZ. On the other hand, the writer has seen a supposedly responsible officer open a letter surreptitiously in order to get an idea whether it ought to be opened officially, in a case where he was not willing to accept the responsibility for either passing it unopened, opening it overtly, or delaying it to await the decision of the Controller. The cases of this nature which occurred were not numerous enough to form a regular practice.’ Ibid., p. 17

[392] Press, 27 Aug 41, p. 6

[393] Evening Post, 1 Sep 41, p. 6

[394] Ibid., 29 Aug 41, p. 6

[395] Otago Daily Times, 28 Aug 41

[396] Press, 6 Sep 41

[397] Evening Post, 30 Aug 41

[398] Auckland Star, 3 Sep 41

[399] NZPD, vol 260, p. 535

[400] Auckland Star, 4 Sep 41, p. 8

[401] WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, pp. 28–9

[402] NZPD, vol 266, p. 771

[403] Union Record, 10 May 40, p. 2

[404] Otago Daily Times, 11 Dec 41, p. 6

[405] Birchfield, Albert James (1905–): Pres Wgtn Tramway Workers Union 1942–3; 2½ years' service Middle East, Italy; member NZ Communist party from 1932, member Nat Cmte & Wgtn District; branch sec NZ. Workers Union

[406] Truth, 26 Aug 42, p. 1

[407] WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, pp. 14, 75; see p. 930ff

[408] NZPD, vol 261, p. 502; see p. 934

[409] Hauraki Plains Gazette, 2 Sep 42

[410] Otago Daily Times, 26 Nov 42, p. 4

[411] NZPD, vol 260, pp. 536–7

[412] WHN, ‘P & T Censorship’, pp. 29–30

[413] Press, 25, 26 Jan 43, pp. 4, 4. McNamara did not trouble to reconcile this statement with his earlier assertion that only the Governor-General, ministers of the Crown and resident consuls were exempt. see p. 989

[414] Ibid., 6 Mar 43, p. 4

[415] see p. 966

[416] There were 10 members, four National and six Labour: Doidge, Bowden, Oram and Sheat; Clyde Carr, Coleman, Lowry, T. H. McCombs, Combs (chairman) and the mover, Fraser.

[417] See pp. 982– 3

[418] A to J1944, 1–17, pp. 1–3

[419] Sheat, William Alfred (1899–): solicitor; MP (Nat) Patea 1943–57, Egmont 1958–66, Parly Under-Sec Min Works 1949

[420] Dominion, 14 Oct 44, p. 8

[421] Evening Post, 14 Oct 44

[422] Auckland Star, 14 Oct 44

[423] NZPD, vol 266, pp. 254, 442–3; see p. 974

[424] NZ Herald, 6 Apr 45, p. 4

[425] Ibid., 11 Apr 45, p. 6

[426] Evening Post, 9 Jun 45, p. 7

[427] see p. 886

[428] Controller of Censorship to PM, 8 May 40, PM 25/2/4

[429] Ibid., 26 Jun 40

[430] See pp. 886– 7

[431] NZ Herald, 30 Jul 40, p. 6

[432] Alley, Geoffrey Thomas, OBE('58) (1903–): librarian & tutor Rural Adult Education Scheme from 1935; Dir Country Library Service from 1937, Nat Library Service 1945–64; Nat Librarian 1964–7

[433] Reid, John Stanhope (1901–): asst Parly Law Draftsman 1937–41; acting solicitor to Treasury 1942–3; joined Ext Aff 1943, served Washington, Djakarta, Tokyo; Asst Sec Ext Aff 1949; UN rep Indonesia 1952–3, chmn UN Mission E Africa 1954; NZ rep UN bodies 1946, 1960; Amb Japan 1956–62; HC Canada 1962–4

[434] Laking, George Robert, CMG('69) (1912–): joined Customs Dept 1929; to Organisation for Nat Security, PM's Dept 1941 & War Cab Secretariat; to Gen Ass UN 1946, 1949–52, NZ member UN Mission E Africa 1951; Counsellor NZ Embassy Washington 1949, Min 1954; Dep Sec Ext Aff 1956; Amb EEC 1960; HC (acting) London 1958–61, Amb USA 1961; Sec Foreign Aff, Perm Head PM's Dept 1967–72; Ombudsman 1975–77, Chief Ombudsman from 1977

[435] A. D. McIntosh to Controller of Censorship, 4 Jun 43, PM 25/2/5

[436] In Wellington alone there were 143 parcels of books and pamphlets and 183 packages direct from Russia.

[437] The report itself bears no date but a memorandum for the PM, dated 19 Nov 40, refers to ‘the report presented to you last month by Mr Nash's Committee’. Both on PM 25/2/4

[438] These last three titles moved on to the banned list later, in May 1941.

[439] An annotation in Nash's hand reads: ‘Selected illustrated periodicals could be realised [ sic released]’.

[440] Parsons, Roy George (1909–): b UK, to NZ 1939; bookseller; mngr Modern Books Wgtn 1939–42; RNZAF 1942–6; own business Wgtn from 1946; Pres Booksellers Assn 1958–60, 1979–

[441] Beaglehole, Or John Cawte, OM('70), CMG('58) (1901–71): author, editor, historian; lecturer, senior lecturer VUC 1936–48; historical adviser Dept Int Aff 1938–52; senior research fellow & lecturer in colonial history VUC. 1949–63, Prof Brit Commonwealth History 1963–6; Pres NZ Council for Civil Liberties 1952–71; edited The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery, 1955, 1961, 1967

[442] PM 25/2/5. Beaglehole had been ousted from the presidency of the Modern Bookshops Committee but continued to serve as a channel of communication in special cases.

[443] Notes with Parsons's letter, 15 Nov 40, on PM 25/2/4

[444] Apart from the attention and curiosity that public banning always fastens on a book and its often heightened underground circulation, Labour had in the past opposed censorship. About four years earlier, in 1936, Nash had rold rhe Associated Booksellers: ‘We have the law of the land, which is supposed to be the will of the people in a democratic community. The law should be sufficient. We need no censorship…. It is a restriction on the right of the subject to suggest that a citizen should not have access to books which some board of censorship says are not for him.’ Press, 17 Jan 36, p. 10. Public banning could have been embarrassing as well as ineffective.

[445] WHN, ‘Censorship of the Press’, chap II, p. 9

[446] GGNZ to SSDA, 14 Nov 40, No 458, PM 84/2/10, pt 1

[447] Ibid., Churchill to GGNZ for PM, 18 Nov 40, No 365

[448] Recommendations approved by PM, 15 Jan 41, on PM 25/2/4

[449] Johnsen, John Peter Douglas, CBE('59) (1897–): Asst Comptroller Customs 1946–54, Comptroller 1954–7; member Bd Trade 1957–9, chmn 1959–62; dep chmn Tariff & Development Bd 1962, chmn 1966–9; Sec Tariff Cmssn 1933–4

[450] Baxter, Archibald McColl Learmond (1881–1970): farmer; LRC delegate 1940; author

We Will Not Cease, Autobiography of a Conscientious Objector 1939

[451] Acting Sec, Modern Books to Acting PM, 5 Aug 41, PM 25/2/5

[452] Ibid., Controller of Censorship to J. S. Reid, 14 Aug 41

[453] Ibid., J. S. Reid to Nash, 20 Aug 41

[454] In the Book Society's letter ‘British Trade Unionism’ and ‘Marxist Text Book No. 7’ appear as separate titles, presumably a slip

[455] Mngr Progressive Books, Auckland, to Min Customs, 9 Jun 42, PM 25/2/4

[456] Ibid., Min Customs to Sec, Progressive Books, 27 Jun 42

[457] Acland, Sir Richard, 15th Bt (1906–): lecturer, St Lukes Training Coll Exeter 1959–; MP (Lab) 1947–55

[458] NZPD, vol 261, p. 87

[459] Ibid., p. 518

[460] Ibid.

[461] [A. D. McIntosh] to P. Martin-Smith, 24 Dec 42, PM 25/2/5

[462] see p. 1003

[463] This followed the declaration on 21 Oct 40 that Jehovah's Witnesses was a subversive organisation. NZ Gazette, 24 Oct 40, p. 2752

[464] Enclosure with A. D. McIntosh to Controller Censorship, 4 Jun 43, PM 25/2/5

[465] It was later read in debate on 25 Aug 43. NZPD, vol 263, p. 1021

[466] Salazar, Antonia de Oliveira (1889—1970): Portuguese statesman; Prime Minister and virtual dictator 1932–68

[467] NZPD, vol 263, p. 1021

[468] These tests were suggested, in very similar words, in McIntosh's memorandum for the signature of the Controller of Censorship

[469] Evening Post, 20 May 43, p. 4

[470] NZPD, vol 263, p. 1022

[471] see p. 1193ff

[472] see p. 997

[473] Editorial, NZ Libraries, Aug 1940, p. 1

[474] Dominion, 20 Feb 41, p. 4

[475] NZ Herald, 4 Sep 40, p. 8

[476] Sec, NZLA to PM, 6 Jun 41, PM 25/2/5

[477] Ibid., Acting PM to Sec, NZLA, 18 Jun 41

[478] Norrie, Joseph (1880–1965): librarian; b Scotland, first NZ appointment Leys Inst Auck 1924; city librarian Wgtn 1928–46; Fellow Library Assn (GB) 1939

[479] Sec, NZLA to Acting PM, 20 Jun 41, PM 25/2/5

[480] Ibid., Acting PM to Sec, NZLA, 12 Jul 41

[481] Ibid., note, 6 Sep 41, initialled by McNamara, annotated by Nash

[482] Ibid., Sec, NZLA to Comptroller Customs, 29 Oct 43, and reply 5 Nov 43. It is not stated whether ‘doubtful’ referred to indecent or subversive publications, or both.

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 20 — Camp Followers

CHAPTER 20
Camp Followers

LEAVE activity for thousands of bored and restless men displaced from home, friends and interests was left to individual hospitality and to various volunteer-run Service clubs, which provided lounges, meals, some beds and weekend dances. But many servicemen away from their own towns were not attracted to these: liquor was the prime target of their leave time, though many also hoped for a girl. It must be remembered that bars, legally open from 9 am till 6 pm, [1] were for men only, though some hotels had small rooms exclusively for women; hotel lounges were the setting for more expensive drinks, mixed company, and sometimes for pick-ups. Six o'clock closing officially prevented convivial all-male evenings, but there was widespread evasion. Reinforcing the business drive of publicans was genuine social perplexity: how else could these men pass their leave with any pleasure? An Auckland magistrate in March 1940 stated that some hotels were renting lockers in which servicemen could store mufti; at some, together catering for about 1000–1500 servicemen at weekends, at 2 s for a bed and l s for each meal, drinking continued practically all night. [2] Liquor was bought at hotels and taken away both during and after trading hours; the fiction of one man booking a room so that a group could continue drinking resulted sometimes in bookings quite beyond the capacity of the house; soldiers systematically stood guard to give warning should police approach a busy after-six bar. [3]

After hours' drinking was not of course limited to soldiers; men working overtime felt morally entitled to drink at such times, and others would simply drink whenever they could—for example, four men caught in a Kaitaia bar on Sunday claimed to be bona fide lodgers, but could produce no pyjamas or toothbrushes. [4] Liquor was also sold illegally from houses and shops, and there were ‘clubs’ for servicemen where prostitutes could be encountered and over-priced liquor bought, but where it was very difficult for the police to obtain the direct evidence needed for conviction.

Such devices, plus normal hard drinking, produced numbers of drunken, noisy soldiers about the streets at night, while church groups and responsible citizens were disturbed: not only were young men, sometimes very young and far from home, being coarsened and demoralised, but efficiency and the war effort were being dissipated. ‘Efficiency’ had been a campaigning cry of the prohibitionists in 1914–18 and, like many other things of that war, it rose again. Also, on trains the New Zealand tradition of incessant refreshment was translated into liquor-taking by the troops, to the dismay and disgust of many other travellers.

Early in the war all this led to lively concern, and regulations at the end of February 1940 (1940/39) prohibited soldiers from buying or obtaining liquor to take away from hotels, or from having liquor on trains, buses, etc. [5] While there was some thought within the Department of Justice of a general overhaul of the liquor laws, the Minister of Justice having advised in 1939 that a Royal Commission should enquire into them, [6] other reforms were not pressed, though meanwhile the police found special difficulty in combating sales from unlicensed premises. Japan's entry in December 1941 having postponed any general revision indefinitely, while vastly increasing the numbers of troops, the sly-grog problem was tackled by regulation on 12 February (1942/27). This provided that where sly grogging was suspected, the police might enter without a warrant and seize any liquor, while evidence of selling did not have to be as complete. Already the senior magistrate at Auckland, J. H. Luxford, had said it was time that some curtailment of liquor sales through ordinary channels was seriously considered by the competent authorities and he had no doubt they would do so; sly grogging was getting out of hand and the courts would act firmly: in future, even first offenders would go to prison. [7]

There were, repeatedly, scattered statements of the need for alternative, large-scale, leisure facilities for troops. The suggested solutions would demand buildings, inspired leadership, sustained energy. [8] For all these, in 1942, demand exceeded supply while soldiers were transient, here today but probably gone next month. It was easier to deplore drunkenness than to devise alternatives, and civic authorities, faced with large expenses, felt that as the State had called the men to service, the State should at least share in arrangements for their leave time.

On both sides of the Tasman, increased mobilisation multiplied drinking, sly grogging and disorder; the perturbation of the public also multiplied at seeing its uniformed defenders reeling in the streets while Malaya crumpled. Many, like the mayors of Wellington and the Hutt, saw hotel after-hours selling as the principal source, aggravated by sly-grog liquor, laced with methylated spirits. [9] The New Zealand Alliance charged the licensed trade with widespread law-breaking, found February's regulations against the comparatively few unlicensed sly groggers very disappointing, pointed out that wet canteens had not, as promised, prevented city drunkenness, train drinking or sly-grog prostitution ‘joints’, and demanded a comprehensive inquiry into the whole liquor question. [10] At the end of February, the Methodist Conference deplored that much shipping space had been used for intoxicants and £22 million spent on them since the war began. The Council of Christian Women with the New Zealand Alliance and other bodies interviewed the Minister of Internal Affairs, demanding reforms. [11]

In the Waikato, after a large meeting on 10 March, women's organisations combined to urge the Prime Minister to ensure proper observation of the licensing laws. Further, they formed an association which also advocated reducing the alcohol in beer, reducing its manufacture by one-third, and closing hotels on Saturday afternoons, and they sought support from many other organisations, including university students' associations. [12] Early in June, their proposals were endorsed by a large meeting of women in Masterton. [13]

From Australia lurid reports of excess, of soldiers drinking in the streets, young men decoyed into filthy sly-grog dens and young girls in rowdy night clubs, were quickly followed by news of restrictions on the sale of liquor. [14]

Wellington church leaders, on 10 March, declared that since the war's start the increased liquor trade had become a real menace; in an enemy raid, many soldiers would be a hindrance not a help, and the general excess called for conscience and co-operation from the trade, the police and the community. A Roman Catholic spokesman wanted improvement in the licensing laws; to the Salvation Army a problem in New Zealand was secretive drinking in contrast to kerb-side continental cafes; Presbyterians deplored the drunkenness rampant among civilians and soldiers, pakeha and Maori, drunkenness dangerous in an emergency and lowering national and moral tone. [15] At Auckland, leading churchmen were particularly concerned about drinking plus sexual immorality. [16] Canon R. G. Coates, [17] patrolling the streets on a Saturday afternoon and evening, found that soldiers and Maoris, though both prohibited from carrying away parcels of liquor, were openly doing so; at some hotels, cars drove up after hours to receive loads of liquor; with the gravity of war demanding the highest mental alertness from all, there was instead a ‘very alarming increase in drunkenness, brawling and disgusting behaviour’; the involvement of women was especially distasteful. Had enemy aircraft raided Auckland between 5 and 7 pm on 6 March many people might have died rescuing those too drunk to look after themselves. He argued that if hotels were closed from 4 to 7 pm, open for two hours and firmly closed at 9 pm, saturation drinking would not occur. [18]

The Commissioner of Police said soothingly that some reports of drinking by servicemen were ‘greatly exaggerated’, and Wellington's Superintendent added that men in uniform, intoxicated, were noticed more than others, but on the whole they were ‘a sober lot’. There was ‘quite a considerable amount of drinking but not to the extent of drunkenness. You can't stop a man from drinking so long as he is sober, and does not become a public nuisance.’ The past four months had seen 33 prosecutions against licensees, with four pending, and nine against sly-grog sellers, with nine more pending. [19]

To assuage Canon Coates and his vigilance committee Auckland hotel keepers, besides making promises about Maoris, tipsy servicemen and after-hours trading, cut down women's drinking. Women's bars were to be closed and in lounges no woman could be served after 5 pm. [20] One licensee remarked that those frequenting women's bars were usually ‘quite respectable’, and that closing their haunts would drive them into back street places or into lounges, ‘which is just what we have been trying to avoid’. Another said that to stop women drinking after 5 pm was not much since they could already have had more than enough, adding: ‘Many of these lounges are only dens for mixed drinking leading to an inevitable evil. Abolish lounge drinking altogether and you have solved the greater part of the problem, because the younger type of women, who consort with men in uniform would not think of drinking in the small bars set aside for women.’ [21] The Prime Minister commended Auckland's efforts to set its house in order and, in reply to anxious questions from Canon Coates, said that if the Japanese invaded New Zealand all liquor not needed for medicinal or other necessary purposes would be destroyed. [22]

Agitation continued, with the approach of sugar rationing early in 1942 a further reason, especially supported by women, for curbing the brewing industry. In Auckland's Town Hall 2000 women demanded reduction in this waste of money and manpower; [23] suggestions from the Wellington Women's Service Guild included patrols by uniformed women police and appeals, to be led by Fraser, for women to cease drinking in hotels for the duration. [24] When the Prime Minister visited Whangarei in 1942, a deputation from women's organisations complained about lads led astray and damaged efficiency. [25] The Minister of Health, A. H. Nordmeyer, told the Women's Christian Temperance Union and other women at Dargaville that he had always been opposed to the drink traffic and thought that the majority of the community wanted some measure of reform. [26] Dunedin's Licensed Victuallers' Industrial Union of Employers advocated changed hours (10.30 am to 2 pm, 4pm to 6pm, and 7.30 pm to 10.30 pm) to lessen illicit trading, hasty drinking and bottle buying, claiming also that longer working hours and staff shortages in all industry made workers and businessmen almost prohibited persons. [27]

The Ministers of Justice and Health were told on 2 April, by a deputation from the churches, that public opinion was rising strongly over licensing laws and their enforcement. An inevitable result of war was the unleashing to an outstanding degree of physical desires and appetites in men and women, and they needed protection by the State; unrestrained liquor sales could undermine the war effort and defence of the country. [28] The Prime Minister, pressed by Auckland churchmen to reduce the quantity of beer, its alcoholic content and hours of sale, promised that alcohol content would be lessened, saving sugar; one brewing company had already offered to do so. [29] However, as he told the ladies of Whangarei a little later, if the reduction were too marked it would revive home brewing, bringing all sorts of concoctions on the market, as in the Depression. [30] Liquor was one of the many targets of the Campaign for Christian Order, a six weeks' ‘spiritual blitzkrieg’, launched on 21 March by the National Council of Churches to emphasise the place of God in social, industrial and national life. ‘Awake New Zealand’, [31] a movement to quicken home defence and stiffen national sinews that began in the Waikato during March, was troubled by the loss of alertness and efficiency due to liquor. On 31 March its leaders assured the Prime Minister that people would welcome reduction in drinking facilities, and one or two districts reported that their hotels were already curbing excesses by servicemen.

Some Farmers' Union branches urged liquor sale restrictions for the duration, to improve efficiency and conserve grain and sugar for essential uses. [32] The Union's national conference in mid-July advocated restricting both production and sale during the war plus twelve months. [33] On 17 July G. H. Scholefield noted in his diary: ‘The Farmers Union has unexpectedly demanded that the production and sale of liquor should be restricted for the period of the war and one year after. The 20 million gallons of beer and stout that we make in a year require 400 000 bushels of barley, 300 000 of malt and 36 000 cwt of sugar, and a glassworks is working 24 hours a day to provide a million bottles a week. Beer consumption has bounded up from 13 to 20 million gallons since 1936–37.’

The Licensed Trade's representatives, interviewing the Prime Minister on 22 April, were concerned because people not prohibitionist were associating themselves with the cry for reform; unless the government could resist the pressure, the trade would suffer, as it could not set up a counter-agitation. They admitted that there were many irresponsible barmen, but believed most difficulties could be met by co-operation between the trade and the authorities, without restrictive legislation. Fraser, himself a non-drinker, replied that the government was responsible for the young men called to service, and that if the sale of liquor appeared detrimental to the war effort he would have no hesitation in prohibiting it. [34] The trade was already trying to soothe public opinion with a lengthy series of advertisements on the beauties of moderation and the freedom to exercise it, such as:

To win this war the whole population must be cheerful and confident, ready to work and fight and make sacrifices—be ‘grim and gay’ as Mr Churchill put it. To attain that measure of cheerful confidence a reasonable use of alcoholic beverages is welcomed by a large section of our people. Both workers and fighters want and deserve relaxation and cheerful company in their hours off duty …. But in the interests of fair play and national morale, particularly at the present time, the freedom to drink should not be abused. A good thing deserves to be used moderately. [35]

In Wellington, Scholefield remarked on 2 April 1942: The Licensed trade is making a deplorable effort to capitalise the public indignation over its misdeeds by inaugurating a campaign in favour of liberty. The better world is the theme of its opening manifesto, which both papers publish as advertisements in their news columns. Another communicated statement says the Industry has been concerned for some time past at the difficulties that are experienced in carrying out its obligations under the law. Many impartial observers have noticed no difficulty at all. Hotels have simply ignored the existence of any such obligations and kept open house. [36]

On 14 April he added: ‘The Mayor of Lower Hutt (J. W. Andrews) has had the pluck to say outright that the principal offenders in sly-grog selling are the hotels. Until that is recognised there will be no reform. The liquor trade has down [done] everything possible to place the blame on private traders.’ [37]

At the end of April the budget placed extra duties on wines and spirits, so that the duty on a bottle of whisky rose from 5 s 9 d to 7 s 6 d, and the retail price of a nip became 10 d. [38] The value of these imports in 1942 was only half that in 1938, and the quantity only about 35 per cent. [39] The duty on beer was also increased according to its alcoholic content, providing incentive towards lighter beer, while rationing, which cut sugar supplies by 50 per cent, also helped to make lighter if not less beer. Its proof spirit, previously about eight per cent, [40] was, claimed Nordmeyer, cut by 25 per cent. [41] To meet increased excise and sales taxes, the retail price rose by 4 d a quart bottle, 2 d a pint bottle and from 6 d to 7 d a 10 ounce handle; [42] this would, it was hoped, lessen consumption.

On 22 June, announcing new regulations, Fraser said that government was not aiming to introduce prohibition under the guise of war emergency, but to minimise drunkenness. Bars would open an hour later, at 10 am, and on Saturdays would close between 2 and 4 pm. Hotels must keep registers of lodgers, whose orders for after-hours drinks must be signed. All drinking of intoxicants on trains, railcars, trams and buses was barred, and the existing prohibition against soldiers taking liquor away from hotels was extended to other servicemen, including Americans. It also became an offence to drink while fire-watching. Screen and radio advertisements of liquor were to cease, while newspaper advertisements were to be restricted in size (not more than 2 by 2½ inches) and must not encourage drinking by women. To check home brewers, the sale of ingredients prepared for the making of intoxicants was prohibited, and the right of the police to enter places suspected of sly grogging was reiterated.

The regulations drew varied mild comments from the press. Wellington papers were silent. The New Zealand Herald said that little exception could be taken to them, in the context of total war; it was high time that drinking on trains, which annoyed and embarrassed many travellers, was stopped. The Herald apparently was not aware that soldiers had been forbidden liquor on trains since February 1940, thereby indicating how widely this prohibition was flouted. To Dunedin's Evening Star the regulations were ‘an honest, not unreasonable, attempt to deal with admitted difficulties.’ The

Auckland Star thought that all-Saturday drinking would be discouraged and the police would be helped in checking on genuine lodgers, but doubted whether the regulations would reduce drunk- enness; a great deal was the result of drinking too much too quickly, an unedifying practice caused by six o'clock closing and likely now to increase. [43] The government could reduce drinking by simply reducing the amount of beer brewed, but the government also wanted the revenue from drinking; [44] from these conflicting motives had increased the minor nagging restrictions with which all drinking was surrounded. The Star hoped that in the long run these might induce sufficient people to decide that neither politicians nor prohibitionists, nor the trade should keep New Zealand from civilised drinking hours. [45]

The Press, remarking that the government was not ready for bold departures, thought that bars should be closed in the late afternoon and re-open later in the evening so that tired and hungry men returning from work should not be induced to drink too much because they could get nothing later. As magistrates and police officials had already pointed out, soldiers and those industrial war workers who could not get to the pubs before six o'clock put very great pressure on publicans to provide liquor after hours. The illegality of such traffic was not the worst of it:

Its worst features are want of control, extensive abuse, and the unreason which leaves men no chance to drink a little, within the law, and so impels them to drink more outside it. Responsible regulation of hours, more than any other factor, would regulate consumption and assist the police to maintain effective control over licensed houses.

As for liquor taken away from licensed premises, both the hours of sale and the quantity sold to individuals should have been curbed. [46] For Canon Coates, who among other things wanted bars closed from 4 pm to 6 pm but open later ‘under proper conditions’ as in England, the regulations had tightened the law in a few respects, but did not make drinking more decent: ‘the Government has not dealt with the question of what is a reasonable period for decent drinking.’ [47]

Sly-grog sellers multiplied. Early in 1942 magistrates noted their increase. In Wellington J. L. Stout said that there was far too much drinking, the hotels made it bad enough without sly-grog shops as well. He thought that a clean-up by the police was beginning, with the small operators being tackled first. [48] A Wellington defence counsel spoke of a series of sly-grog shops ‘controlled by some top key men the police can't get hold of’. [49] In Auckland J. H. Luxford SM declared that fines were inadequate, sly groggers would go to gaol. [50] This policy was not of total application and Luxford himself continued to fine minor offenders. Apart from other liquor transgressions such as sales after-hours or in no-licence areas, the police report for 1942 recorded 225 sly-grog prosecutions, their fines totalling £3,496, compared to 100 prosecutions and £1,900 in fines during 1941. [51] In 1943 there were 403 prosecutions, fines of £2,126; in 1944, 242 prosecutions and £1,137 in fines; in 1945, 138 sly-grog prosecutions produced £656 in fines, [52]

With the coming of the Americans after mid-1942 the sly-grog business sprouted more vigorously. In August Truth claimed police information that sly groggers in suburbs were doing a roaring trade, with servicemen paying six shillings for a bottle of beer, up to 14 shillings for wine and £4 for so-called whisky. [53] The traffic concentrated on Auckland and Wellington, which had many thousands of troops encamped about them. Distribution was highly organised, from shops, milk-bars, houses, boarding-houses, dance halls and night clubs. Cars were widely used: well loaded and with an effective watching system, they frequented military camps and would be off if police or provosts approached. [54] Cars also roved the streets, in collusion with touts and droppers, men on foot, on the lookout for buyers, who carried a few bottles under coats or in bags and who left liquor at arranged places, such as parcel depots, defeating the watch kept on licensed premises. Many bottles were not labelled and, said the police, ‘when detected an offender did not readily disclose any information concerning his source of supply.’ [55] A signed article in the Auckland Star of 15 March 1943 stated that about 50 grog shops were operating in the city area, with touts and droppers fostering business. A taxi-driver said that there was now no need to take a taxi to a sly-grog shop, ‘it is being peddled on the streets in sugar bags.’ [56] Some were very small dealers, [57] some worked on a larger scale. [58]

The liquor varied: some was genuine, some diluted, sometimes tea, vinegar or plain water changed hands as whisky or gin. [59] Some was legitimately acquired, some was stolen; [60] there was ‘wild’ whisky, [61] and there were some very strange mixtures called ‘wine’ or ‘cocktail’, which combined various liquors and brews derived from apples, carrots, beetroot, swede turnips, potatoes, all fortified. Much went into unlabelled bottles, but ‘empties’ bearing well-known labels fetched good prices, and even licensed establishments sold adulterated and venomous liquors. [62]

As it was well known that imported spirits and wine were very scarce, any sort of wine was accepted and local wine makers were pushed to produce their utmost, regardless of quality. In the 1942 season, of 48 wine makers in the Auckland and Henderson districts 32 were licensed to make up to 500 gallons, five licensed to make up to 1000 gallons and 11 were unlimited. In 1943, of 56 applicants, 16 undertook to make up to 500 gallons, 20 to make 1000 gallons and 20 were unlimited: that is, at least 100 per cent more wine was produced in response to merchants seeking anything they could get, at prices ranging up to 20 and 30 shillings a gallon, against the normal price of about 7 s 6 d. [63] Sugar restrictions cut into wine-making prospects, and a government viticulturist warned that if growers persisted in using a large quantity of water they would not have enough sugar and the wine would be of the poorest sort, adding, ‘Fifty per cent of the wine marketed in New Zealand today would in normal conditions be unsaleable.’ Much was being sold prematurely, he said, even before fermentation ceased, so that corks were blowing out of bottles. More legal controls were needed: licenses were issued to makers who did not have vineyards, some wine was made in very unhygienic conditions, and the spirit content should be controlled. [64] The government was urged by the annual conference of the Associated Clubs of New Zealand to import more wine and spirits, so that the ‘objectionable substitutes … becoming a greater menace daily’ would have a less ready market. [65]

A sample of the 1943 vintage is provided by a prosecution. When a serviceman was seen buying a bottle of wine for 17 s 6 d in an

Auckland café, 4 gallons of wine were seized there. The government analyst found that it was crude wine containing 17.9 per cent proof spirit, lower than was usual in New Zealand wine, a small amount of sediment and two flies; it had gone sour and sugar had been added to conceal this. [66] In another case a salesman, with some experience in wine-making and £1,000 of accident compensation money, bought up large quantities of New Zealand wines—port, sherry, date, peach and blackberry—blended wines and cocktails. He had labels printed with his name and had intended to apply for a wine-maker's licence, but he began mixing and selling bottles of cocktail without this preliminary. [67]

Other prosecutions serve as examples casting stray gleams of light on the sly-grog scene. At the home of a 45-year-old woman in the

Auckland city area, 30 servicemen were found drinking, with 50 bottles of beer and 60 of wine, mostly unlabelled, on the premises, and the lady went to prison for a month. [68] The same penalty was imposed on a dropper, carrying three bottles of wine, who sold one to a serviceman in the street. [69] A Marine, working with the New Zealand police, asked a man in the street for liquor and was given a note to ‘Peter’, a milk-bar proprietor. He presented the note and for £2 obtained a lemonade bottle full of whisky which proved to be 40 per cent water. The note-giver was fined £10, the milk-bar man, who had a previous conviction, went to prison for a month. [70] On a Sunday evening at his home, a man who worked for a wine and spirit merchant sold a bottle of burgundy for £3. He admitted that his profit was 37 s 6 d and he served 14 days in prison. [71]

Illicit distilling flourished, producing some rough and dangerous drinks and earning stiffer penalties than did other sly-grog trading. [72] Prosecutions were more numerous in 1944 than earlier: a judge in

Auckland remarked in May 1944 that scarcity of spirits together with high profits had increased the manufacture of and traffic in illegal spirituous liquor. [73] A man with a sly-grog record was sentenced to a year in prison for having possession of 12 unlabelled bottles and a letter which stated: ‘the stuff has improved quite a lot. It is clearer and no one could tell it from the real stuff.’ [74] Some distillers made considerable quantities: in the Hutt Valley a refrigerating engineer, selling whisky at £5 a bottle, was found with eight 70lb bags of sugar and 65 empty bags. [75]

The law, as some magistrates openly stated, was out of touch with reality and the unreality gave the sly groggers scope for quite large profits. [76] Fines could be regarded merely as a licence fee, so from early 1942 it was quite usual for those caught to be sent to prison for terms ranging from a fortnight to three months. The scale of some operators was fairly substantial: in a Grey's Avenue room where a dozen servicemen had called in one hour of a Monday evening, 119 unlabelled bottles of wine were found. [77] At the house of another seller, who was gaoled for three months, 57 taxis called between 7 and 9.45 one evening. Counsel claimed that his client was blamed for much sly grogging in his neighbourhood, but that a lot of ‘sea-gulls’ worked the area, waylaying American sailors headed for his client's place and selling their wares for what they could get, whereas the charges of the accused were reasonable. [78] Criticism of the law, which made most leave-time drinking illegal while there were no adequate alternative entertainments, was underlined by the American authorities. At first they co-operated with the New Zealand police in detecting sly groggers, but later withdrew this co-operation on the grounds that the law was unreasonable, and that there should be facilities for supplying liquor during closed hours to men on leave. [79]

Police powers against sly-grog were consolidated and extended by more regulations (1943/122) on 28 July 1943. These prohibited wholesalers and brewers from making the minimum two gallon sales to the public during the closed hours on Saturday and also prevented liquor leaving licensed premises during closed hours, no matter when it had been purchased. After 30 September no one might sell the ‘produce of grapes, apples, pears or any other fruits grown in New

Zealand’ in lots of two gallons or more to any person at one time if not for consumption on the premises, except under various licences, such as publican's, wholesaler's, wine maker's or club charter, or a permit issued under the regulation. Such a permit would be issued yearly by a magistrate if the applicant and his premises were approved by the police; the holder could sell his wine, etc, not less than two gallons to a person at a time, from one specified place only, but not at times when bars were closed. Any person who kept intoxicating liquor for sale without authority was liable, on first offence, to a fine of up to £50 or a month in prison. No one, ‘in any place whether a building or not’, could supply a member of the armed forces with intoxicating liquor not for consumption on the spot. Police powers were increased to arrest, and to enter ‘upon any place, whether a building or not’, including cars which they could stop and search.

It was realised in many quarters that servicemen resorted to sly-grog dens and night clubs because there was no acceptable alternative entertainment, and because hotel hours made the prized pleasure of even moderate social drinking impossible for them. Some magistrates, while insisting that the law must be upheld, openly declared that it was unrealistic in the circumstances. In Blenheim a magistrate, agreeing with the police that it was ‘pretty hard’ that well-behaved soldiers could not get a drink except after hours, reduced several fines he had already imposed from 10 s to 5 s. [80] At Christchurch, E. C. Levvey SM, imposing minimal penalties on a group of servicemen and girls, said, ‘There is nothing for these young people to do and nowhere to go. If they want to have a decent quiet evening out they have to go to a hotel. I myself have seen many … roaming around the streets, as they are told they cannot go here and must not go there’. [81] On the other hand, H. P. Lawry SM warned Wairarapa licensees that he would deal severely with any infringements; there was a dangerous enemy at the doors, it was essential for soldiers to be one hundred per cent efficient, and the military authorities had purposely restricted leave from camp until after 6 o'clock. [82]

Early in 1943, J. H. Luxford SM, in the midst of Auckland's sly-grog traffic, said robustly, ‘our liquor laws are crazy’, adding that they must nevertheless be enforced until the powers that be brought them into harmony with present-day conditions. [83] Two months later, on 14 April, he was still more explicit: the negative attitude of the authorities to the sale of liquor to servicemen is one of the most inimical phases of our war effort and it is to be hoped that the public will demand that this attitude be changed…. The average healthy normal man in times of peace hates unnecessary restriction upon the way he spends his leisure hours, but that hate is nothing to the hate of the same class when they become soldiers in time of war…. No organisations catering for men of the United Nations services could lawfully provide facilities where men could procure liquor after 6 p.m. The men resented that restriction and properly so.

Adulterated liquor was already a ‘baleful result’, and if the restricttions continued he was certain that ‘poisonous alcohol’ would appear. The police had done splendid work against sly-grog, but the more it was driven underground the more pernicious and evil would be] its effects. Those who opposed some reasonable reform in the law incurred grave responsibility. How many servicemen would patronise a sly-grog shop if they could drink with their companions in properly conducted clubs or canteens, with the profits going to patriotic funds? [84]

The Press approved: Luxford had courageously ‘expressed what almost everyone thinks’. The liquor laws, full of anomalies and stupidities, were like a house built on no plan, added to and altered, patched and repaired, neither useful nor convenient but a constant annoyance to those who had to live within its unstable walls. The present hotel hours invited the sly grogger and the illicit distiller to practice their anti-social trades, and the publicans to break the law. The Press repeated that reasonable hours more than any other factor would regulate drinking. ‘The real difficulty is slight. What magnifies it is political reluctance to face the wrath of militant minorities.’ [85]

Luxford's views, which had been advanced by the Auckland Star eight months earlier, on 20 August 1942, were approved in Australia by some clergy and by the president of the Australian ex-servicemen's association [86] and probably influenced a current Auckland conference, representing the armed forces and social and religious organisations, called to consider the problems of illicit grog. This conference approved Mayor Allum's proposal to seek government sanction for a central canteen selling both soft drinks and ale under military supervision to men in uniform between 6 pm and 11 pm. [87] There were several letters critical of this ‘wet canteen’ proposal, some advocating vastly extended non-liquored facilities for men who did not want to sit about or to dance, with games of all sorts—billiards, table tennis, badminton, deck tennis, quoits, bowls, archery, skating. [88] But such facilities would be expensive and it was felt that sick and overseas servicemen had better claim for patriotic funds. [89] The war was changing, there were recurrent hopes that it might be over soon, and what had been gone without for so long could be gone without for a little longer. New Zealand's home forces were much reduced during 1943, and by the end of that year the Americans were leaving. The New Zealand Herald on 8 July 1943 reported that the government had not yet indicated its attitude to the plan for a central wet canteen, and the public heard no more of it.

As the Press had remarked in June 1942, the government was not ready for bold departures. Six o'clock closing, established in the earlier war, was woodenly maintained, and the drive of servicemen towards liquor was beset with irritating but more or less ineffective restrictions—as for instance, that a soldier, sailor or airman might not buy a bottle of beer at a bottlestore but the girl with him could do so without question, provided he was not so rash or gallant as to carry the parcel. One way and another servicemen continued to drink, though probably less than if hours had been lengthened, and dissatisfaction with the whole liquor question was widespread. In April 1943 Sidney Holland, declaring that drastic overhaul was needed, announced that the National party would set up a Royal Commission to investigate all aspects of the trade. [90] To the chagrin of that party, [91] which forgot that in 1939 the Justice Department had recommended such a step, Fraser matched the promise before the 1943 elections. A very competent Commission was appointed in January 1945, and sat for 18 months all over the country, producing a massive report. [92] But though the wartime regulations were repealed in 1948, some two decades were to pass without any notable change in New Zealand's drinking habits.

Meanwhile in 1944, with far fewer servicemen, both local and American, about and increased police vigilance, sly grogging waned to normal proportions. [93]

Night clubs were a related problem, particularly in Auckland in the American era, and gave the godly and the police much concern.

As the latter put it: ‘Almost nightly several thousand servicemen were seeking recreational facilities in Auckland city alone, a situation which was exploited by an unscrupulous class of people, some of whom already had criminal histories, who set up so-called “Night Clubs” for the entertainment of servicemen and their partners with a total disregard of all moral nicety.’ [94] Admittance charges were high, up to 12 s 6 d a couple; beer, often a light sort that did not come within the scope of the Licensing Act, was 2 s 6 d a bottle; a light supper could cost 15 s a head; on a busy night 400 to 500 persons visited some of them. [95]

Police regularly visited dance halls to check, among other things, the non-liquor restriction but they were denied access to some of these places on the grounds that they were not dance halls but private clubs. It was difficult for the police to enter in the guise of patrons, and though some of the newly appointed women police did this, they could do no more than secure a conviction for unlawful sale or consumption of liquor, fines for which were of no account against the takings. [96]

There were, of course, well run night clubs and cabarets which did not promote promiscuity and where liquor was discreetly managed, offering dancing and entertainment with at least a touch of elegance. Patrons brought their own liquor in modest quantities, and whisked it into pockets, handbags, girls' wraps, etc, if the police appeared, leaving only soft drink bottles in sight. Sometimes police visits were cursory, sometimes torches were shone under tables and into corners. There was some feeling that it was unwise to prosecute such places for allowing liquor on the premises, lest drinking be driven into more obscure and seedy places. [97]

Several clergymen who felt it their duty, about July and August 1942, to probe Auckland's night life chose the latter sort and were predictably alarmed. The Rev C. W. Chandler [98] found an atmosphere of liquor and lust in these ‘dens of iniquity’; young girls, the products of New Zealand's godless education and from homes where God was mentioned only in blasphemy, were being treated with disrespect by young men with the same inheritance. [99] A Methodist group told of dark, smoky rooms almost awash with beer, of stupefied girls in the arms of unsteady men, of gambling, of loose women and Maori girls ‘selling their bodies’. [100] These clerical visitors clearly saw the liquor and general atmosphere of these places as preludes to the ‘gross immorality’ they observed in dark lanes and corners.

This probing drew counter-charges of excessive alarm, [101] including the suggestion that the form of dancing known as jitter-bugging could give the impression that everyone was drunk. [102] A full-column article in the Auckland Star held that most of the night clubs were well run and that until the authorities provided a large-scale, comfortable base for servicemen's entertainment and relaxation, free from drinking-hours restrictions, there would be demand for night clubs and it was better not to drive them underground. As for the goings-on in parks and doorways, cases of what might be called indiscreet conduct were numerous. ‘“Cuddling” in doorways is not necessarily an indication of loose morals but it does show a tendency that way, and it has led to considerable misinterpretation by some people. In dark back streets, in the parks and in other places, there are happenings (though their frequency is exaggerated by people depending on hearsay) of which no city could be proud and for which not even the most tolerant could find excuse.’ [103] Apart from observed embraces, used sheaths left in parks, doorways, even telephone boxes, were seen by many, talked about by more. That such litter also indicated precautions against conception and venereal disease was overlooked.

At Auckland's Town Hall on 23 August, under the slogan ‘We accuse’, 3500 people heard ministers of several churches attack the ‘liquor business’ as the source of widespread evil and sabotage of the war effort. In particular, many night spots were ‘festering sores’ from which taxis carried intoxicated girls to houses of ill fame or sly-grog shops. Night clubs, cabarets, and dance halls tainted with liquor should be closed; on Saturdays hotel bars should close at midday; home-life and discipline should be re-asserted, and there was the familiar call for civic authorities to provide for more healthy recreation. [104] The New Zealand Herald commented that the size of the meeting showed widespread disquiet, and despite exaggeration and distortion it was plain that every day, and especially at weekends, there were more servicemen about than existing desirable entertainment could cope with. The problem was aggravated because among a section of the city's young people, normal standards had gone by the board. The task was too big for those facing it locally and, while the meeting had called on civic authorities for adequate facilities, the Herald thought that the State should play a larger part. [105]

The initial excitement over night clubs died down, and although churches continued to complain existing laws could not check their sleasy but profitable course through 1943.

Early in 1944 there was renewed comment in the press. In January, the New Zealand Herald reported that Auckland's less desirable night clubs were, save for minor details, all the same, with smoke-blue, foetid air, steady drinking, unsteady girls and very expensive refreshments. [106] Six weeks later, conditions appeared if anything worse: there was the same dank smell, the same girls and women whose ‘tired faces bore the unmistakeable stamp of fast living, endless late nights and complete boredom, with the general scheme of which they were a part’; bands played but few danced, and very few New Zealand servicemen were present. [107] Meanwhile, the Auckland Inter-Church Council on Public Affairs urged that local authorities be asked to make reforms in cabarets and night clubs, with the government giving them any legal powers necessary; [108] the Police Commissioner complained of the present laws' hopeless inadequacy. [109]

Ultimately, by regulations passed on 3 May (1944/72), the police could close down places of entertainment if there was liquor, drunkenness, disorderly conduct or demoralising entertainment on the premises, or if persons of ill repute were present at or concerned with running the place. By this time, as the Americans were thinning out, some of the clubs had closed and the rest ‘quickly modified their conduct to a satisfactory degree’. [110] The formidable regulations were not invoked. Instead the magistrate J. H. Luxford decided, on 4 May, that their membership cover was futile and that they were in fact public dance halls, subject to licensing on the standards of public safety, which often called for considerable renovations. [111] It also followed that they were subject to normal police visits. [112] The boom was over, and the survivors acquired dance hall licences.

In New Zealand, as elsewhere, among both civilians and servicemen venereal diseases increased. The Services had their own efficient system of protection, detection and cure; beginning in 1939–40 arrangements for civilians were improved. At that time an increase in syphilis was noticed, beginning in Wellington, where it was attributed to the 1940 Centennial Exhibition, and later extending to Auckland and Christchurch. Medical officers in charge of VD clinics in the four main cities were made assistant inspectors of hospitals, visiting smaller towns to make sure that their treatment facilities were adequate and to advise medical staffs, while private practitioners could seek their help. Articles in the New Zealand

Medical Journal and discussion at a conference gave much needed information. [113]

Those with venereal disease were excluded from free treatment by private doctors under the Social Security scheme, allegedly to ensure that they would attend public hospital clinics which alone, in the view of the Health Department, were competent to deal with syphilis. Many with gonorrhoea were treated by their own doctors with drugs of the sulphonamide group, available since shortly before the war. Figures from the four main clinics, the only ones available, showed that new gonorrhoea patients decreased from 1702 in 1938 to 1523 in 1939, 1487 in 1940, and 1511 in 1941. [114] A few private practitioners were recognised experts for both gonorrhoea and syphilis but treatment for the latter could take many months, and generally clinical treatment was necessary.

Clinics were not welcoming places: efficiency was seasoned with censure and, apart from ignorance, there was much reluctance to go or to be seen going to them. There were arrangements with the forces whereby women who servicemen believed to be infected were reported to the Health Department, which tried to trace and treat them. In rounding up these and other suspects, Health Department powers were inadequate, though clinics showed substantial increases in syphilis, from 156 new cases in 1938, to 192 in 1939, 285 in 1940 and 403 in 1941. [115] Strengthening regulations were passed in December 1941.

Already, under the Social Hygiene Act 1917, it was an offence worth a year in gaol, a £100 fine, or both, to do an act likely to infect another person with VD. Under the new regulations (1941/230), persons suspected could now be required, within a given time, to produce a medical clearance, otherwise they could be sent to hospital for tests and if necessary detained for up to six weeks for treatment; if the disease were still in a communicable form this period could be extended by further stretches of up to six weeks at a time. Medical tests were made more stringent both for the initial investigation and before a patient could be considered cured. [116] Those not deemed promiscuous, who would attend voluntarily and regularly for treatment, were not detained though they were prohibited from working with food or with young children, and they could be prosecuted for lapsing from the course. [117] The clinics and doctors treating privately both had to notify the Health Department if a patient missed two successive treatments, doctors receiving 3 s 6 d for each such communication. There was provision, where there was exceptional difficulty in attending a clinic, for free treatment to be given by doctors, and/or free travel warrants.

After a few months some hospitals were complaining that their venereal disease facilities were over-taxed. At Hamilton it was decided to erect a temporary building for £1,000 and to ask the government to pay for 75 per cent of it, [118] while Auckland found demands for beds for these cases excessive. [119]

There were prosecutions for being idle and disorderly against women who lived promiscuously, and they were checked for venereal disease. On 19 June 1942, sentencing to three months' gaol such a woman who avowedly did not know that she was infected, Luxford cast away reticence. New Zealand was proud that it had stamped out public prostitution, but worse evils had arisen in a great crop of amateur prostitutes and an alarming amount of venereal disease. There had been 13 similar cases recently. Women pursuing this vocation surreptitiously, as they must in New Zealand, should be put away at least temporarily, where they could not contaminate. The new regulations were helpful but were not enough; the police needed extraordinary power against this ‘sixth column’. ‘We must stamp out this dreadful disease.’ [120] A few weeks later he declared that the need for a separate centre for girl delinquents, especially those diseased, was of ‘compelling urgency’. [121]

It was recognised that here, as with many sexual problems, ignorance was a large factor. Nordmeyer, on 30 July 1942, told an anxious deputation led by the Mayor of Wellington, that the Health Department favoured an open and realistic attitude and was giving lectures to factory girls and others, [122] whereas some newspapers were still referring to a ‘certain disease’. To avoid the fear of being seen at clinics, which contributed to keeping people away from treatment, it was suggested that normal social security payment should be extended to doctors treating venereal disease. Nordmeyer said that he would recommend this for doctors deemed competent and who could be relied on to notify the Department if a patient broke off treatment; [123] the Press on 28 October noted that this proposal had not materialised.

For wider publicity, in October 1942, the film ‘No Greater Sin’ was welcomed by Nordmeyer, and Luxford said that in telling the story of syphilis with such force and artistry an important step had been taken towards eradicating the scourge. [124] There also appeared in 1942 a 46-page booklet, Venereal Disease: the Shadow over New

Zealand, published in Wellington by the Progressive Publishing Company and selling for 1 s, describing both the diseases, with statistics, the legal background and something on current campaigns in both Britain and the United States; its whole tone was robust, matter of fact, professional but not chilling.

The Woman's Weekly of 20 August 1942 rejected hush-hush attitudes which left girls ignorant of symptoms and afraid to go to doctors. Women should demand information by radio, booklets, lectures (including lectures to high schools and factories), films and newspapers; they should insist on more women police, both experienced and tactful; insist on compulsory notification; insist too, although there would be a storm of protest, on licensed prostitution, for in fact there were professionals already. They should insist on the strictest control of liquor, with massive penalties for sly grogging: ‘drink is the most dangerous ally of the scourge.’ Medical attention should be so arranged that girls who had been foolish could go to a doctor without the stigma of going to a special ward, and without being humiliated.

Towards the end of 1942 authority moved more strongly against the seeding centres of venereal disease. In both Auckland and Wellington, anti-vice police squads were formed, each working over the whole city, not in districts, which made them more effective against sly-grog operators, against the ‘disorderly’ women who haunted hotels, one-woman brothels and apartment houses where rooms were let for an hour or two at prices ranging from 16 s to 20 s and where ‘sanitary conditions were shockingly low’. [125] Such room-letting was not itself illegal, although brothel-keeping or allowing premises to be used as a brothel, were crimes.

Regulations on 23 December 1942 (1942/350) made it illegal to manage, occupy or reside in premises used for prostitution, and for males who had attained seventeen years to live on the earnings of prostitutes. Police were empowered to search without warrants places suspected of such use. Any person convicted in a court, or appearing in a children's court, if suspected of having venereal disease, could be taken to hospital, examined, and if infected held there until discharged as cured.

The peak year for venereal disease, as evidenced by clinic figures at the four centres, was 1941, with 403 new cases of syphilis (260 men, 143 women) and 1511 cases (1135 men, 376 women) of gonorrhoea. In 1942 these figures were 327 (161 men, 166 women) and 1295 (804 men, 491 women) respectively. In the next two years women were notably in the lead: in 1943, 114 men and 153 women were new cases of syphilis, 576 men and 637 women new cases of gonorrhoea; in 1944, 76 men and 88 women contracted syphilis, 544 men and again 637 women gonorrhoea. The increase of gonorrhoea found in women, who might be unaware that they had it, suggested that the regulations were useful in locating infected women, while its decrease among men was presumably related to the numbers in the forces. During 1945, with demobilisation in progress, men resumed their customary lead: there were 182 new cases of syphilis (men 114, women 68), 1304 of gonorrhoea (762, 452), and the Department of Health remarked that figures again approximated pre-war levels. [126] The figures rose slightly in the first post-war years: 1946, syphilis 220 (152, 68), gonorrhoea 1572 (1157, 415); in 1947, syphilis 196 (107, 89), gonorrhoea 1496 (1106, 390). By 1955 the year's recorded new cases of syphilis had fallen to 63 (31, 32), gonorrhoea to 843 (595, 248). [127]

The women sequestered for treatment in hospitals, besides occupying much-needed beds, were behaviour problems, particularly at

Auckland. When their ward overlooked the Domain the Hospital Board, complaining that the behaviour of some was ‘scandalous in the extreme’, said that they should be under stricter control, as of a prison matron. [128] They were moved to a cottage annexe overlooking Grafton Gully, which servicemen haunted at night. [129] They suffered the woes of boredom, which they relieved with violent quarrels among themselves and temporary escapes, sometimes only to shops or nearby relatives, sometimes to go with servicemen, for which several were sent to prison. One complained, ‘If we girls had a radio, or were allowed to do some knitting—had cards or some other games to occupy our minds, we would not want to run away. But we've got nothing to do there.’ [130] By early 1944, the average number under treatment at Auckland was 12, but some were returned within a month or even a fortnight of being discharged. [131]

Contraceptives were not easily come by. New Zealanders at large felt that if the wages of sin were not paid, sin would increase and that in any case children were necessary. There had been worry about the birth rate since it fell in the Depression, and some censure of couples who were too ‘selfish’ to have children. [132] There were no pills, but as well as the ubiquitous condom there were female devices which required fitting by doctors, suppositories and vaginal jellies of doubtful effectiveness. Most girls, too ignorant or too embarrassed to acquire them, left the issue to luck or their boyfriends. Clergymen and others repeatedly inveighed against the ‘free sale of contraceptives’, and politicians voiced fears of race suicide. Polson on 26 March 1941 told the House that an Auckland firm had recently imported ‘3 000 gross of a singularly noxious aid to race-suicide’, suggesting that such should be sold only on a medical certificate. [133] In July 1943, another member, C. G. E. Harker [134] of Waipawa, warning that war's heavy death rate made it doubly important that race suicide should not be made easy, wanted very careful control of all articles capable of being used for contraception or abortion. [135] The Minister of Health replied that all chemists had been asked not to sell contraceptives to young people and that a certain drug commonly used for contraceptive purposes had now been prohibited by the Medical Supplies Controller. [136] Otherwise, the government kept aloof and silent. In 1936, a government inquiry into abortion had recommended clinics for instruction in contraceptive methods for patients whom doctors considered should have temporary or permanent relief from child-bearing, and a scheme of domestic assistance for mothers. A more rational and wholesome outlook on sex should be encouraged by teaching biology and physiology in schools. [137] The Family Planning Association, formed to foster these recommendations, remarked in September 1942 that nothing had come of them, but it continued to work modestly through its own membership. [138]

There were abortions, the number unknown and speculation thereon unlimited. The 1936 inquiry had estimated that 4000 a year were criminally induced. Mr Justice Blair in July 1941 said: ‘The evidence we get in the courts makes it abundantly plain that … abortion is unfortunately very, very common.’ The murder of an unborn child was considered, he said, even by educated people, not to carry the stigma or horror engendered by murder of a child after birth. ‘People look on the procuring of abortion as something that can be successfully done, and people can go to the lengths of boasting about it.’ With regret he sentenced to two months in prison a 24-year-old labourer with a blameless record—‘not a professional abortionist’—who had paid a chemist 26 shillings ‘for some stuff that was no doubt worthless’. [139]

The churches were particularly disturbed, as was the Dominion Settlement Association which in mid-1944 launched a campaign based on its belief that shortage of population would be the gravest problem of post-war Australia and New Zealand. [140] On 16 June 1944 it declared that the prevalence of abortion was the most serious and urgent issue facing the country: ‘recently published figures’ estimated 15 000 to 20 000 cases a year, whereas live births in 1943 totalled 30 311. These figures were widely and anxiously discussed, for example by Wellington's Chamber of Commerce and Taihape's Farmers' Union. [141]

There was comment of a different tone, signed ‘A Doctor’, in the

Evening Post a few weeks later. Abortion, like the consumption of alcohol had existed widely from time immemorial and there was no evidence that dire punishment would eliminate either. Abortionists existed because of demand; increased penalties would drive them further underground and raise their fees. The powerful force of public opinion, ‘always able to do what the law cannot’, often actually favoured abortion. ‘At certain periods of life,’ the letter continued, ‘glands pour out into the blood streams of both sexes something which overpowers the usual reactions of mind and body, and inhibitions are overwhelmed…. What next happens is that an unmarried woman finds that if she lets things drift she will be the object of all the spiteful and malicious things other women may say of and do to her. Here lies the cause of the majority of abortions. A little more charity and much less cattiness would be the ruin of the abortionist.’ Inhibitions in both sexes should of course be cultivated in order that the brain should not be overwhelmed, but both Church and State seemed to fail here, concentrating on the memorising of words and numbers, and neglecting the higher faculties. The correspondent reminded that abortion was not limited to unmarried women. The high cost of living ‘which often is synonymous with luxuries being accepted as necessities’ and housing difficulties often made the prospect of another baby ‘desired as it may otherwise be’ economically impossible. The logical answer was to make married life much easier than at present. ‘I do not think any woman would willingly resort to the perils of an abortionist if society did not virtually compel her to.’ [142]

Truth, on 15 April 1942, said that health-wrecking abortion was a greater menace than social disease and that in the previous year 464 women, many young and married, had been admitted to Auckland Hospital with septic abortion, in most cases with no proof but strong suspicion that it had resulted from interference. The chairman of the Hospital Board, A. J. Moody, though notably hostile to leftists and aliens, was sympathetic to such women. It had been the practice to report to the police women who came to the hospital following abortion, but in March 1943 Moody said publicly, ‘I have told the medical superintendent that this must stop. Why should we pimp upon a woman who has strayed and paid the price? Our job is to see the woman is restored to health. If we turn informers, we shall force the criminal abortionist deeper underground, and hundreds of women will die of blood-poisoning.’ There was general backing from the Board, Dr Hilda Northcroft [143] adding, ‘It isn't the bad girls who have babies, it is the more innocent ones. We have got to preserve secrecy as far as possible.’ Moody stated that between 20 and 30 abortion cases were being admitted to Auckland Hospital each week. [144] Early in 1944, in a case which brought Moody's instruction under fire from the coroner, the medical superintendent stated that the greatest number of abortion cases treated was about 30 a week, but he could not indicate how many were criminal. [145] Despite pressure, Moody and his Board, claiming that they were supported by high medical authorities, continued in their refusal to drive abortion further underground by giving information to the police, though every case of septic abortion was reported to the Health Department. [146]

Elsewhere police questioning continued, but did not produce more than a handful of prosecutions. [147] The annual reports of the Health and Justice Departments were silent, [148] the Yearbooks were reticent, recording however that in 1938, in public hospitals, there were 182 cases of septic abortion and 30 deaths throughout New Zealand; in 1939, 179 cases and 22 deaths; in 1940, 150 cases and 17 deaths; in 1941, 170 cases and 26 deaths; 172 cases and 32 deaths in 1942; 201 cases and 16 deaths in 1943; 180 cases and 21 deaths in 1944; then comes a break in figures till 1948 with 285 cases and 9 deaths. [149] Obviously this is but a small part of the abortion story, but it is clear that sulphonamides kept the death-toll low; [150] after the war penicillin would make it lower still.

Illegitimate births showed a modest rise and fall. There were 1210 in 1937, 4.65 per cent of total births; in 1938 1164 (4.27 per cent); in 1939 1133 (3.93 per cent); 1284 (3.92 per cent) in 1940; 1281 (3.65 per cent) in 1941; 1339 (3.99 per cent) in 1942; 1467 (4.84 per cent) in 1943; 2020 (6.01 per cent) in 1944; 1824 in both 1945 and 1946 (4.93 and 4.36 per cent). They fell to 1727

(3.85 per cent) in 1947; 1686 (3.82 per cent) in 1948; 1671 (3.80 per cent) in 1949. [151]

Adoption statistics, registered since 1919, increased sharply from the later part of the war. Prior to 1940, the highest yearly total was 584 in 1921, the lowest 329 in 1931, followed by 337 and 332 in 1932 and 1933. For 1937–43, adoptions numbered 444, 570, 530, 632, 561, 773, 577; for 1944–9 they were 1313, 1191, 1373, 1339, 1362, 1249. [152]

Unmarried mothers, unlike those who attempted abortion, broke no law, but their way was not easy. With rare and spirited exceptions, a girl with a baby but no ring on her finger was considered a heavy disgrace to her family. There were few avenues for employment apart from housekeeping, and no State support. They had some public champions such as Luxford who spoke for pity, for less hush-hush treatment of sex and against giving a child ‘that filthy name of bastard’. [153] Several hospitals took in unmarried mothers as charity, some with stress on prayer and redemption which could be irksome. As well as the nationally based Salvation Army, which took in more unmarried mothers than did any other institution, [154] the Alexandra Home, Wellington, was notable as a long established, non-sectarian refuge which unmarried girls could enter at any time during pregnancy, to work anonymously in its laundry and attached maternity hospital, and which, in co-operation with the Child Welfare Department, arranged adoptions. During 1943 it took in 73 unmarried mothers. [155] In mid-1944, at the Wellington Diocesan Synod, it was urged that there should be a home to take single mothers for six months after they left the Alexandra Home, where they remained only three months after giving birth. In some cases they were forced on to the streets again, or into indifferent lodgings. The general idea was that babies should be taken from unmarried mothers, but many girls were anxious to keep their babies and face the so-called disgrace. [156]

In Auckland, two small-scale organisations for the aid of unmarried mothers came into being. In September 1943 the Motherhood of Man movement was formed by a group of men and women keen to enlist public support for women alone and in difficulties with children, and in particular to help those who wished to keep their babies instead of having them adopted. It had comprehensive plans for a home and crèeche, coping both with unmarried mothers and those who needed daytime care for their babies: the children would be tended, under trained supervision, by the mothers-in-waiting who would thus receive good training. Those who wished to keep their babies would work during the day, returning to them in the evening at the home, if they did not live elsewhere. The movement hoped to establish several such homes, each taking about 20 women. It was, said its secretary on 23 October, ‘an adventure with a vision’, hoping to make a stand for a better way of life, with a wide-ranging educational programme through films and literature under the guiding spirit of Christianity. Donations of money were sought, and also clothes and accessories for mothers and babies. By January 1944 Motherhood of Man had city headquarters for interviewing applicants. In its first four months, 61 expectant mothers had sought advice and 41 other women had made general inquiries; 9 adoptions had been arranged and foster parents were sought for 18 expected babies. Baby clothes had been given to destitute mothers, and fathers of motherless children had also been given aid and advice. [157] Its home remained an aspiration, but it continued to give practical help with advice and organisation. For instance, in January 1945 it advertised: ‘Deserted single girl. Mothers receive no maintenance or social security benefits for babies; domestic employment wanted where child no objection; country or town. Motherhood of Man (Inc).’ [158]

In April 1944 Agnes Hodge, wife of a prominent Baptist in

Auckland, and several helpers began taking care of babies of unmarried mothers in their own homes, until well-chosen foster-homes could be found. Working with the New Zealand Council of Christian Women, an inter-denominational body, the group in October 1944 collected £600 as deposit on a 12-roomed house in Epsom. It could handle 24 babies who could be kept there until adopted. Like Motherhood of Man, this group encouraged mothers to keep their babies and campaigned for the State to recognise actualities by granting the Social Security child allowance of 10 shillings a week. They also urged that the State should seek support from the fathers instead of leaving indecisive and work-hampered mothers to pursue justice. Lady Newall, wife of the Governor-General, gave moral and social support by formally opening ‘Childhaven’ in March 1945. [159]

The Society for the Protection of Women and Children and the

National Council of Women also urged that the family benefit should be paid for illegitimate children. [160] On 5 October 1944, J. Acland, [161] National member for Temuka, said that as a Christian duty the 10 s should be paid to unmarried mothers who, instead of being ostracised and penalised, should be helped for the sake of the child.

F. Findlay (National, Hamilton) added that illegitimate children were the least protected section of the community. [162] The Minister of Social Security answered that his Department did a good deal of quiet work with the problem, taking the same course with unmarried mothers as with deserted wives; if the wife took legal proceedings against the husband, and if the unmarried mother disclosed the father's name, the Department helped her to chase the man. [163]

In February 1945 the Society for the Protection of Women and Children reported the first known case of the 10 shilling family benefit being paid for an illegitimate child and hoped to secure more. [164]

Fortune-telling was an offence regarded more seriously during the war than at other times. This also happened in Australia: in July 1940 Sydney police said that it was increasing and a magistrate, saying that it could do a lot of harm to credulous people, sent a man to prison for a month. [165] In October 1941 Truth declared that the cruel hoaxing of mothers, sweethearts and relatives had become a profitable racket. [166] A woman was, in January 1942, fined £10 and warned of prison by J. L. Stout SM, who said that she was taking advantage of others' misfortunes; women had been seen leaving her house in tears. She herself had lost a son in the war and claimed to be trying to support a sick husband. [167] At Albany, north of Auckland and then almost a country district, a widow with three children said that her fortune-telling, at 2 s 6 d a time, had fallen off considerably because of petrol rationing. She was convicted with sentence deferred for 18 months, Luxford SM saying that it was remarkable how fast and how far a reputation for fortune-telling could spread among the credulous and that most practitioners were charlatans who could do incalculable harm. [168] Some were unlucky in their soothsaying: telling a policewoman that a relative had been shot and would not return cost a fine of £5. [169] A 66-year-old widow who promised marriages and children to policewomen was fined £3. [170]

Cup-reading, which some teashops offered openly as entertainment, was also prohibited but with much lighter penalties. In

Christchurch, where about a dozen cup-readers were convicted and discharged, a newly appointed policewoman was told that a friend would soon be invalided home from Egypt and would go before a board; his leg was bandaged and he was troubled by sandflies; she would be married in a few months. [171] In Dunedin a proprietress, who for six years had advertised free cup-reading, paid costs although a conviction was not recorded, the magistrate remarking that normally the matter was regarded lightly, but when so many women had relatives overseas it could become serious. [172]

Despite public perturbation about liquor, the number of those charged with drunkenness declined: during 1939–45 they were, successively, 5935, 5470, 4887, 3001, 2304, 2132, 1854. [173] Apart from beer being weakened in 1942, many drinkers were overseas, and drunken servicemen, unless involved in other offences were usually left to the provosts. Police tolerance, too, may have risen through pre-occupation with other things, for though police were exempt from war service, their intake was lessened and their duties in some other areas increased. Also as the months and years passed, there were increasing numbers of discharged servicemen about, many with more than physical scars, and it would have seemed both wrong and tactless to pick up a veteran of Greece or Sidi Rezegh or Cassino merely for being boozed.

More serious offences also decreased. Again, the forces held many who were either experienced in crime or might have become its recruits; Manpower officers kept others occupied in honest work, even seeking out men as they emerged from prison, and scarcity of labour produced many opportunities for making a fairly quick quid legally. Repeatedly judges commented on the lightness of criminal sessions, even in cities, [174] while in some provincial towns they were presented with white gloves, the traditional ceremony marking the absence of any criminal charges. [175] Persons sentenced in the Supreme Court totalled 571 in 1939 (3.51 per 10 000 mean population), averaged 545 over the next two years, fell to 457 and 494 in 1942 and 1943, and thereafter, as in many other countries, rose noticeably, to 560 in 1944 and 740 in 1947. [176]

Magistrates Courts' work was lighter also, though the two successive days when Auckland had not a single criminal arrested, ‘not even a solitary drunk’, were unusual. [177] The number of distinct cases convicted fell from 44 208 in 1939 to 32 419 in 1941, and reached 34 600 in 1947. [178]

In September 1941 legislation abolished the death penalty for murder, substituting life imprisonment. This was already government policy, all death sentences having been commuted since 1936. [179] Flogging was also abolished, exciting the disapproval of several judges who deplored inability to impose it for some sexual offences. [180] Proposals for the abolition or tighter control of corporal punishment in schools had no success. [181]

Beginning in 1940, there were complaints from the Bench, echoed by members of Parliament, education boards and many worthy citizens that youthful offences were increasing. [182] Theft in various forms was the most frequent offence. Generally the majority of those admitted to probation or given deferred sentences were under 25 years of age and a substantial number were under 20 years. The Bench, presumably minded to deter others by severity, awarded light penalties to fewer young offenders and sent more to prison. Admissions to probation and deferred sentences, which together totalled 1117 in 1939 fell to 1070, 879 and 807 in the next three years, averaged 1025 in 1943–4 and fell again to 972 in 1945. [183] Those under 20 years old who found their way into prison totalled 96 in 1936, 178 in 1939, 203 in 1940, 201 in 1941, 308 in 1942 and 354 in 1943; in 1944 their number dropped to 283, and to 254 in 1945. Grouped with others of up to 25 years of age they formed, until 1944, an increasing proportion of those admitted to prison: 281 out of 1790 in 1936; 602 out of 2505 in 1939; 551 out of 2201 in 1940; 679 out of 2369 in 1941; 1057 -out of 3029 in 1942; [184] 993 out of 2482 in 1943; 789 out of 2099 in 1944; 778 out of 2065 in 1945. [185]

Percentages derived from such figures were repeatedly quoted with alarm and with some imprecision as to what they actually referred to. [186] In September 1941 Auckland authorities on youth problems, in discussions prompted by Polson's remarks' [187] on the 111 per cent increase between 1936 and 1940, discountenanced any ideas that distraction caused by the war and the absence of family members in the Services were responsible for increased delinquency. They saw lack of parental control as the prime cause and advocated more activities, particularly sport, for youths with too much leisure. [188] One held that too many were paraded before childrens' courts for trivial offences, mere pranks. The Minister of Education, however, was certain that war conditions were a major factor, mainly because parental control was less in war time. [189] It was usual to attribute the deplorable increase in youthful offenders, of whatever age, to lax parental control, though some also urged the need for religious or moral training in schools. [190]

Work bringing in too much money, £4–£6 a week, to irresponsible young men was rated another disturbing factor. [191] Recklessness induced by the prospect of a short future was more obliquely mentioned sometimes, as when the chief probation officer said, in 1942, that home, church and school, the institutions which should instil the fundamentals of moral conduct, were failing in this purpose, but added: ‘It has to be admitted that the war has undoubtedly brought in its wake a crop of social problems, the quickened tempo of life, the anxieties, and the loosening of conventional restriction, these all tend towards a drifting from socially acceptable standards— sacrilege and sacrifice are the strange bedfellows of war.’ [192]

A few judges and magistrates made reverberating statements on a very serious increase in theft by young men of about 17 to 22 years, which should be countered with heavy penalties. [193] Judicial generalisations helped to arouse expressions of alarm by some persons and groups about juvenile delinquency, vaguely defined, which expressions in turn excited others. The Press on 29 October 1942 traced such a sequence in Canterbury; an Auckland Education Board committee was criticised by the Auckland Star on 8 April 1943 for its working methods, its generalisations and its lumping together of school-age and young adult problems. Mason, Minister of Education, in June 1943, deplored such head-wagging and parrot-talk about delinquency while Children's Court figures showed only a small rise. [194] Magistrate Luxford, in a widely reported luncheon speech, said that it was no new thing for adults to lament shortcomings in youth. Citing 1942 Yearbook figures, he explained that the percentage of those under 17 who appeared in Children's Courts was very low and he hoped thus to check the loose and irresponsible statements being made. He declared his faith that current youngsters were likely to produce men and women who would so run the world that they would not have two world wars in 25 years. [195] Luxford's views were echoed by others such as the Mayor of Dunedin and the chairman of Otago's Education Board. [196] Another magistrate, F. F. Reid, [197] thought that too many trivial offences went to the Children's Courts but that theft was increasing among post-adolescents, 18–22 years, both boys and girls; girls' stealing was mainly of the ‘magpie’ sort, a regular sign of juvenile instability, not taken very seriously. [198]

A Canterbury Education Board committee on child delinquency noted lack of parental care and guidance, due in part to war conditions. It advocated stressing Christian ethics, steps against truancy, including teachers visiting homes, supervised playgrounds in congested areas, legislation against the sale of contraceptives to children, checks on cinema attendance and daytime continuation courses for those already at work up to 18 years of age. [199] The Wanganui Education Board, which had begun to worry about child delinquency in 1941, sent questionnaires to its schools and produced a 91-page booklet. It found that delinquency inquiries broadened into the need for general improvement in life conditions for youth. There was little delinquency among school children, more among those who had left school. There was none in Maori schools but for Maori children in pakeha schools incidence was above average. The report held that home was the most important adult agency affecting the child and anything that could assist parents to discharge their responsibilities effectively should be done. It advocated nursery schools, radio education sessions for parents, early sex instruction from parents and legal steps against parents culpably responsible for delinquency; more character training in schools, more sports club type activities, control of cinema viewing and the cutting out of radio programmes high in sensationalism but low in ethics. [200]

These reports showed a state of affairs very little directly affected by the war. City schools however, particularly at Auckland and Wellington, faced problems acute as well as broad, with increased truancy the path towards many errors. In part, such truancy grew from worsened social conditions—bad housing, absent fathers, mothers at work or over-taxed as solo parents—but many children in good homes were affected by current restlessness and precocity. Child Welfare officers helped to combat truancy, but as their powers were limited and indirect some of the children whom they returned to school were soon absent again; also, where no definite wrong-doing was charged, parents were inclined to resent their visits. [201] Young children found that by shoe-shining or by plain begging they could get from open-handed Americans money for a spree of fish and chips, sweets and the pictures, without parents being any the wiser; such adventures tended to be repeated and extended. In some areas the disturbing effect of American troops was increased by their camps being in city parks: children were both deprived of their normal recreation areas and exposed to temptations. They hung around these camps, thronging the barbed wire enclosures ‘like little vultures’, shoe-shining, offering to run errands, canvassing for washing orders on behalf of their mothers, cadging money and cigarettes. [202] One

Wellington headmaster, finding 25 per cent of his pupils away, rounded up most of them at a nearby American camp. [203] Auckland in the latter part of 1943 appointed a full-time truancy officer who patrolled the main streets, American camps, rubbish tips and timber yards, taking children back to school and visiting homes. American authorities helped by ordering children away between 8.30 am and 4.30 pm. Some truancy was complicated by mothers who might keep a child at home to mind younger ones, or to do errands, or who might condone or even encourage American pickings—as when a boy was seen shoe-shining, but his mother sent a note saying that he was sick. [204] Also in Auckland in 1943, two visiting teachers were appointed to the schools most affected, with this type of truancy in mind. They concentrated on disturbed children, visiting their homes, advising parents, and co-operating where necessary with Child Welfare and the Health Department. They found that many mothers, strained with the tasks of solo parenthood, were glad of aid and advice; they were rated so useful that others were appointed to additional city schools. [205]

Junior teenage girls were among those who went with servicemen on excursions attended with liquor and ending in bed or the bushes. ‘The way girls of 13 and 14 get about around Victoria Park and the waterfront is revolting’, said an Auckland headmaster, adding that two girls whom he judged to be not more than twelve years old, out with servicemen, had asked him for a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine. [206] The Dominion on Saturday 8 May 1943 carried a photograph of a missing girl, ‘fourteen years, but looks older’, last seen near Anderson Park (site of an American camp) on Thursday evening. A Wellington Child Welfare officer said in November 1942 that juvenile prostitution was an ‘ugly and increasing’ trend among girls from 13 upwards; 100 children, not all from poorer homes, had passed through her hands in a few months, some infected with VD. [207] Certain boarding-house keepers who let rooms by the hour turned a blind eye when girls obviously under 16 came through their hallways. [208] It was to combat this evil, among others, that anti-vice squads were formed among Auckland and Wellington police towards the end of 1942, and regulations in December gave the police power to search without a warrant houses suspected of ill-fame. [209]

It was realised fairly early that under war's disruption the spare-time energy of many young people would lack direction. In July 1942, a conference of bodies concerned with recreation and youth, presided over by a professor of education, saw two distinct problem groups: school children and those who had left school. [210] The YMCA and the YWCA stepped up their activities in many directions, covering both groups: Wellington's YMCA for instance catered for 150 children from five city schools on two evenings a week, with hobby groups, film showings, organised games, etc, besides training more adults in youth leadership with the idea of forming boys' and girls' clubs in connection with churches, [211] which could prevent troubles before they started. The YWCA, with its Down Town Club at

Auckland and Gaiety Club at Wellington, open from 10am till 11 pm provided cafeterias, lounges, dancing and games space, where young working girls could entertain their boyfriends. These catered especially for girls under 18, too young to be members of the many clubs devoted to the entertainment of servicemen. [212]

School holidays loomed out of the general problem. In October 1942 a conference called by Dr Beeby, Director of Education, considered that the care of primary school children in holidays was a common responsibility in which churches and youth organisations, such as scouts, guides, etc, should help, along with parents. It was pointed out that in Hutt Valley and Wellington schools between 10 and 27 per cent of the children had both parents at work. [213] For the summer of 1942–3, the Education Department arranged recreation centres, at the Thorndon, Petone Central and Waterloo schools, which teachers were asked to organise, without extra pay. Some were ardent to keep children off the streets; others were dubious, pointing out that they had already had a heavy year, with big classes and children affected by war neuroses, and needed a break from teaching. They also doubted the real need for such a scheme, remarking that headmasters' questionnaires had shown cases where mothers not doing any sort of war work would avail themselves of it; they said that children had been roaming the streets and selling sweets in theatres long before the war, and that in Britain when such schemes were tried, children had not responded. [214] At Auckland a survey of schools, which showed that 641 children aged from 5 to 14 would have unsupervised holidays, had been made far too late for any programmes to be organised, [215] but the Thorndon centre opened on 21 December and the Hutt Valley ones on 5 January, with carefully devised programmes and teachers, training college students and others ready to supervise games, picnics, rambles, and on wet days indoor games, concerts, music, drama, films and handcrafts. The reluctant teachers were proved right: ‘provision was made for hundreds of children, but the attendance on any one day at all the centres did not exceed 100 children. At Thorndon sometimes not even half a dozen children were present, though many parents had asked for something to be done.’ [216] Perhaps the association with school was too strong, perhaps many families as usual contrived their own arrangements. The State-run effort was not repeated.

Other youth leaders were more successful, if more modest in scope. Some like C. L. Cato, secretary of Wellington Boys' Institute, saw clearly the interplay of disruptive forces that were increasing recalcitrance. [217] Others had narrower vision, but it was clear that children from homes that did not provide for after-school interests were more likely to become delinquent: the ancient adage about Satan and idle hands had slightly freshened application to war-time children. In

Wellington the Boys' Institute, besides vitalising its normal activeities, in May 1943 started holiday programmes, based on hobbies, films, concerts and sports, with 100 boys in the first week and nearly 200 in the second, capped with a visit to a Marine camp where their ice-cream capacity astonished their hosts. [218] In August 1943 increased numbers, both boys and girls, enrolled for activities that included treasure hunts, a visit to Trentham military camp and collecting paua shell and willow wands for disabled servicemen's workshops. [219]

Church organisations ran holiday programmes in several centres, [220] notably at Auckland where the Sunday School Union in May 1944 working first at Grey Lynn and Onehunga attracted several hundred daily. [221] In May 1945 it was active, assisted by churches at Point

Chevalier. [222] In August 1944 Christchurch ministers, who regularly gave bible lessons in schools, combined religious instruction with games, films and handcrafts in the Lin wood area. [223]

More sustained answers to needs were given here and there. The

Auckland Star on 2 September 1944 noted that after twelve months' activity a boys' club in a congested part of the western city had become an established part of the lives of about 80 boys, who had the use of a gymnasium and boxing ring, had recently formed a radio group and had plans for camping, hiking and cycling in the summer. In July 1944, at St Columba's Hall, Grey Lynn, a youth centre for all between 10 and 20 years was opened, under Church of England auspices but undenominational and not heavily religious. It hoped to draw in the ‘unclubable’ youth of the district who belonged to no other organisations. It was open after school, in the evenings and at weekends, offering action ranging from boxing, gymnastics, ju-jitsu, basketball, table games and dances to music, reading and handcrafts. Within a month it had gathered 300 members. [224]

In short: New Zealand in the war years became more aware of the problems attending youthful leisure. Children shared in the general release from toil as gas and electricity replaced wood and coal, vacuum cleaners replaced brooms, machines replaced hand-milking. At the pictures, a few shillings could buy hours of romance, violence and unreality; radio serials brought the same into every home and both, by content and by encroaching on sleep, made children bored at school. The war's disturbance, with parents absent or pre-occupied, increased restlessness and the search for excitement and diversion, especially in soldier-filled centres. The great majority was quite unaffected, but a distressing few fell into truancy, scrounging and precocious sex. Alarmed elders and educationists raised the school leaving age, took steps againt truancy, inveighed against films and radio, and besought all possible organisations to pull their weight in filling youthful leisure usefully. No total answer was found to the problem. It was eased by various local efforts, and by the passing of the war, but it was both older and longer than the war.

[1] In 1916, as a result of petitions and prohibitionist pressure, closing time had been moved from 10 pm to 6 pm as a wartime measure, and at the war's end this was continued by statute until 1967.

[2] NZ Herald, 7 Mar 40, p. 11

[3] WHN, ‘Police Department’, pp. 257, 260

[4] Star–Sun, 18 Jan 42, p. 4

[5] Air Force and Navy men might still do so, and this anomaly persisted till in June 1942 all servicemen alike were officially but ineffectively barred from thus beguiling their journeys or post-6 pm leave. See p. 1021

[6] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 263; Bollinger, Conrad, Grog's Own Country, p. 95

[7] NZ Herald, 17 Jan 42, p. 8

[8] Dominion, 9 Feb 42, p.6

[9] Ibid., 7, 16 Feb 42, pp. 6, 4; Evening Post, 14 Apr 42, p. 4

[10] Evening Post, 19 Feb 42, p. 8

[11] Auckland Star, 12 Mar 42, p. 8

[12] Salient, 17 Jun 42

[13] NZ Herald, 5 Jun 42, p. 4

[14] Evening post, 6, 9, 11 Mar, 4 Apr 42, pp. 9, 6, 6, 8

[15] Ibid., 10, 11 Mar 42, pp. 6, 6

[16] Auckland Star, 9 Mar 42, p. 6

[17] Coates, Canon Robert George (d 1953 aet 71): Anglican minister; Deacon Napier 1910, Canon St Mary's Cathedral Auck from 1937

[18] Auckland Star, 9 Mar 42, p. 6

[19] Evening Post, 12 Mar 42, p. 8

[20] Auckland Star, 14, 16 Mar 42, pp. 5, 4

[21] Ibid., 14 Mar 42, p. 8

[22] Ibid., 21 Mar 42, p. 8

[23] Ibid., 26, 30 Mar 42, pp. 10, 3

[24] Evening Past, 10 Apr 42, p. 6

[25] NZ Herald, 20 Apr 42, p. 6

[26] Star–Sun, 2 Apr 42, p. 6

[27] Evening Post, 22 Apr 42, p. 6

[28] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 258, referring to notes on the deputation

[29] NZ Herald, 4 Apr 42, p. 6

[30] Ibid., 20 Apr 42, p. 6

[31] See p. 345

[32] Evening Post, 27 Mar 42, p. 6

[33] Auckland Star, 17 Jul 42, p. 6

[34] WHN, ‘Police Department’, pp. 260–1, referring to notes of the deputation

[35] Press, 15 Apr 42, p. 6

[36] Andrews, John William, OBE('50), Councillor of Honour, Red Cross, (1891–): Mayor

Lower Hutt 1933–47; municipal positions (Pres Municipal Assn 1944–7), govt boards, RSA, Pres Hutt Valley Red Cross; NZRB WWI, cmdr Home Guard battalion 1939–46

[37] Scholefield, Diary, 1942

[38] NZ Herald, 12 Jun 42, p. 2

[39] Evening Post, 10 Jun 42, p. 4

[40] Ibid., 1 May 42, p. 4

[41] Ibid., 25 May 42, p. 6

[42] Dominion, 11 May 42, p. 4

[43] In many cases thereafter there were two Saturday drinking peaks instead of one.

[44] Excise duties and sales tax on beer which had been 1 s 5 d a gallon in August 1939 were 3 s 11 d in June 1942; 19.5 million gallons had been brewed in 1941. Evening Post, 1 May, 25 Jun 42, pp. 4, 4

[45] Auckland Star, 23 Jun 42

[46] Press, 24 Jun 42

[47] Dominion, 24 Jun 42, p. 4

[48] Evening Post, 13 Feb 43, p. 7

[49] Dominion, 14 Mar 42, p. 9; Evening Post, 6, 9 Mar 42, pp. 9, 7

[50] Auckland Star, 13 Mar 42, p. 6

[51] A to J1942, 1943, both H–16, p. 1

[52] Ibid., 1944, 1945, 1946, H–16, pp. 1, 1, 5

[53] Truth, 12 Aug 42, p. 8

[54] WHN, ‘Police Department’, pp. 265, 268

[55] Ibid.; NZ Herald, 4 May 43, p. 4

[56] Star–Sun, 22 Mar 43, p. 2

[57] Evening Post, 7 Aug 42, p. 4, 13 Apr 43, p. 3; NZ Herald, 16 Nov 42, p. 2; Auckland Star, 22 Apr 43, p. 4

[58] Evening Post, 22 Jan, 27 Mar 43, pp. 3, 6; Truth, 24 Feb, 24 Mar 43, pp. 9, 9; Auckland Star, 12 May 44, p. 6

[59] Evening Post, 15 Jan, 10, 28 Apr 43, pp. 3, 4, 3; Auckland Star 19 Sep 42, p. 7

[60] Dominion, 24 Oct 42, p. 10; Evening Post, 24 Apr 43, p. 6; Evening Star, 23 Jul 43, p. 2; NZ Herald, 5, 8 Dec 42, pp. 6, 2

[61] Evening Post, 3 Sep 43, p. 3

[62] Truth, 6 Jan 43, p. 7; Evening Post, 10 Apr, 3 May 43, pp. 4, 4

[63] Auckland Star, 20 Mar 43, p. 5

[64] Ibid.

[65] Dominion, 16 Oct 43, p. 4

[66] Auckland Star, 27 Mar 43, p. 6

[67] Evening Post, 19 May 43, p. 3

[68] Auckland Star, 5 Apr 43, p.4

[69] Ibid.

[70] Evening Pose, 15 Jan 43, p. 3

[71] Dominion, 1 Feb 44, p. 4

[72] Evening Post, 27 May, 3 Sep 43, pp. 3, 3; Auckland Star, 8 Oct 43, p. 4, 11 Aug 44, p. 6; Dominion, 4 Apr 44, p. 6

[73] Auckland Star, 2 May 44, p. 6

[74] Dominion, 11 Mar 44, p. 8

[75] Evening Post, 22 Jun 44, p. 6; NZ Herald, 22 Feb 44, p. 4

[76] Auckland Star, 26 Feb, 1 Apr 43, pp. 4, 4

[77] Ibid., 12 May 43, p. 6

[78] Ibid., 26 Feb 43, p. 4

[79] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 266

[80] Evening Post, 21 May 42, p. 4

[81] Ibid., 7 Aug 42, p. 3

[82] Auckland Star, 12 Jun 42, p. 4

[83] Ibid., 26 Feb 43, p. 4

[84] NZ Herald, 15 Apr 43, p. 4

[85] Press, 1 Mar 43

[86] Dominion, 27 Apr 43, p. 6

[87] Auckland Star, 22 Apr 43, p. 4

[88] NZ Herald, 1, 8 May, 9 Jun 43, pp. 6, 6, 2

[89] Ibid., 14 Oct 42, p. 4

[90] Evening Post, 13 Apr 43, p. 3

[91] NZPD, vol 264, p. 72, vol 265, p. 538

[92] Bollinger, p. 96; see p. 1238

[93] Dominion, 15 Apr 44, p. 6; Auckland Star, 11 Aug 44, p. 6

[94] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 268

[95] Ibid.

[96] Ibid., p. 269

[97] Auckland Star, 17, 20, 28 Aug 42, pp. 4, 4, 4

[98] Chandler, Very Rev Charles Walker (1894–1971): b UK, to NZ (Auck) 1928; Anglican Vicar Cambridge 1934–48, Dean Hamilton, Waikato 1948–58; Pres NZ Peace Council 1953–66

[99] Evening Post, 8 Jul 42, p. 3

[100] Methodist Times, Aug 42, in Auckland Star, 15 Aug 42, p. 6

[101] Auckland Star, 20, 27 Aug 42, pp. 4, 6

[102] Ibid., 17 Aug 42, p. 4

[103] Ibid., 22 Aug 42, p. 4

[104] Ibid., 24 Aug 42, p. 4; Truth, 2 Sep 42, p. 7

[105] NZ Herald, 24 Aug 42

[106] Ibid., 24 Jan 44, p. 4

[107] Ibid., 8 Mar 44, p. 7

[108] Dominion, 8 Feb 44, p. 3

[109] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 269

[110] Ibid., p. 270

[111] Auckland Star, 4 May 44, p. 2

[112] Ibid., 27 Jun 44, p.4

[113] A to J1940, H–31, p. 4, 1942, H–31, p. 3

[114] Ibid., 1943, 1944, 1945, all H–31, p. 3

[115] Ibid., 1942, H–31, p. 3

[116] Ibid.

[117] The first such prosecutions were made in August 1942. Auckland Star, 22 Aug 42, p.7

[118] NZ Herald, 15 Aug 42, p. 4

[119] Ibid., 11 Aug 42, p. 5

[120] Auckland Star, 19 Jun 42, p. 4

[121] Evening Post, 12 Aug 42, p. 3

[122] For instance, on 7 April 1943, at the request of the Victoria University of Wellington students' executive a Wellington medical officer, in a crowded room, spoke on forms of the disease and showed three films, one of a factory lecture on it in the United States, one showing its results, and another on the weapons available against it. Salient, 14 Apr 43

[123] Evening Post, 30 Jul 42, p. 6

[124] Auckland Star, 22 Oct 42, p. 8, film ad

[125] WHN, ‘Police Department’, p. 271; Dominion, 4 Nov 42, p. 4

[126] A to J1946, H–31, p. 3

[127] Ibid., 1948, 1952, 1956, all H–31, pp.7, 13, 18–19

[128] Evening Star, 23 Feb 43, p. 2; Truth, 3 Mar 43, p. 13

[129] NZ Herald, 2, 29 Feb 44, pp. 4, 7

[130] Auckland Star, 9 Nov 43, p. 4

[131] NZ Herald, 29 Feb 44, p. 7

[132] For instance, a Methodist minister. Rev Ashleigh Fetch, in mid-1943 said that decline in the birthrate was appalling, families were down to two or three children, New Zealanders as a nation were slowly committing suicide and the Maori were increasing three times as fast as the pakeha. Evening Post, 10 May 43, p. 4

[133] NZPD, vol 259, p. 242

[134] Harker, Cyril Geoffrey Edmund, OBE('64), JP (1899–1970): MP (Nat) Waipawa, Hawke's Bay 1940–63; member Law Revision Cmte 1946–9

[135] NZPD, vol 263, p. 271

[136] Ibid.

[137] The report from this inquiry is in A to J 1937–8, H–31A, pp. 1–28

[138] Auckland Star, 23 Sep 42, p. 2; Tomorrow, 20 Mar 40, p. 314

[139] Dominion, 23 Jul 41, p. 6

[140] NZ Herald, 13 Jan 44, p. 6

[141] Evening Post, 16, 22 Jun 44, pp. 6, 3; Taihape Times, 26 Jun 44, p. 3

[142] Evening Post, 14 Jul 44, p. 4

[143] Northcroft, Dr Hilda Margaret, JP (1882–1951): member Auck Hospital board 9 years; cmdr WWSA in WWII

[144] Truth, 31 Mar 43, p. 5

[145] NZ Herald, 5 Feb 44, p. 8

[146] Ibid., 15, 29 Feb 44, pp. 7, 6

[147] In the notable instance of a Waikato doctor, the jury at his first trial in October 1943 disagreed. At his second trial in November he was acquitted on six charges, the jury, failing to agree on three others. In February 1944 the Court filed a nolle prosequi, ending criminal proceedings. He was however struck off the register by the Medical Council.

Auckland Star, 20 Nov 43, p. 6; Dominion, 18 Jul 44, p. 3

[148] A Health Department advertisement in 1944 claimed 4600 unlawful abortions a year.

Auckland Star, 15 Sep 44, p. 7

[149] Yearbook1940, p. 152, 1941, p. 116, 1942, p. 116, 1944, p. 78, 1945, P. 80, 1946, p. 93, 1947–49, p. 100, 1950, p. 113

[150] A to J1945, H–31, p. 2

[151] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 51, 1950, p. 62

[152] Ibid., 1947–49, p. 53, 1950, p. 64

[153] Auckland Star, 6 Aug 43, p. 4

[154] Yearbooks 1939 to 1946

[155] Evening Post, 22 Jun 44, p. 4; Alexandra Home, a 4-page leaflet published by the Wellington Ladies' Christian Association, 1957

[156] Evening Post, 15 Jul 44, p. 6

[157] Auckland Star, 7, 11, 12, 23 Oct 43, pp. 4, 2, 2, 7; NZ Herald, 26 Jan 44, p. 4

[158] Auckland Star, 20, 26 Jan 44, pp. 1, 4

[159] Ibid., 23 Oct 44, p. 3; Truth, 28 Mar 45, p. 14

[160] Auckland Star, 17 Nov 43, p. 3; Truth, 28 Mar 45, p. 14

[161] Acland, Sir Jack, KBE('68), JP (1904–80): member Geraldine County Council 1934–42, Sth Canty Hospital Board 1940–59; MP (Nat) Temuka 1942–6; member NZ Wool Board 1947–73, chmn 1960–72; former member NZ Wool Cmssn, vice-chmn Internat Wool Secretariat

[162] NZPD, vol 266, pp. 719–20, 721

[163] Ibid., pp. 722–3

[164] Auckland Star, 14 Feb 45, p. 3

[165] Ibid., 31 Jul 40, p. 12

[166] Truth, 29 Oct 41, p. 9

[167] Evening Post, 9 Jan 42, p. 7

[168] NZ Herald, 13 Jun 42, p. 6

[169] Press, 15 Oct 43, p. 4

[170] Auckland Star, 19 Nov 43, p. 4

[171] Press, 23 Jan 42, p. 6; Star-Sun, 26 Feb 42, p. 8

[172] NZ Herald, 21 May 42, p. 4

[173] A to J 1940 to 46, all H–16, pp. 3, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5

[174] Auckland, Auckland Star, 10 Jul 41, p. 3, NZ Herald, 10 Jul, 14 Oct 42, pp. 2, 4;

Wellington, Evening Post, 5 May 41, p. 9, Dominion, 19 Oct 43, p. 4; Christchurch,

Dominion, 23 Jul 41, p. 8

[175] eg, Invercargill, Otago Daily Times, 7 Aug 40, p. 6; Palmerston North, Auckland Star, 16 Jul 40, p. 6; Napier, Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, 4 Jun 40, p. 6; New Plymouth, NZ

Herald, 4 Nov 41, p. 6; Auckland Star, 5 Nov 43, p. 2; Greymouth, Press, 29 Feb 44, p. 4

[176] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 169

[177] Auckland Star, 9, 10 Feb 43, pp. 4, 4

[178] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 167; figures for years 1942–6 not available

[179] Evening Post, 13 Sep 41, p. 8; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 170

[180] NZ Herald, 15 Oct 41, p. 8; Otago Daily Times, 18 Oct 41, p. 10; Dominion, 14 Oct 42, p. 6

[181] See p. 1139

[182] Press, 6 Aug 41, p. 6; Evening Post, 13 Nov 41, p. 6; NZ Herald, 5 Dec 41, p. 9 & editorial

[183] A to J1940, H–20B, p. 1; 1941, H–20B, p. 2; 1942, H–20, p. 3; 1943, H–20, p. 2; 1944, H–20, p. 10; 1945, H–20, p. 21

[184] In 1942 prisons received about 500 military defaulters and, very briefly, about 400 strikers. Yearbook 1947–49, p. 172

[185] A to J1946, H–20, p. 4

[186] Notably the 111% rise in ‘youthful offenders’, those admitted to probation or deferred sentence, between 1936(93) and 1940(203). NZPD, vol 260, p. 423 (Polson, 29 Aug 41), vol 262, p. 104 (Harker, 4 Mar 43); NZ Herald, 5 Dec 41

[187] See NZPD, vol 260, p. 423

[188] This remedy overlooked the fact that in war time fewer persons qualifed to run sporting activities were available.

[189] Auckland Star, 5 Sep 41, p. 5

[190] Chief Probation Officer, A to J 1940, H–20B, p. 1; F. W. Doidge, NZPD, vol 260, p. 414; Dominion, 9 Aug 43, editorial. Sir Thomas Hunter argued against child delinquency being related to absence of religious training in schools. Dominion, 18 Aug 43, p. 4; see p. 1134

[191] Evening Post, 7 Aug, 4 Nov 41, pp. 8, 8, 23 Nov 43, p. 3; Dominion, 4 Oct 41, p. 5, 8 Sep 43, p. 4; A to J 1945, H–20. p. 21

[192] A to J1942, H–20, p. 2

[193] Such as Levvey SM, Press, 22 Jan 41, p. 12, Justice Callan, NZ Herald, 5 Dec 41, p. 9, 17 Apr 42, p. 4

[194] NZPD, vol 262, p. 932

[195] Auckland Star, 24 May 43, p. 2

[196] Evening Star, 26 May, 21 Jul 43, pp. 2, 4

[197] Reid, Frank Felix, CBE('61) (1892–1966): SM from 1935; chmn Armed Forces Appeal Board 1941, War Pensions Appeal Board 1944–6

[198] Auckland Star, 27 Oct 43, p. 2

[199] Dominion, 16 Aug 43, p. 6

[200] Wanganui Education Board, Report on Character Training and Citizenship; Dominion, 20 Oct 44, p. 4

[201] Dominion, 18 Mar 43, p. 4

[202] NZ Herald, 17 Feb 44, p. 6

[203] Dominion, 18 Mar 43, p. 4

[204] Ibid.; WHN, ‘ Education Department’, pp. 46–7

[205] A to J1944, E–1, p. 5; NZ Herald, 17 Feb 44, p. 6

[206] NZ Herald, 17 Feb 44, p. 6

[207] Dominion, 19 Nov 42, p. 3

[208] NZ Herald, 8 Sep 42, p. 4

[209] See p. 1035

[210] Dominion, 9 Jul 42, p. 4

[211] Ibid., 12 Oct 42, p. 4

[212] NZ Herald, 17 Jun 42, p. 5, Evening Post, 18 Aug 43, p. 8, Dominion, 10 Jul 43, p. 6, 5 Jan 44, p. 3

[213] Dominion, 12 Oct 42, p. 4

[214] Ibid., 26, 27 Nov 42, pp. 6, 4

[215] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 46

[216] Ibid.; Dominion, 7 Jan 43, p. 4

[217] Dominion, 22 Apr 44, p. 8

[218] Ibid., 29 Apr, 15 May 43, pp. 3, 6

[219] Ibid., 24, 25 Aug, 4 Sep 43, pp. 4, 4, 6

[220] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 46

[221] NZ Herald, 20 May 44, p. 8; Auckland Star, 13 May 44, p. 7, 31 Jan 45, p. 6 (photos)

[222] Auckland Star, 8 May 45, p. 2

[223] Press, 22 Aug 44, p. 3

[224] Auckland Star, 13 Jul, 29 Aug, 2 Sep 44. pp. 4, 4, 4

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 21 — Women At War

CHAPTER 21
Women At War

To many women it was ‘this beastly war’, that took away the men, emptied the shops, paralysed the cars, curbed outings and holidays, and diverted a girl from her chosen occupation or lack of it. Others, aware of destruction and suffering in Cologne and the Ruhr as well as in Portsmouth or London, recoiled from all war as barbarous and useless, and were both thankful and ashamed that, unlike men of military age, they were not called publicly to stand by the war or reject it. They remained quiet, accepting the war passively, numbed by the headlines and Daventry news reports, waiting for it to pass, and meanwhile concentrating on things at hand, on children, households, jobs, studies, charities, the people they loved. Some such women were in universities, some in less articulate places; some were church members, some not; some were not attached to men drawn into the war, some were. They might give to patriotic collections or subscribe to National Savings, but they did not watch parades or knit balaclavas; they sought, consciously or unconsciously, to preserve enclaves of non-war values, interest and concern. Women have a very long tradition of accepting the inevitable and surviving through it.

Other women wanted to be in it, to do their bit, do something more specific than just going on diligently with their jobs and being kind to soldiers. Certainly such kindness covered a host of actions, from knitting or fund-raising to partnering unknown warriors at dances. In both town and country there was, for women of all ages, patriotic work organised through local committees, and special branches of other bodies—such as Women's Institutes, Townswomen's Guilds, church groups, the Women's Division of the Farmers' Union (WDFU) and also those of particular devotions, notably Air Force Relations and the Navy League. Here was the organised knitting, with wool distributed by patriotic committees, of socks and gloves and mittens (some mittens also ingeniously fashioned from the tops of worn-out socks), of skull caps and balaclavas, scarves and jerseys and sea-boot stockings. In three years, Air Force Relations alone knitted more than 24 000lb of wool into 85 000 garments, while more than one million garments passed through the National

Patriotic organisation. [1] There was also the making of hussifs, face-cloths and handkerchiefs, [2] the preparation, through the Red Cross and St John societies, of hospital supplies ranging from bandages, dressings and dysentry pads to pyjamas, quilts and jug-covers.

These women packed the thousands of individual parcels which were crated and sent overseas by provincial patriotic councils to every serviceman four times a year: the cake, biscuits, sweets, all in their separate tins, tinned fruit, coffee and milk, and various meats, [3] the cigarettes, soap, razor blades, footpowder, fruit salts, handkerchiefs, writing paper, playing cards, small books and other oddments. Some of these were purchased with patriotic funds, others were made or contributed by citizens. [4]

For prisoners-of-war the Red Cross maintained a steady flow of parcels, without which many would not have survived. One per man per week was the target and, in all, New Zealand prisoners totalled 8469, of whom about 4000 were captured in Greece and Crete during April–May 1941. Each parcel, which with packing weighed 11 pounds, held tins of cheese, jam, coffee and milk, honey or condensed milk, meat, sultanas, dried peas, chocolate, butter, sugar and four ounces of tea. At Red Cross headquarters in Wellington, men did the heavy crating work and more than 1500 women volunteers packed the parcels, measured and packaged the sugar, peas and tea. In the Wellington district in the year ending 31 May 1943, parties of about 33 women, averaging three hours daily, handled 342 952 parcels. [5]

There was also the packing of parcels for one's own near and dear in the Middle East or England or the Pacific. The favourite fruitcakes, ginger nuts and shortbread were baked, carefully fitted into tins and soldered and sealed. Some women with a long list of ‘boys’ baked incessantly. Tinned foods patiently shopped for, and assorted minor comforts with well chosen newspaper in the packing, were sturdily wrapped and sewn in calico. [6]

There was patriotic fund-raising, through the time-honoured, laborious devices of entertainments, raffles, Paddy's markets, stalls selling cakes, jams, pickles, plants, vegetables, tea-cosies, aprons, children's clothes. Acres of cooking passed over the trestles that regularly appeared on city street corners, in suburbs, in small towns and communities. There was much difference in detail but as a random example, one small town, Marton in the Rangitikei district, may be cited. Apart from knitting and Red Cross work, of which there was a great deal, [7] the patriotic committee held regular shop days, the proceeds going to various appeals. In 1941 two such days were devoted to the Navy League, two to the Heart to Heart appeal, two to the Red Cross, one to soldiers' parcels, one to prisoners-of-war parcels, one to the Mayor's Comforts fund and one to the Nurses' Memorial fund; the total raised was £2,500. [8]

Many women hastened to take first-aid, home nursing and Voluntary Aid Detachment courses with the Red Cross and St John societies, even before war started. In the first few days of September 1939, 500 enrolled for VAD training with the Red Cross in North Canterbury alone, where in the preceding months 600 certificates in first-aid and home nursing had been issued. [9] In all more than 12 000 certificates were issued by Red Cross national headquarters in 1939, after which it was decided that each local centre would issue its own. It was also decided to widen the scope of courses available, with training in motor vehicle driving and mechanics, in cooking, laundry, canteen and Air Raid Precautions work. [10] Again citing North Canterbury, in three years, by September 1942, 3275 women had taken the home nursing course, 3753 had done first-aid, 1086 had studied hygiene and sanitation, 197 had taken the ARP course. [11] In the Wellington area 1240 took courses in 1939, 1527 in 1940, 2360 in 1941 and 1830 in 1942 when the risk of an emergency reached its peak. Numbers then waned. [12] Response would have been similar in other districts. The widespread training, apart from giving qualifications in EPS work, enabled women to cope better with everyday minor injuries and ailments, lessening calls on hard-pressed doctors.

VAD training was longer. In addition to the courses in first-aid, home nursing, hygiene and sanitation, it required more than 60 hours of hospital work, but hundreds went through it to be ready for work in emergencies. By September 1942 North Canterbury had 520 VADs fully qualified and nearly as many partly trained, [13] while in the whole South Island, excluding Marlborough and Nelson, 2088 women had qualified as nursing VADs; others, in the transport section, had taken examinations in elementary motor vehicle management, while kitchen and laundry trainees had staffed two auxiliary hospitals during an influenza epidemic. [14] In the first two years there was little direct call on their services, save when outbreaks of influenza, measles and mumps in camps and air-training schools filled emergency hospitals, often in racecourse buildings or commandeered schools. By mid-1941 some were wondering why, and for what, they had been urged to prepare. [15] In that year the Air Force began using nursing aids in its station hospitals within New Zealand and later a few were regularly employed by the Army: in February 1944 there were 119 working for the Air Force and 50 at military camp hospitals. [16]

An elect few went overseas. In September 1941, amid a good deal of heart-burning, 30 VADs were carefully selected from all over the country and later sailed for the Middle East, followed shortly by 200 more. [17] About 14 were shorthand typists who worked in hospital offices, etc, while in the wards the nursing VADs made beds, washed patients, took temperatures, served meals and helped with cleaning and cooking. Others worked on hospital ships. Many became capable and responsible nurses, and their overseas employment was an innovation approved by the Army nursing sisters. [18] By February 1944 there were 268 voluntary aids in the Middle East and the Pacific, and 244 were still overseas in May 1945. [19]

At home, from the latter part of 1941 onwards as sick and wounded crowded existing hospitals and the new ones specially built, notably for Americans, there was an increasing demand for VAD services. Unpaid, they logged many thousands of hours in casualty clearing stations and assorted duties in both civil and military hospitals. [20] Also they were keenly sought as regular nursing aids, though the wages were so low that many preferred other work and, despite the priority of hospital claims, Manpower officials sometimes agreed. In October 1942, J. A. Lee pointed out that, after taxation (at 2s 6d in every £), VADs commonly received only £2 3s 9d weekly includeing living-out allowance. Thereafter, hospital boards were recommended to pay them not less than 30 shillings a week in the first year and 35 in the second, while raising the living-out allowance from 20 to 35 shillings. [21] Even so, Manpower authorities allowed the appeal of a 23-year-old girl at Auckland who, having previously worked 18 months as a voluntary aid at Whangarei— ‘nothing but a glorified housemaid’—appealed against direction from machine work averaging £3 17 s 6 d net a week to being a nursing aid at Green Lane Hospital where she would get only £1 17 s 6 d gross if she lived in, £3 if she lived out. [22] Nursing aids at the foot of the nursing service instanced sharply the problem that beset all its ranks: the assumption that dedication, discipline and membership of a noble profession made money almost unnecessary. But threadbare honour was not enough in the changing social patterns wherein women's demands for greater independence combined with labour shortages to make professional satisfaction an insufficient return.

In March 1943 the Civil Nursing Reserve was established to meet the acute and fluctuating demands for staff which beset hospitals, creating crises. At its peak it employed 50 registered nurses and more than 400 voluntary aids, who during four years assisted in more than 30 hospitals, many of which could not have carried on without this supplementary staff. [23]

Another area of women's effort was the refurbishing and making of clothes for the war's most direct civilian victims. In June 1940 Lady Galway, wife of the Governor-General, launched a movement to provide comforts for refugees and those in want because of the war. [24] The idea of sending clothes to women and children bombed out of their homes grew with the Blitz. Beginning with meetings of mayoresses, with the ballroom at Government House as a practical and inspirational centre, the Lady Galway Guild spread rapidly. Soon there were branches in cities, suburbs and towns of all sizes, headed by mayoresses and other leading ladies, while existing women's organisations formed special groups for the same purpose.

Old clothes were collected and sorted; dry cleaning firms and transport agencies gave free services. In the Guild's work rooms, in their own homes, and in the sewing circles of supporting bodies, women cleaned, mended and made clothes, cutting up worn or unsuitable garments to make all sorts of children's clothing, with special emphasis on warm things for babies and young children. Quantities of junior shirts, shorts and trousers were made from old suits. Pieces of new material begged from manufacturers made skirts and shorts and pants and jackets, locknit singlets and petticoats. [25] Wool was knitted and reknitted, patchwork rugs were made out of knitted squares or pieces of worsted and tweed. Women's coats and frocks were mended and freshened. Many Depression-trained women were already adept at such contrivings and they taught others. Skilled young women from dressmaking firms came to work in groups. [26] Displays of garments were viewed, informing and inspiring further efforts.

Within two months more than a hundred tons of clothing had been sent off to Britain, and there were more than a hundred branches of the Guild, each with its own subsidiary organisations, through which flowed a constant stream of clothing for sorting and making over. [27] Besides direct volunteers, groups from all sorts of bodies took turns at the Guild's work tables: in Wellington, for instance, during 1941, the National Club supplied Monday's workers, a private group came on Tuesdays, the Repertory Society and Victoria League on alternate Wednesdays, the Women's Institute and Union of Jewish Women on alternate Thursdays, the Labour Women's Patriotic Organisation on Fridays. [28] Through sewing circles in many organisations—the Red Cross, YWCA, Townswomen's Guilds, Women's Institutes, the WDFU—in suburbs and in remote country areas, the work went on and parcels were sent to the main centres for despatch. [29] Early in 1942, when attack by Japan seemed probable, it was decided to retain a portion of the prepared clothing, lest need strike nearer home, [30] but the flow did not cease. [31]

Over the years, the Lady Galway Guild and its tributaries continued to send out cases of clothing, mainly to Britain but sometimes to other bomb-targets such as Malta and Russia. [32] Effort was sustained by the warm reception from the British Women's Volunteer Service, for example, in 1943: ‘… your magnificent generosity. It is quite beyond me how you can still send such lovely presents, but we are truly thankful that you can.’ And again, ‘words are inadequate. I should like you all to see a woman bombed from her home being fitted out in your clothes, amazed, as she climbs into a coat, to be told that it has come all the way from New Zealand. No speeches, no flag-wagging, can cement the Empire ties more inviolably than this, that somebody in New Zealand should be helping somebody in Great Britain. The miles of land and ocean dwindle to nothing. You have become Mrs Jones from Next-door lending a helping hand.’ [33] In 1944 the work was still going on briskly, though now at some centres the proceeds of one day a week were reserved for the families of servicemen overseas, and many such were helped through the era of shortages. [34]

Some groups of women in shops, offices or factories also organised themselves for particular projects. For instance, about 120 girls from Flamingo Frocks, Auckland, aged 15 to 25, earning weekly from 17 s to £2 12 s 6 d, tackled the needs of the military hospital at Narrow Neck. They gave money to buy a vacuum cleaner and an infrared lamp, also material for sheets, pillow-slips, pyjamas and dressing gowns which they made up in the firm's workrooms. They made socks, mittens, gloves, slippers, table covers, cushions, towels and 26 patchwork rugs; they painted red flamingos on lampshades. [35] Thereafter, they settled down to working for the Lady Galway Guild and the St John Ambulance. [36] By February 1944 the tea rooms of James Smiths, Wellington, had given £200 to the Harbour Lights Guild of Missions to Seamen to buy comfortable chairs, cutlery, cups, a portrait of George VI and handkerchiefs for Christmas parcels. Wish-bones from poultry used in the tea rooms provided most of the money: about 8000 were bleached, enamelled and sold to be put in overseas parcels for good luck. [37] Less bizarre, groups of girls from firms did Red Cross, EPS and WWSA work, including camouflage-net making, or they typed for the Home Guard. [38]

Especially in towns near camps, the entertainment of servicemen on leave, most of them far from home and friends, was an obvious urgent problem: otherwise the lads had only the pictures, the pubs and the streets. Many would prefer the pubs to the pictures, but the pubs closed at 6 pm. No one wanted the streets filled with rowdy or staggering soldiers, and clearly it was both a duty and a pleasure which fell naturally into the hands of women to make ‘our boys’ as happy as possible.

Obviously as a first step there must be Services clubs. Army, Navy and Air Force (ANA), Welcome and Catholic Service clubs appeared rapidly, first in the main leave towns, then further afield, as at Palmerston North and Timaru. [39] They were run by local patriotic committees and by hundreds of voluntary workers, mainly women.

Christchurch probably led here: its Welcome Club was created almost overnight in October 1939 to greet the first soldiers on weekend leave from Burnham with an information bureau, tea and a dance; [40] its Union Jack Club, opened in August 1940, was admired in other cities. [41] Everywhere, these clubs were open for long hours, offering cafeterias, cheap meals, lounges, reading rooms, weekend entertainments and sleeping accommodation (but never enough).

Such clubs were, however, only a drop in the bucket. Food and company, primarily the company of young women, were the foremost needs. Dancing was the most direct, simplest and cheapest way for girls and servicemen decorously to begin acquaintance and pass the time. Accordingly, dancing was the staple entertainment, though there were also concerts, community sings and socials with games and charades. Existing clubs such as the YMCA, YWCA, Toc H, Victoria League and National Club opened their doors to servicemen at weekends, supplying teas, cost-price dinners, and dancing. New clubs sprang up, run by volunteers and helped by patriotic funds, mainly for weekend entertainment. Wellington, for instance, had the Spinsters, [42] Webby's, the Grosvenor, the Victory, the Fighting

Forces and the Cinderella [43] clubs and others even out in the suburbs, such as the Miramar Fighting Services' Hospitality Club. [44] Organised groups of women and girls took turns at cooking, serving, washing dishes, chatting up the boys and dancing. For girls especially, these clubs were mutual benefit societies, as outside them men were growing scarcer; older women and established hostesses contributed their social standing and skills. Many, both as individuals and in groups, especially from country areas and small towns, sent in quantities of vegetables, meat, eggs, butter, hams, fruit, jam, cake, biscuits and flowers. [45]

Other places offered cafeterias and relaxation in lounges and reading rooms throughout the days and evenings. They were staffed with friendly women who, besides serving food and chatting, would sometimes mend clothes and sew on buttons, as at Wellington's

Salvation Army hut, handily placed between the railway station and the wharves. [46] Some of these places were also hostels, offering beds, though again never enough of them, such as Toe H and the Carrie Army Hostel in Auckland, [47] Toc H and the Combined Hostel in

Wellington, [48] the Salvation Army in several cities. [49] Catholic Service clubs opened, offering home-style comforts from tea and papers to weekend entertainment and beds. [50] The YMCA was active, opening its gymnasiums and other facilities to servicemen and extending its premises in several cities to provide hundreds of beds, while various churches and women's auxiliaries took turns in providing weekend meals and entertainment. [51] When the Americans arrived, more clubs appeared in the relevant centres, equipped with American features such as coffee and hamburgers, and with information bureaux for making contacts with hospitable civilians. [52]

Many families, especially those with sons in the forces or with daughters about, gave tireless warmth and good home meals to an endless chain of friends' friends from the camps. Often this meant easy companionship, liveliness and linked acquaintances; sometimes, given shy lads with little small talk, it was heavy going, and after one had joked through dinner and the dishes a desperately long time could stretch out before the next cup of tea or the leave train. Many boys, of course, would not face such amiable ordeals, and stuck to their own resources, however bleak, counting Sunday leave as a dead loss. New Zealand Sundays were still solid Sabbath: not till the Americans came was there even the refuge of films for servicemen and their friends, which then began in two or three cinemas in each city. Popular films, however, had long runs, and save for some sports arrangements there was no other regular entertainment for the non-dancers, except the pursuit of girls, sometimes an elegant pursuit, sometimes coarse. As one American told a reporter, with a New Zealand soldier in agreement, ‘a man at liberty occasionally wants more than a cup of coffee and a paper to read’. [53]

Letter-writing occupied thousands and thousands of hours, countless evenings when women searched memory over humdrum days, sometimes helped by notes on kitchen jotters or on envelopes in handbags and sometimes inhibited by awareness of the censor, for there were so many things that one should not mention. They wrote to Bill or Jack or Jim, strove to feel close to him, perhaps cried a little, perhaps worried that they did not cry, worried that he was becoming remote and unreal. As the overseas months and years passed, even a much-loved man could recede frighteningly, endearments and yearnings seemed mechanical because they had been written and read so often. Sometimes letters were an emotional life-line that sustained and confirmed a relationship, sometimes they nurtured a minor friendship into knowledge and strength. Sometimes, particularly for the less articulate, ardour faded on the pages as time and distance wore down feeling, especially when another man appeared more lively and more mature, simply because he was there, than Bill, Jack or Jim in Egypt or Italy or New Caledonia. Some wrote only to husbands or boyfriends, to sons or brothers or relatives or close friends; some sterling girls wrote more or less regularly to many not really close to them, understanding how the boys looked for letters, any letters, that gave news and warmth and the sense of belonging back there; understanding how good it was to be the lad with a packet, how desolate to be the one for whom there was no mail at all.

For some women such homely, low-keyed contributions were not enough: they wanted sterner, more stirring stuff. In films and in the newspapers, British girls forked hay, fed calves, drove tractors, Army cars and ambulances through the Blitz; impressive in trousers, overalls and goggles they worked on shells and hand-grenades and aeroplanes, welding and using heavy machinery; in uniforms replete with pockets they swung in soldierly fashion, chins lifted, faces rigid; in control rooms they read dials and signals, uttered messages, moved flags. These things were important, dedicated and far more exciting than one's normal typing or shop work, replacing a man at an office desk or machining shirts and trousers. This zeal to do ‘real war work’ found spontaneous expression.

At Auckland, soon after war began, the Women's National Service Corps was launched, and within a year recruited about 400 girls, keen to cope with emergency. Its style was very military. Its commander, ‘Major’ D. M. Hawkins, who had been an officer in a women's auxiliary in England during the last war, was now a drill instructor at a girls' school and had the remarkable distinction of being chairman of the New Lynn RSA. [54] She was understandably keen on drill. Disciplined movement and smart saluting were conspicuous with these devoted girls, but they also trained for VAD and clerical duties, for signalling, canteen work and cooking, while their transport section, besides driving, learned to repair motors. They had no public support, but each paid 6 d a week for expenses and provided her own uniform. Khaki material was scarce, so they began with shirts and shorts for drill, looking forward to public parades when fully equipped with skirts and caps, which they had attained by August 1940. [55] Their first route march was photographed in September. [56] To these young women their khaki was a great attraction and they thought of it as the King's uniform, not as that of a private club. [57]

Despite an internal row and some external criticism, [58] their zeal won recognition. They obtained the use of Narrow Neck military parade ground for their Saturday afternoons, [59] and in January 1941 they held a camp on Avondale race course, where their elaborate marching was approved by Brigadier Bell. [60] They joined in a ceremonial parade of troops [61] and from time to time the Army rewarded their eagerness with use. They worked in military hospitals during epidemics, did canteen work: after a city parade they served pies, buns and tea with great dispatch to 4000 3rd Echelon men. [62] By mid-1941 some were employed as cooks at Waiouru Military Camp and some were doing driving jobs for the Army. [63] They also did clerical and telephone work for the Army and Home Guard. [64] Their smartness and military movement continued to impress in parades, while their signallers were becoming adept in semaphore and morse. [65]

When the WWSA was set up in August 1940 to co-ordinate all women's war work, the National Service Corps was one of the first bodies to affiliate; its commander, Miss Hawkins, was elected to the WWSA Auckland committee, and after the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps ( WAAC) was formed in February 1942 she attained full military status by becoming head of its Auckland division. [66] In December 1941 the National Service Corps had 520 members for signalling, transport, clerical and cooking work, and 40 band players; [67] by mid-August 1942 membership was reported as 450, out of which 76 had joined the WAAC with Miss Hawkins, 75 were in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), three were in the Land Army, while 30 were driving, herd-testing or doing hospital work. [68] By December 1943 only those tied to essential industry or to their homes remained, doing spare time work in Service canteens and clubs, and packing patriotic parcels. One group cooked for a

Home Guard unit, while the entertainment section, assisted by three American servicemen and a returned New Zealander, performed at clubs and hospitals. [69]

In mid-1940 some Christchurch women, rightly foreseeing a scarcity of vegetables, decided to grow them in their spare time. About 50 business and professional women, led by Mary McLean, [70]

formed a modest, non-uniformed group to grow vegetables for orphanages and other institutions which might not be getting their normal peacetime support. Some produced more in their own gardens, some, tutored by City Council gardeners and by skilled members of the group, tackled half an acre in Abberley Park, a former suburban estate, ploughed for them by the City Council. [71] Among those who collected blisters on this ground was Ngaio Marsh, [72] better known in the fields of detective fiction and drama production. [73] Several landowners lent accessible sections and the gardeners multiplied. They grew their own seedlings in thousands, and by the summer of 1941–2 the WWSA bicycle corps was delivering their vegetables to orphanages, the Salvation Army, old age pensioners, returned soldiers and soldiers' wives. [74]

At this stage the group, having acquired a dehydrating oven to dry beans for men on minesweepers around New Zealand, decided to send beans to Britain also. In the ‘Beans for Britain’ campaign, local women were asked to grow extra in their own gardens, timed so that the oven could cope with production, while cocoa tins, etc, were saved for packaging. A dietician, Dr Muriel Bell, [75] approved the project, and Christchurch beans duly found their way to women's societies in the north of England. [76] Early in the enterprise there was modest readiness to use this enthusiasm in regular production. Several market gardeners offered to take on girls for training while, as some aspired to farm work, at least eight farmers ‘consented to take girls who are at present not working in the city and train them as farm workers’. Their duties were to include the care of calves, pigs and fowls, feeding and grooming horses, milking cows, gardening and assisting with housework. They would probably go in pairs, taking camp stretchers and their own bedding, and be prepared to get their own meals, saving the farmers' wives additional labour; wages would be privately arranged between trainee and farmer. [77] In the early summer of 1941 successive groups of the Christchurch Land Army [78] spent a week of their annual holidays at Waimate picking peas at 1 d a pound, an effort approved by the Farmers'

Union in the growing labour shortage. [79] A month later, however, this effort was discontinued following complaints that Christchurch land girls were depriving Waimate people of work. [80]

Driving, obviously a vital skill, was prominent in several preparatory efforts. In Wellington in October 1939 young and not-so- young women, with their own cars, enlisted in an auxiliary transport group with the general idea of being useful and prepared. [81] Led by Mrs V. Hole, [82] who had driven an ambulance in the previous war, they learned first-aid, stretcher drill, map-reading and transport column work and took a fairly extensive course in motor mechanics, prescribed by the Institute of Automative Engineers, with practical work in garages, and examinations. [83] By mid-1940 they had moved under the auspices of the Red Cross which was organising similar groups in other centres, conspicuous in blue-grey, two-piece uniforms and red-crossed caps. [84] They practised traffic control and ambulance driving, using three-ton lorries on hilly roads, and went with ambulance drivers for experience. [85] By 1943 there were about 150 members at both Auckland and Wellington, 50 at Dunedin and smaller groups at other places. They were on call for various duties, notably meeting ships and trains bringing wounded, and regularly driving convalescents between their homes and the hospitals for treatment, giving their time and cars free, but using government petrol; a few drove Army vehicles. [86] In some places, such as Palmerston North, the most experienced were on the hospital pay-roll as supplementary ambulance drivers. [87] In the EPS system they were attached to medical aid posts. In Dunedin, beginning in October 1939, about 25 women were trained in regular St John Ambulance work, replacing men in voluntary duty, on call to hospitals and accidents and attending sports meetings. [88]

In sundry places and through various organisations, women learned to drive and service heavy vehicles. At Christchurch, in the General

Service Corps, a body organised to help the war effort in any direction, there was a vigorous women's section which, besides knitting, sewing and entertaining troops, had an active transport branch of about 280, whose training included mechanics, first-aid, signalling and drill. [89] In New Plymouth, YWCA classes in mechanics at the Technical College were followed by practical courses in driving and in running repairs, with the Borough Council lending heavy lorries for the last stages of training. [90] In Ashburton, during July 1940, 63 women enrolled for transport driving in the Technical School's evening classes. [91] Gisborne had a group of 50 to 60 women, many able to drive trucks, linked with its Legion of Frontiersmen, waiting for emergency and meanwhile learning squad drill from a sergeant-major. [92]

Driving was not the only avenue of preparation. The idea of listing people who were ready to help in various ways was gaining ground, notably in Christchurch where canvassers of the General Service Corps were making such a register; [93] in country districts Women's Institutes were sorting out those ready to cook, drive, do home nursing and first-aid, care for children or take in evacuees. [94] As the gloomy headlines of June and July unfolded in 1940, women in several towns began to form active groups for widespread work. In the Manawatu a large and eager meeting, with the mayoress of

Palmerston North presiding, formed an auxiliary service corps, to be on the lines of Britain's WAAC of the last war and ready for an emergency with units trained in first-aid, mechanics, ambulance and lorry driving, despatch riding, and as cooks and land girls. [95] Women at Nelson formed an auxiliary corps keen to train for any emergency work, [96] and at Hamilton 250 enrolled in a corps to assist the war effort in any way required, the immediate activities being service at the local soldiers' club, clerical work for the Army, physical training under an Internal Affairs expert and drill with an Army sergeant. [97] A year later the town saw precise and efficient marching as this corps paraded in new dark blue uniforms behind the Waikato Regimental Band. [98]

Thus, by July 1940, there were scattered but widespread attempts by women to organise for the war effort in general and also for an emergency within the country. A month earlier in Wellington the Women's War Service Auxiliary had its beginnings, initiated by Dr Agnes Bennett, [99] a veteran who, besides notable work in the mother and child field, had the additional status of 1914–18 war service in the Balkans and in England. Thinking of the organised activity of women in England during that war and of how much they could undertake in New Zealand if the mood of zeal were seized, Dr Bennett, after preliminary discussion with other strenuous ladies, headed a deputation to the Prime Minister on 11 June 1940. They first proposed an auxiliary corps of women to assist in essential services, to be trained in any needed capacity, demobilising automatically at the war's end, leaving jobs clear for the returning heroes. Their corps should have a disciplined, military tone, with attesting, readiness to serve anywhere for the duration, and saluting of officers. There should be uniforms, starting with armbands, for recognition by the public, and to make the women feel that they were really giving national service.

This military aspect was firmly discouraged. The Prime Minister said that some of the discipline they had in mind would be quite unacceptable in New Zealand; they seemed to have a uniform complex, but factories were already taxed to the utmost for the fighting forces, the main problem at the moment being to get sufficient labour for them. The idea emerged, shaped largely by Eraser, of the Auxiliary acting as liaison between women at large and government departments; of its using existing organisations, such as Women's Institutes, the Plunket Society and the WDFU, to make contact with large numbers of women, finding out what each could do and as need occurred guiding those with appropriate experience into community service or industry. [100]

Thereafter a constitution was worked out, and on 11 July a national conference, representing 69 women's organisations, adopted it and elected officers. Mrs Janet Fraser, [101] elected Dominion president, explained that the government had agreed to the formation of the Auxiliary on condition that it obtained the backing of established women's organisations, whose war activities it would co-ordinate, avoiding duplication without disturbing their normal functions. It would be a non-military organisation, under control of the Minister of National Service. It would enrol those willing to render service and allot them tasks in the future: at present there was no general drain on manpower. [102] The Dominion Council had 12 elected members, [103] and four [104] were to be appointed by the Minister of National Service, then Robert Semple. It was widely representative, but unwieldy and met seldom. [105]

Business was delegated to a smaller Dominion Central Executive, all living in Wellington; Mrs Fraser (president), Dr Bennett (vice-president), Mesdames V. Jowett, [106] M. J. Bentley, [107] E. M. Knox Gilmer [108] and M. Don [109] (secretary) and Amy Kane. [110] Mrs H. Atmore, wife of the independent member for Nelson, toured the four centres preaching the gospel of preparation, training and readiness to do all kinds of work. Despised domestic duties must be raised in status, no honest work was menial; women should be ready to work the factories 24 hours a day if necessary. All organisations should enrol members for this comprehensive new body, filing details of qualifications; age did not count but all should improve their physical fitness. [111]

This could hardly produce the wanted ‘feeling of living in an armed camp’ or meet ‘the burning desire to do our bit’ that the

Woman's Weekly of 8 August perceived in women. Simply, there were as yet no jobs for them, and the burning desire in many cases burnt out. But the WWSA organisation busily established itself. Branches soon formed in many centres, each with nine members elected by and from the women's organisations, and three appointed by the government. As the Taranaki Herald remarked on 26 October, the latter were a precaution against any one interest being over-dominant. They generally represented the Labour side, and the lists of those elected suggest that they were a necessary balance. Thus

Wellington's elected ladies were drawn from the Plunket Society, University Women, Business and Professional Women, the Women Writers and Artists' Association, the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, the YWCA, the League of Mothers, the Lyceum Club and WDFU. [112] A trade union secretary doubted if they represented 25 per cent of women in the district, and ‘A Tailoress’ thought that they would have included a qualified clothing tradeswomen. [113] The government appointees, Mesdames R. Semple, M. J. Bentley and H. D. Bennett, added some Labour ballast. [114]

The immediate aim was to enlist as many women as possible, both directly and through affiliated organisations. Members filled in cards, saying what they could do, whole-time or part-time, and what training they could undertake. From these cards WWSA district committees compiled lists of those willing to help in various ways, such as driving, first-aid, farming, clerical work, growing vegetables, caring for children, working in hospitals or factories. Then they paused, for zeal outran opportunity. It was established that in Industry even the most patriotic must work for wages on the same terms as regular employees, and in practice the Auxiliary's only activity in this field was referring women who wanted factory work to the placement officer. At the start of October, Wellington had about 1400 members, Christchurch 1000. [115] By December 1941 there were 183 local centres and sub-centres, all compiling their registers. [116] After

Japan's entry membership, including affiliated organisations, rose steeply to 75 000 in 1942, with 250 district committees. [117]

Vegetable-growing on a modest scale was one of the first direct activities of the WWSA, following the lead of the affiliated Christchurch business women who had begun their gardens earlier. Wellington members soon tackled a vacant section in Aitken Street near

Parliament Buildings. [118] Other sections were made available at Russell Terrace, Khandallah and Sydney Street, some needing strenuous clearing: at Sydney Street nine lorry-loads of old iron and rubble were cleared for a bumper crop of potatoes. These vegetables went to Service clubs, as did those grown by members at Eastbourne and Paraparaumu. [119] Dunedin's land group began in July 1941 with classes in horticulture, then the City Council lent them half an acre at Chingford, on which about 20 women were soon producing promising crops destined for nearby military camps. [120] Auckland's WWSA did not cultivate civic plots, but arranged well attended classes for improving orchard and garden skills, and sought out knowledgeable gardeners in every locality to advise others. [121]

Apart from gardening, compiling registers and waiting for jobs to turn up, the WWSA began several training courses so that women would be ready for tasks arising from attack, generally referred to as ‘emergency’. Canteen workers learned about camp cooking and catering for large numbers. [122] In technical college classes, garages and city corporation yards, transport groups learned how to drive and repair heavy vehicles, hoping to be called to the wheel. [123] The Press on 17 January 1942 reported that 20 WWSA and General Service Corps girls were delivering impressed vehicles to camps, their first opportunity for driving service after drilling and studying for a year. They sought experience wherever possible, some driving shingle trucks, others heavy vehicles, even a double-decker sheep truck. [124] Signals groups learned morse with flags, buzzers and lamps. [125] Bicycle dispatch riders trained in long-distance runs, care of their machines, night-riding, map reading, local geography and street directories and in formation-riding for parades. [126] All groups learned first-aid, map reading and some signalling. They also had plenty of drill, so conducive to discipline and a good appearance in public. Keep-fit classes were organised by the physical welfare branch of the Internal Affairs Department. [127]

Some hundreds of WWSA trainees sped into the WAAF when it began early in 1941 and others were ready-made leaders for EPS units, but in May 1942 the Director of National Service expressed longstanding uneasiness: the main function of the WWSA was to co-ordinate the work of other bodies, rather than do the work itself. It would be ‘quite undesirable to continue training women in such work as signalling, clerical, transport, etc., if in the event of an emergency these girls would be unattached to any operating body’ Only those who could be so attached, notably to EPS, should be trained. [128]

These women wanted uniforms, uniforms that gave the outward sign and the inner conviction that one was doing one's bit. Already two earlier organisations, the Auckland National Service Corps and the Red Cross Transport, had contrived their own uniforms, and the

Woman's Weekly voiced some current ideas on this theme: ‘for the establishment of unity, discipline and esprit de corps, uniform is not only desirable but necessary, for women's units as for men's. … It must be logically conceded a woman needs to be more correctly accoutred than a man if she is to uphold what has previously been unfeminine attire with necessary dignity and decorum’. [129] From the start, uniform was envisaged, [130] and despite the Prime Minister's initial disapproval, War Cabinet duly approved a modest outfit. The first issues were in time for the large home defence parades in the main towns during April and May 1941, the first occasions on which New Zealand women in any number, apart from nurses and those in the Red Cross, paraded in uniform. [131] This consisted of a long-sleeved, belted dress of khaki cotton drill, buttoned right up the front, with three large military-style pockets, worn with a soft-crowned, visored khaki cap, a badge, and a tie the colour of which varied according to the wearer's section. Only active members acquired uniform, and wore it only for drill and training classes, parades and actual duty. With government subsidy, the outfit cost each girl £1. For committee members and training leaders the Minister approved two-piece, military-style uniforms, also of khaki drill, worn with an official badge. But when the central executive, having provided themselves with a distinctive uniform, asked for it to be officially recognised, the Director expressed surprise that this had been done without the Minister's permission. [132]

In the long run, through the register of who could do what, the WWSA organised women in various projects, large and small. A few helped in the control rooms or drove as messengers at fire stations. [133] Many helped in the perpetual tasks of patriotic fund raising and war loan campaigns. After Japan's entry, when camouflage nets were urgently needed, the WWSA soon had hundreds of women of all ages, in scattered depots, practising the skill initially taught them by a few retired fishermen, along with the boy scouts and girl guides who had already pioneered this field. [134] Some of the sections were very large on paper, but only women living within reasonable distance of, say, camps or hospitals could be actively engaged. The most prominent were canteen workers, totalling 20 000, who cooked for Home Guard manoeuvres and in evenings and weekends helped to run canteens in military camps and hospitals, or worked in Service clubs and hostels. [135] They were specially active in 1942–3, when all camps were bulging and, later, when drafts of men were returning they rallied to the catering arrangements. The clerical section (10 000-strong at 31 March 1945) did most of the clerical and typing work for the EPS and Home Guard, and in nightly or weekend stints made up Army arrears, especially in the mobilisation period of 1942. The transport group, 5000 strong, some able to drive heavy vehicles, were prominent in EPS units, and in waste paper and other collections, while many moved into the WAAF and WAAC as drivers. Another 2000 formed the hospital section, which, besides training aids for kitchen and laundry work in an emergency, helped voluntarily with routine clerical and telephone work and hospital visiting. A section of 250 acted as spare-time obstetrical voluntary aids, and in Wellington a group of 30 became full-time nurses in public maternity hospitals. [136]

The WWSA, run largely on volunteer labour and assisted to some extent by donations and small fees for classes, etc, was not extravagant, and was encouraged in its thrift by the government. [137] Up to 31 March 1945 it cost the War Expenses Account £24,408, of which £15,500 was incurred by March 1942, while 1943–4 saw a credit of £600 from the sale of uniforms. [138] At the war's end the

Director of National Service said that it was ‘one of the most inexpensive war organisations set up’. [139]

The WWSA rank and file were stand-by maids of war work, each ready, in any area, at a telephone call or other summons, to turn to any job within her appointed range, generally in her spare time. The higher ranks had a more managerial function. They were, as Fraser from the start intended, the link between officialdom and women in the community. The government had to break new ground in directing women to essential industry and enlisting them in the armed forces. In these innovations, feeling could easily have risen that girls were being Manpowered into positions detrimental to their delicacy or moral fibre. This was forestalled by the prominence of senior WWSA leaders in the early stages of enlistment and Manpower direction; their role, to the public, was something between chaperons and watchdogs of women's interests. As people became accustomed to women in the Services and being directed to work, the WWSA chaperons became less necessary. They were eased off the Manpower scene as more women officials were appointed, and eased out of enlistment procedures, both for the forces and for land work, when enlistment was made direct to the forces and through Manpower to the land service. But at the outset it is probable that this respectable body, elected, however remotely, from women's organisations, cushioned the impact of what some saw as the regimentation of women.

In September 1939 the female labour force was estimated at 180 000. Normal increase in four years would have made it 185 000, but by December 1943, 228 000 women were employed and 8000 others were in the armed forces. [140] The increase was both in women's traditional employments and in new ones. There were more women in teaching and nursing, in shops and offices, in factories where they had usually worked, such as clothing, footwear, woollen mills, biscuits, and confectionery; more women where previously there had been few or none, such as in the Public Service, banks, Post and Telegraph, railways, trams, engineering, canneries, farms, flax and rubber mills and driving work, plus a host of other places in which employers found a few girls useful substitutes for men—on milk rounds, [141] as hotel porters, [142] zoo attendants, [143] on domestic meter reading, [144] trucking fruit and vegetables to city markets, [145] scientific work, [146] joinery, [147] brick works, [148] delivering coal, [149] announcing trains at stations, [150] and one even became radio officer on the Cook Strait ferry Tamahine [151]

At the war's end women straggled away from many of these occupations, but as the succeeding years brought soaring labour demands, not the expected recession, they remained in other areas, such as the Public Service and banks. In time they attained status as permanent employees, instead of being classed as temporary, with few rights; the vigilant ones worked towards equal pay.

Traditionally, New Zealand women on marriage left occupations even before having children, and did not return unless pressed by adversity or an unusual personality. Housekeeping was laborious: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators and electric heaters were coming in but were by no means general. Open fires were widespread, clothes driers and deep-freezes unknown. The range of ready-made food was much less and frequent use of ‘tinned stuff’ was frowned on by many. Even without children, wives could be busy, especially if they were poor or thrifty. Trade unions and public feeling opposed a married woman keeping a job that might otherwise go to a workless girl and, as the long-established practice of paying women less than men could make them attractive to employers, trade unions watched with suspicion any extensions that might keep work from a man with a family or the prospect of one.

Wide differences between the pay of men and women, accepted by the majority as natural or inevitable, were part of and reinforced the marriage-exodus pattern. The Arbitration Court, in November 1936, fixed the adult basic wage at 76 s a week for men and 36 s for women and, though many awards gave substantially higher pay, the gap remained wide. [152]

Thus in 1939 the minimum award rate for an adult male clothing trade employee was 92 s 6 d a week, and for a woman 50 s; these rates had risen to 100 s and 52 s 6 d respectively by 1942, plus cost of living bonuses amounting to 10 per cent, and by a further 2 s 6 d each in 1943. A boot operator in 1939 received 91 s 8 d, a female 50 s 10 d, rising to 102 s 6 d and 57 s 6 d respectively, plus cost of living bonuses, by 1942. An adult male clerk in 1939 received at least 110 s, a woman 65 s, rates not officially increased till 1946 (by 10 s each), though cost of living bonuses were paid. [153]

With rare exceptions, women were not promoted to senior positions in clerical work, nor beyond the place of forewoman in factories. Thus rewards, both in money and satisfaction, did not make the struggle to combine work and housekeeping worthwhile. With higher taxes for double incomes aggregated and assessed as one, and the inevitable buying of goods ready-made, even ready-cooked, plus more clothes and fares, there was little economic incentive for a wife to battle with two jobs. Generally, only when a woman was widowed, divorced, deserted or had a sick or otherwise non-productive husband, would she return to work-bench or desk. More likely, she would do domestic work or cleaning, which would better accommodate such irregularities as children, and was available on a variety of meagre terms.

With husbands in the forces the rationale for non-working wives was gone and Service pay though regular was not generous. [154] On the other hand, there was the implication that women receiving money from Service husbands were working for the war effort, not for mere gain, and therefore modest rates of pay were in order; this could not, of course, affect areas governed by awards.

Early in 1940, enterprising girls began to move into war vacancies in banks, insurance companies, the Public Service and business firms Aside from merit, they were acceptable because they were paid less than the men they replaced and they were expected to be immune from conscription. Further, as it was legally necessary to give a serviceman his job again when he returned, there would be awkwardness if the position had been filled by another man, or successsion of men in turn moving into the forces, whereas a woman was expected to retire willingly when the war ended. If she were already the wife of a serviceman, especially from the same firm or department, the situation was streamlined.

In April 1940 a former employee of the Auckland Power Board, her husband in the First Echelon, asked for her old job, saying that other local bodies and government departments were employing women such as herself. The Board decided to change its policy of not having married women on its staff. [155] By January 1942 the female infiltration of some offices had become an invasion: thus a leading insurance office had lost 75 per cent of its male staff and its 15 pre-war women had been increased to more than 40; [156] a bank had lost 57 men and its twelve women had become 40; [157] another, having lost 30 men, had replaced them with 30 girls, and yet another, whose pre-war staff of 53 included seven women, had lost 11 men and taken on seven more women. [158] In the Bank of New Zealand, throughout the country, 74 women were employed at the start of the war, nearly 700 at the end of it. [159]

The Public Service was likewise filling vacancies with women, preferably servicemen's wives, though by February 1941 it was advertising widely for clerical wartime women. They would generally begin at £145 per year, with £13 cost of living allowance for women dependent on their own earnings. [160] A serviceman's wife, like most wives, did not qualify for this allowance.

Pre-war, the Public Service was a close-knit body, respecting seniority, and normally recruited young cadets, who worked their way up through 40 years, to retire on superannuation. Men of special merit could enter the system from outside by being appointed to particular positions, and to meet humbler needs there were thousands of temporary employees, not entitled to promotion or to superannuation, and subject to dismissal at short notice. In 1939 the male staff of about 18 700 included 4600 temporaries. There were also 2013 women, all temporaries, 1524 being typists and the rest clerical assistants. By 1941 the forces were claiming about 3230 of these men and 1460 more women were on the pay-roll. [161] In mid-1942, with 6054 men away, many forms of work hitherto regarded as indispensable to safe and prudent administration had, under ‘pitiless scrutiny’, been discarded or postponed, and 3200 women, taken on for wartime duties, were playing ‘an impressive part’ in the State Services, showing adaptability and keenness to acquit themselves well, though many had not previously done any similar work or even been in any regular employment. [162] As a measure of the need for staff, towards the end of 1942 public servants due to retire could do so only with Cabinet consent, and advertisements called for married women to work a six-hour day with pay in proportion. [163]

Growth of permanent staff was checked during the war, though work increased and varied. The Service departments increased markedly; new branches, and even new departments, notably National Service, developed, each with a framework of transferred senior officers; both old and new positions everywhere were filled with temporary men and women. By 1944 there were 10 353 men on the temporary staff and 7062 women, of whom only 2189 were typists. [164] In 1945, the temporary staff totalled 17 601: men, includeing those absent in the forces, numbered 10 524 and there was a slight rise in the number of women–7077, of whom 2184 were typists. [165] There was a marked decline in the following year: there were 10 270 male temporaries and 2234 typists, but the total of women employed had fallen to 5699. [166] Thereafter, long-sought changes took place, and thousands of temporaries, including female clerks and typists, became permanent officers.

Back in 1942, however, only a few thought of such possibilities. Women's pay varied with age and qualifications, but it was not high: the general starting rate for an adult woman was about £3 a week and sometimes less, approximately half the male rate. The official view was that all permanent–temporary, male–female anomalies must wait till the position stabilised after the war, but from 1942 onward the more militant women, through women's branches within the Public Service Association, pressed against their limitations, a good part of their effort being directed towards arousing other women. The majority was not trade union minded, and the Association itself strongly respected seniority, which of course meant male seniority. As early as September 1942 the basic arguments of the battlers were set forth in the Press by Caroline Webb, [167] who declared that in the Public Service ‘women are employed in conditions not short of scandalous. Although the Public Service Act makes no discrimination between the sexes, regulations and administrative procedure have been used to keep women on the lowest grades of the services, to pay them consistently lower rates than men, and to appoint them only as temporary members of the service.’ The war meant that many women would find their life's work not in marriage but in industry, the professions, the Public Service. The only satisfactory basis was economic equality between men and women, plus family allowances, which would be a more effective way of providing for children than that of paying every adult male as if he had a wife and three (only three) children. [168]

The Post and Telegraph Department took on women in hundreds, beginning in mid-1940 with wives of Post and Telegraph men in the forces. [169] They started with clerical jobs, then moved outdoors, uniformed telegraph girls appearing in Wellington at the start of July 1941, and in Auckland about three months later. [170] In the post-Japanese entry pressure, some began to drive postal vans [171] and many shouldered mail bags. Hamilton, in January 1942, was the first town to have women on its mail rounds, closely followed by

Wellington, then Auckland, [172] and other centres such as Christchurch and Palmerston North, in March. [173] The women started in cotton frocks, [174] but wore the WWSA's khaki drill where obtainable, [175] while the Post Office pondered the styling of its grey gabardine or navy serge. In the 1980s mails are regularly delivered by variously garbed ‘posties’, but in the 1940s livery for such tasks was thought necessary, was earnestly devised and even revised. Wellington postgirls, followed by Auckland's, soon acquired frock coats of steel-grey light gabardine, undershot with brown, [176] while Christchurch with its bicycles debated the merits of slacks or divided skirts. [177] Divided skirts of gabardine were issued, but a year later navy blue trousers with battledress tops were optional. [178]

By March 1942 about 2500 girls were engaged for the duration as office assistants, drivers, postwomen and lift attendants, with a few in automatic telephone exchanges and departmental workshops; a year later there were 4000. [179] In September 1942 at the Chief Post Office, Christchurch, in a staff of 650 there were 308 women where normally there had been about 50; on the postal rounds there were 49 men and 53 women. [180] Telegram girls remained scarce, and although during 1944 some men returned from the forces, adults, both men and women, performed this task hitherto reserved for the young and agile and traditionally for entrants to the permanent staff of the Department. [181] In the following year, while staffs at some offices remained stable, at others women were leaving faster than they could be recruited, and again there was a shortage of telegram delivery staff. [182] By 1946, with regulars streaming back, many of the temporary women were leaving or being eased out, though some obtained permanent positions. [183] Outdoor delivery work remained popular with women, and postgirls of the 1980s are probably unaware that till 1942 this was a man's job.

In the Railways before the war, women on typing, clerical and refreshment duties numbered 627 in a total staff of 25 765. [184] As they occurred, various clerical vacancies were filled by women, and early in 1941 a few girls were even started on skills such as plan-tracing. Pay was not excessive: towards the end of 1943 at Wellington full-time shorthand typists were offered £80–£165 a year as starting salary, and office assistants with a knowledge of typing £65– 165, according to age and qualifications, plus cost of living bonus and a lodging allowance for juniors obliged to live away from home; [185] there were, however, worthwhile travelling concessions after three months' service. Towards the end of 1941 women appeared at parcels and reservations counters [186] and, on 13 January 1942, the

Press reported that in the Christchurch railway district more than 23 per cent of the total office staff were women, where previously there had been only a few typists. In April 1942 they moved out from the desks and counters: strong women of 21–35 years were invited to work as porters and guards' assistants, wearing navy serge frocks similar in design to WWSA uniforms, with three large pockets, an action back, silver buttons down the front and peaked caps.

Wages were £3 a week, plus cost of living bonus, for a 40-hour week, on rotating shifts between 6 am and 10 pm. [187] In place of the traditional training—following an old hand around—they had a short course on signals, distances, fares and the issuing of various written tickets. They could not become guards. [188]

Women's traditional cleaning skills were first applied to trains in March 1943 at Auckland, when 26 women were chosen from 100 applicants. In trousered overalls, they worked an eight-hour day and a 40-hour week, with one day off in rotation each week (plus Sundays) and a three-day weekend every six weeks. With cost of living and shift allowances, they were paid £4 5s a week. Despite the Union wish that they should have equal pay, their rate was l s 9 d an hour, while male cleaners got 2 s 4 d, but they shared the privilege of paid annual holidays and free travelling for themselves and their families. [189]

In all, by mid-1943, the Railways had taken on 1400 women in a total staff of 22 550 [190] and this was the peak figure. Much railways work was too muscular, too dangerous for women and needed more all-round experience than they could readily acquire. Railway manpower tangles were eased somewhat in mid-1943 by the return from overseas of the skilled men of two demobilised railways operating companies. [191]

Since 1938 there had been legal provision for having women on general duties in the police force, but not until mid-1941, with the war's social problems noticeably increasing, were the first 10 accepted for training, from 150 applicants. They were between 30 and 35 years of age, physically fit, with full powers to arrest. By September 1941, Auckland and Wellington each had three plain clothes policewomen, while Christchurch and Dunedin each had two, concentrating on the detection of sly-grog, especially in night-clubs and dance halls, where they could gain admittance as patrons; on juvenile delinquency, women's welfare work, venereal disease, and park duty. They also handled problems arising from association with the troops, such as women haunting hotel lounges when they should have been at work in essential industries.

As policemen were barred from the armed services, it being considered that they were more valuable in their own work, women did not invade the police force as they invaded business and public services. Concern about young girls in the cities, children on the streets late at night and sexual irregularities argued for more policewomen. [192] Another 12 were distributed by February 1943, while

Auckland, which was described as a garrison city, received eight more in March 1944. [193]

The interplay between customary attitudes and the demand for labour was finely developed in the trams. During 1914–18 in Britain women had boarded the buses as conductors, and from 1940 photographs showed their return, brisking about London double-deckers. The Auckland WWSA suggested, in October 1940, that some women should be trained for work on the trams but the Auckland Transport Board, with more firmness than tact, said that the time was not appropriate, there was no shortage of men, indeed there was a waiting-list, and women were needlessly trying to get into uniform. For the WWSA Mrs W. H. Cocker replied that the Board would not admit that an emergency could occur except after adequate notice. [194]

By mid-1941 there was a shortage of conductors, with passengers waiting at stops while grossly over-crowded trams clanked past.

Wellington's City Council, while admitting the future probability of using women, wanted to delay the extra expenditure on ‘restrooms and so on’ for as long as possible by having men on overtime at rush hours. Several councillors questioned the delay, and Mrs Knox Gilmer declared that women would not want grand restrooms. [195]

In January 1942, and again in April, the New Zealand Tramwaymen's Union rejected the combined transport authorities' proposal that their members should work longer hours at ordinary rates, as an alternative to the employment of women. The latter, said the Union, would be preferable to losing the 40-hour week. Further, as their award did not specify that conductors must be male, any change in pay or conditions simply because a conductor was a female would be regarded as a breach of the award. [196]

In February the government authorised a six-day week for tramway men, with the extra day at time-and-a-half. [197] Auckland authorities, while assuming that 120 women would be needed to do the work of 100 men, reckoned that even so it would be 30 per cent cheaper to employ women than to work men on the sixth day; they therefore resolved to take on women when the cost of the sixth day became large enough to warrant the building alterations involved. [198] By then, amid the pressure of defence works and air-raid shelters, the separate messrooms and conveniences envisaged at surburban terminals [199] were a tall order, mainly postponed. But, when Auckland's decision to employ women was announced on 14 April, serious thought was given to the uniform, and women eagerly applied. [200]

On 8 June, the first tram girls appeared at Auckland. Neat in black skirts, with greatcoats and peaked caps, they showed that ‘they could jack up a car and swing a trolley pole with the best men in the service’. [201] They started in Wellington two weeks later, [202] daringly be-trousered in dark blue, with battledress tops. [203] Dunedin followed within a month [204] and Christchurch in mid-August, [205] both providing skirts. Presumably the majority agreed with the Auckland transport engineer-manager, A. E. Forde, that skirts were more suitable because they used less cloth than slacks and provided a maximum degree of protection by virtue of their being a ‘dignified womanly uniform’; on some women, he added, slacks would be incongruous. [206] The women worked on equal terms with men, receiving £5 0 s 6 d for a 40-hour week, to which overtime or broken shifts could add a pound or two. [207]

The accommodation that had alarmed the city fathers was modestly accomplished: at Dunedin a house next door to the tram sheds was bought as the women's headquarters, giving the comforts of a carpeted lounge, with chairs, writing desk and heater, a dining room with orange-painted tables, lockers, hot water, tea makings and even a small oven. [208] At Auckland, in the Gaunt Street depot, a room was altered so that women could rest and make tea, at the direct expense of their male colleagues who were then expected to eat their lunches in an unventilated drying room. [209]

Women's work on trams was not classified as essential and when Manpower direction got under way possible recruits were deflected, notably at Wellington, where female labour was acutely and chronically short. Perhaps this was why the Dominion reported, on 11 March 1943, that tram girls varied in character and stamina, the zeal of some wore off after a month or two and, since New Year, 17 had begun clipping tickets but 27 had given up; [210] Dunedin reported no such loss of enthusiasm. [211] Wellington's trams then had about 140 women but wanted 200, and an inspector went to New Plymouth, Wanganui and Napier to interview recruits. [212] They had to be tall enough to reach the bells, slim and strong enough to push through crowds and narrow spaces; some provincial candidates were refused because they were too short or too wide. [213] Auckland then had 166; [214] Christchurch with 54 wanted more but could get very few past Manpower. [215] At Dunedin by July 1943 the original 12 girls were still at work and had been joined by 43 others. [216] Women also cleaned trams in the depots at night, again for the same pay as men cleaners, earning more than £5 a week gross, a wage that drew abundant applicants. [217]

Except for a few on the flat runs of Christchurch, women were not accepted as drivers of trams, because of heavy work on hill routes; [218] nor were they allowed to repair the rails. During 1943, with maintenance work greatly reduced and traffic heavy, tram tracks grew dilapidated. The road surface touching the rails was broken by vibration and in wet weather ever-growing puddles, squelching as each tram passed, eroded the foundations of the rails. In Wellington, where damage was particularly bad, a gang of men persistently tamped metal chips and bitumen into the ragged holes, trying to check the mischief, often patching the same piece over and over again, and unable meanwhile to get on with more fundamental repairs. [219] On 31 July, a discreetly worded advertisement offered interesting men's work, full or part-time, to strong women of 25– 40 years. [220] Despite assurances from the work committee that they would not be doing heavy work, such as lifting rails or digging them up, but merely sealing and tamping, and despite references to what British and Russian women were doing, there was a good deal of uneasiness. Sundry persons, including members of the City Council, were perturbed about women doing pick and shovel work: one councillor even offered, as an alternative, to put in a couple of days himself, if other councillors would do likewise. [221] The women worked for less than a week. McLagan, Minister of Industrial Manpower, saw the use of women gangers, and publicity about them, as a device by the Mayor of Wellington to show what a muddle the government had made of manpower, and on 20 August issued an order prohibiting the employment of women on tram track maintenance. Charges, denials and counter-charges between the Mayor and the Minister appeared in the next few days, culminating on 15 September with McLagan's claim that a press photograph of the women at work had been intended for National party election propaganda. [222] Meanwhile it was agreed on 21 August that the women would be diverted to more suitable occupations and enough men would be provided to cope with the tram tracks. These repairs became a priority job, particularly at Wellington, where 70 men, some ex-3rd Division, were directed during 1944. [223] Towards the end of 1944, rather more men being available while the shortage of women in all Industry was acute, recruitment of women conductors ceased [224] and most gradually disappeared, though some stalwarts remained for years.

Taxi driving was one of the new fields into which a few score of women ventured. Before the war this wras, except in very isolated cases, a man's job, but on 2 July 1940 in New Brighton, Christchurch, a women took over her soldier husband's taxi licence, as did another at Rotorua some weeks later. [225] In December 1941, with four women drivers working the same shifts as men and proving satisfactory, a Dunedin company foresaw an increasing place for women in the taxi business. [226] At Wellington the first appeared, for day work only, on 20 January 1942, and 20 were on the job by March, [227] though a year later the number had dropped to 12. [228] In March 1942 Christchurch firms inviting women applicants for day work found a ready response, [229] and at the start of 1943 the Woman's Weekly reported that taxi driving was very popular there among younger women who were not trained for any job but who had previously driven their own cars. Forty were employed by one firm alone. [230] In Greymouth, the first woman took over her husband's taxi in June 1942, and in Nelson where women had driven taxis for years, five were working in August. [231] Probably the occupation seemed less of an innovation in smaller centres than it did in cities.

At Auckland, there were no applications from women for taxi licences up to 19 May 1942, [232] and the authorities were cautious. An application in July to use women drivers was refused by the City Council on the advice of the Public Safety Committee, and two taxi companies stated that there was no shortage of male drivers. However a rule, proposed in September by some local bodies that women should not be licensed unless it was proved that no men were available, was rejected by the Council; it decided that, though in existing conditions night driving was not suitable for women and though there might be difficulties if a roster system became necessary, it would grant licences to women approved by the police. [233] The first of four women receiving licences appeared soon after, driving her husband's taxi and saying that she was not afraid of being hit on the head but would prefer day duty. Other Auckland women had worked taxis from their homes, but she was the first on the rank. [234]

Concern about women driving at night was fairly widespread, [235] though only Wellington, from the start, ruled that they could not drive between sunset and sunrise. [236] At Dunedin, where there were more women driving than in any other city, [237] a proposal by the Mayor that women on night duty should be given selected work only and not after 11 pm was soundly defeated: some 300 women on night shift in woollen mills and other war-working factories had to be taken home by taxi, and without the women drivers this would be very difficult. [238] The Mayor's suggestion had been triggered off by a minor stabbing incident [239] which was taken quite calmly, but a few weeks later a woman driver in Ashburton was murdered on a night call [240] and thereafter uneasiness outweighed any difficulties: in July, regulations established that throughout the country women could drive taxis only from half an hour before sunrise till half an hour after sunset.

At the war's start there were a few hundred women in the Engineers and Allied Trades Union, notably 150 on light drills and enamelling in car assembly work at Auckland, [241] but war brought no organised effort to train women for engineering work. Feeling that this would not be worthwhile [242] changed to some extent and, following overseas experience, it was decided to train some specially selected girls, apt in precision handwork, for tool and gauge work in the Physical Testing Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. [243] As men were taken for the forces and needs grew, various employers found women unexpectedly useful, sometimes better then the lads they replaced. They were, such employers reported, prepared to stick at set jobs; they were also highly adaptable, and good at intricate assembly; they managed drills and milling machines without a great deal of tuition. They showed special skill in making cores for cast-iron moulds needed, for instance, for hand grenades, a task which one employer likened to making scones, using sand and oil instead of flour. They even stood up to the strenuous processes of rubber-manufacture. [244] For the routine of munition making, hundreds of untrained girls were directed into factories at Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and other places. Others were employed in the many improvised workshops here and there that made various parts for munitions and weapons. [245] This, being obviously front-line work, had straight patriotic appeal, and was not unpopular.

Advertisements drew others into many unaccustomed places. As early as February 1941, young ladies interested to learn the construction of radio receivers were invited into Philips Lamps, [246] and two years later columns were sprinkled with notices such as: ‘Young woman wanted for light Press Work in sheet metal trade, also for soldering; no experience required.’ [247] ‘Girls for light engineering work (or power press) wanted, comfortable working conditions and good wages.’ [248]

Traditionally, shops employed many young women and slightly more men than women. In 1939–40, more than 13 000 of the estimated 28 404 shops had no assistants, while the rest employed 26 579 men and 25 324 women. [249] By 1943–4 there were an estimated 26 140 shops, 12 560 run without assistants, while the others employed 19 050 men and 26 000 women and there was little change in the following year. [250] Thus men in shops were fewer by about 7500, while the number of women had increased by less than 700 As shortages grew, those who left were not replaced: assistants, like the goods they sold, were spread out more thinly. Further, the women behind the counters changed. Shops were not essential services, and were therefore milch cows for Manpower, especially in the industrial towns; they were also the recruiting grounds for 21 per cent of the women's Auxiliaries. Many adaptable young women moved out, directed by Manpower or ahead of it, their places taken by juniors and the ubiquitous older women. By 1945–6, in the estimated 28 138 shops (13 228 without assistants) there were 22 842 men and 29 759 women; that is, both men and women shop workers had increased in numbers almost equally, women by 3759, men by 3792. [251]

The number of women employed in registered factories had increased by more than 10 000 during the 1930s, from 18 500 in 1931–2 to 28 900 in 1938–9. In the next six years they increased by another 10 000: 31 300 by March 1940, 39 000 by March 1945. [252] Before the war, apart from social pressures towards employing men rather than women, the acceptability of women was lessened by the long standing legal protective measures barring them from shiftwork and limiting overtime. Normally, women's overtime had to be authorised by an inspector of factories and could not exceed three hours of any day, two consecutive days in a week or 90 hours in a year, though in exceptional cases the inspector could permit 120 hours. Early in the war, the Industrial Emergency Council directed that this too could be exceeded with due enquiry as to health and conditions. [253] On 17 December 1941, a regulation suspended any restriction on women and boys working on any holiday or half-holiday, provided that the extra hours were paid at time-and-a-half and that the total overtime in any one week was not more than 12 hours; this would apply to any industry or factory that the Minister of Labour might from time to time determine, according to need. Overtime for women was still further extended in at least one factory: by a special regulation in July 1942, at the Islington works the maximum for female meat preservers became two hours a day from Monday to Friday inclusive, and four hours on Saturday, paid for at time-and-a-half with a minimum rate of I s 6 d an hour. [254]

In 1939 the total hours of overtime worked by women and boys under 16 in factories was 950 140. By 1940, this increased to 1 241 807 hours; by 1942, to 1 549 635 (with 3902 women and 34 boys working 235 212 hours in excess of the legal maximum, 120 hours a year). By 1943, the overtime total was 1 776 462 hours (with 4983 women and 42 boys working 455 934 excess hours); and by 1944 it rose to 1 786 352 hours (with 4288 women and 22 boys working 392 493 excess hours). In 1945 their overtime declined to 1 529 704 hours, 2672 women and 22 boys contributing 207 421 excess hours. [255]

For more than 40 years women had been prohibited from working at night, ie, between 6 pm and 8 pm, which precluded shift arrangements. This restriction was removed when necessary in particular industries: munition works and woollen mills in June 1940; biscuit-making, 25 June 1941; bread packing, 14 May 1942; brushware for two Auckland firms, and the laundry workers of the Auckland Hospital Board also in 1942. [256] Shift allowances were paid, sometimes I s 6 d a shift, sometimes 3- f; refreshments were prescribed and for women finishing late at night the firm had to provide transport home, even by taxi.

The following table [257] includes the women employed in all factories large and small:

Year | Factories | Working Occupiers | Male Employees | Female Employees | Total
1939–40 | 18141 | 16649 | 81507 | 31332 | 129488
1940–41 | 17940 | 16300 | 82316 | 34291 | 132907
1941–42 | 17421 | 16509 | 80469 | 37111 | 134039
1942–43 | 16408 | 15714 | 76754 | 38092 | 130560

Year | Factories | Working Occupiers | Male Employees | Female Employees | Total
1943–44 | 16010 | 13985 | 80369 | 38245 | 132599
1944–45 | 16537 | 15114 | 84444 | 39042 | 138600
1945–46 | 17289 | 15899 | 88190 | 37663 | 141752

Other figures from the Government Statistics of factory production, which exclude many small establishments included above, show the numbers of women in the larger factories month by month: [258]

Month | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945
Janyary | 20 759 | 24 020 | 26 885 | 29 060 | 29812 | 29 240 | 29 440
February | 22 344 | 25 262 | 28 394 | 29 940 | 30 538 | 30 450 | 30 694
March | 22 737 | 25 469 | 28761 | 30 511 | 30 797 | 30 746 | 30 866
April | 22771 | 26 422 | 28 967 | 30 750 | 30 845 | 30 979 | 31016
May | 23071 | 26 644 | 29294 | 30577 | 30721 | 30 977 | 30838
June | 23 587 | 27 146 | 29317 | 30 502 | 30 624 | 30949 | 30 497
July | 24011 | 27 548 | 29 607 | 30 038 | 30 485 | 30 925 | 30 393
August | 24347 | 27 554 | 29 649 | 30 090 | 30410 | 30901 | 29997
September | 24 535 | 27868 | 29653 | 30 168 | 30 369 | 30 942 | 29 878
October | 24761 | 28 142 | 30 094 | 30 226 | 30 284 | 30 887 | 29 545
November | 24 840 | 28 181 | 30 188 | 30 367 | 30 351 | 30855 | 29 386
December | 24 686 | 28057 | 30 133 | 30 576 | 30 287 | 30 922 | 29082

January is normally the month of lowest employment, substantially lower than the preceding November—December. But in January 1940 the decline was a mere 666, and throughout 1940 the average increase of each month over the equivalent month in 1939 exceeded 3300; this relative increase fell to about 2400 in 1941, to just over 800 in 1942 and to less than 400 in 1943, though the actual peak of employment came in that year. [259] That is, in the larger factories, those more immediately concerned with production induced by the war, the rate of increase in women workers was greatest in 1940 and 1941, before the Pacific war and the Manpower regulations of 1942. The first set of figures also shows the main increase in female factory employment as occurring before March 1942. These women went into the factories not because they were pushed, but because they wanted the money, they wanted occupation and they wanted to help the war effort, with the proportion of these motives varying from person to person.

Clothing and footwear factories and woollen mills were drawing back married women well before the blitz in Europe. [260] By the end of May 1940, Cabinet ministers were declaring that no greater service could be rendered to the country than skilled women going back

A member of the Women's Land Service holding a lamb for tailing at Porangahau

Battledress being manufactured at Cathie & Sons Ltd

Aircraft being constructed

Grenade making at Christchurch

Cabbages grown by the Department of Agriculture for use by United States forces, Levin, 1943

A Levin vegetable farm, producing vegetables for reciprocal lend lease

Cabinetmakers at work at the Disabled Servicemen's Centre, Christchurch

Motor tow-boats built in Auckland for the United States armed forces being launched in 1943

Loading rounds into ammunition clips at the Colonial Ammunition Company's factory, Hamilton, 1944

Woman tram conductor, Wellington, 1943

A stack of stripped flax fibre ready for the manufacturing process with a flax bush in the foreground, Foxton, 1945

New housing estate, Naenae, 1944

Celebrating VE Day, Lambton Quay, Wellington, 8 May 1945

Canadian sailors in Wellington on VJ Day, 15 August 1945

The return of the 28th (Maori) Battalion, Wellington, 1947. Two kuias express grief for the relatives of soldiers who died overseas

Soldiers' cemetery, Karori, Wellington, 1944

to their old jobs. One such operator, it was stressed, was worth several untrained enthusiasts, most of whom could not be placed. [261] Some employers would use skilled workers even part time, perhaps a six-hour day. [262] Early in August, resisting pressure for Saturday work in clothing factories, the Prime Minister and Webb, Minister of Labour, stated that the peak demand for battledress had been passed, [263] but by the end of the month Sullivan, Minister of Supply, was repeating appeals to former operatives to return to work, even at a sacrifice. [264] It was realised that these alone could not continue to meet the need: on 7 August and 25 September, regulations suspended apprenticeship requirements and raised starting pay for women over twenty-one entering the clothing trades. For the first six months they were to be paid £1 16 s a week, £2 during the next three months, £2 4 s in the three months following, £2 8 s in the next half-year, and thereafter journey women's rates. [265]

Towards mid-1941 Webb was entreating ‘women of the middle classes’ to tackle factory work. [266] During 1941, and even more in 1942–3, many older women, their families off their hands, often women who had never done paid work before though they had laboured hard and thriftily in their own homes, emerged in answer to the appeals and advertisements. They were not ideal for factory work as, despite their willingness, they lacked experience and could not learn as quickly or acquire the same skill as young girls, but they were steady. Some mastered the simpler operations on machines, and some did hand-finishing. Others were welcomed into work of less direct patriotic appeal, in factories such as jam or soap or biscuit making, in domestic work in hospitals and hotels, in laundries, in shops and routine office jobs, often replacing girls who had moved to more socially desirable or better paid positions. [267]

For many middle-aged women, bored as the pressure of young families receded, being out at work was stimulating despite the fatigue and the struggle with trams and buses. To receive their own pay packets, even slender ones, increased their self-respect and offset the nag of rising prices, even allowed them to buy work-saving devices such as electric heaters. They liked being with other women on the job, away from the silence and well-worn home routines, and there was the sense of doing one's bit for the war. Previously such work would have touched their pride, or the pride of their husbands, but this was different; neighbours felt respect, not pity or criticism.

Demands from industry and the Services drew off women and girls, both directly and indirectly, from the domestic area. [268] On 18 February 1941 a Press article [269] had noted that women could apply for more than 50 per cent of the situations advertised the previous Saturday, compared with 30 per cent two years earlier, but of those specifying women half concerned domestic service of some sort. Many girls who previously had perforce taken such work in private homes, institutions, hotels and restaurants found other jobs now open to them. The change was most marked, firstly near places of industry which were more widespread than in peacetime, [270] and secondly in some country districts which girls left in order to combine the excitement of living in a city with the virtue of helping the war effort. Not all domestic workers downed brooms and dusters; in particular many stable, middle-aged women both in towns and in the country continued to work for ‘their’ families, unmoved by either inclination or Manpower officers. Otherwise, with usually brief lamentations, most suburban ladies, busy mothers and hard-pressed farmers' wives realised anew that there was a war on, and shaped their domestic patterns according to their own energy. Some gracious living persisted, however, or tried to: in the New Zealand Herald 21–6 February 1942, and again on 11 April, a Remuera home advertised for a house-parlourmaid who would have her own sitting room and radio and £2 a week. Other private domestic advertisements on 11 April were for another house-parlourmaid, ‘four adults, cook kept, good home, £1 17s 6d clear’; for ‘General, capable, all duties, finished bagwash, 30s’; also ‘Woman, one day weekly, 11s and fares’.

An article in the Herald of 16 May 1942, commenting on the domestic labour shortage and the special reluctance to work with old people and sickness, pointed to an unfilled situation offering £2 a week for five days of four and a half hours, beginning at 3.15 pm, and another in a childless house for a cook-general who could take a child with her. [271] On the other hand a serviceman's wife with two children explained in the Auckland Star why ‘self-respecting’ women shunned domestic work: for half a day's work—a week's washing for six, cleaning bath and basin, scrubbing bathroom, lavatory and two porches, polishing living room and hall—she was given morning tea and lunch in the kitchen by herself and paid 6 s 3 d. [272]

During the 1930s some Rarotongan girls had been brought to New Zealand for domestic work and, following the outbreak of war, the number of employers seeking them increased rapidly. The main influx was to Wellington where, towards the end of 1942, they numbered about 50. Arrangements were made through the New Zealand Commissioner in Rarotonga, though there was no official sponsorship. The girls were certified medically fit and spoke a little English. They came for domestic duties only, to approved employers, with whom they lived. Wages were generally about 25 s a week less Social Security tax. [273] The fare and a warm outfit, together costing about £23, were advanced by the employer, then deducted from wages by instalments; in sickness, or at the end of employment, the return fare would be paid by the employer. The girls were quite untrained but, once their initial shyness and strangeness had been overcome, were quick to learn, reliable and especially good with children. In Wellington their numbers gave companionship, club facilities were arranged and it was usual for employers to agree on a certain day for their weekly afternoon off. [274] Not many such girls were available, and this prospect of domestic relief faded in April 1943 when the government decided not to admit any more. [275]

The managers of hotels and restaurants, who faced increased demands with diminished and ‘independent’ staff, were constantly before Manpower officials with pleas and complaints; some had much more trouble than others. [276] The provision of meals for the public was made an essential industry, but this did not solve the problem. Labour difficulties helped to shut down two large Wellington restaurants, [277] others closed at weekends, while James Smith's closed its tea rooms on Saturday mornings. [278] At others, rows of tables were out of use, lunches limited to pies, sandwiches and cakes, [279] and self-help, cafeteria-style service increasingly replaced the serving of meals at tables. [280] Even so, proprietors went grey over lack of staff, absenteeism, tantrums and rudeness, plus the unsettling effect of large American tips. In restaurants and milk bars servicemen sought not only food but girls, and it was very easy for them to disappear for a few hours, or even days, not singly but several at a time. It was nothing to have 12 out of 30 girls away on one day, or to have six or eight girls at work one week and two the next. [281] Increased wages did not ensure gratitude or improvement: a typical lament was that while the award rate for waitresses was £2 1 s 5 d, plus meals, for 44 hours, an owner paying 11 s 6 d more could still have his girls walk off without notice. [282] Apart from gallivanting, girls left for other jobs: the women's Services, luring them off to a uniformed, carefree life, were seen as special hazards. [283] Such problems led in turn to dirty eating houses, complaints and occasional prosecutions. [284]

However difficult for hotels and restaurants, for hospitals it was even harder to find domestic staff; their work was poorly paid, [285] there were broken shifts and no tips or enthusiastic servicemen. In mid-1942 the Wellington Hospital Board was driven to entreating women to give one day a week or more as cooks, scullery maids, housemaids, waitresses, wardsmaids or laundry workers, for award wages and wartime zeal. [286]

Mid-1940 had no industrial places for those eager to work but untrained; by 1943 even inexperienced women who could work only part-time were keenly sought. Anxious to tap the labour of women with families who would not otherwise be in industry, the Controller of Manpower and other officials urged these women to apply for such work and employers, by adjusting their organisation, to make use of them, pointing out that in England part-time work was well developed. Women need not fear that they would be caught for the duration; if a part-time worker found she could not carry on, Manpower would not hold her. [287]

Newspapers were studded with persuasive advertisements. On 6 August 1943 in Wellington, Adams Bruce, a cake, chocolate and biscuit-making firm, wanted packers, full or part-time; Chers, coatmakers, wanted needleworkers, full or part-time; Woolworth's wanted shop assistants, preferably full time, ‘but if you have domestic responsibilities we have available part-time work between 9.0 a.m. and 4 p.m.… Congenial, easy to learn and interesting. Previous experience not essential, Woolworths do the teaching. Morning and afternoon tea provided.’ [288] Lever Brothers offered essential soap-packing work for women and girls, in pleasant conditions, mornings, afternoons, or 10 am to 3–45 pm. [289] A clothing firm had part-time work for female pressers, experience preferred but was prepared to train women who could work four hours a day or more in pressing and folding smocks for the WAAC and WAAF and men's shirts and pyjamas. Another firm offered work to ‘experienced machinists or non-skilled workers who will be trained by experts.’ Yet another wanted ‘table hands and machinists and also women for sewing on buttons.’ [290] In a new building, with the most up-to-date factory dining-room in New Zealand, Hannah's specially besought experienced footwear machinists to spare a few hours daily, but were prepared to engage and teach any suitable girl or woman; ‘you can, by sparing a few hours each day, help your fellow-New Zealanders to keep their feet dry and warm while working for Victory—Top wages paid.’ [291]

In mid-1943, to meet particularly pressing demands in the tobacco industry, the Labour Department organised relays of evening workers. Two firms in the Hutt and Wellington, which together processed most of New Zealand's tobacco and normally employed between 600 and 700 women, during 1940–3 employed about 850 and needed more. In the first half of 1943 this need grew sharper; nearby hospitals, laundries, munition works, clothing and other factories all competed for local women and any who could be brought in, while extreme shortage of housing and rooms added to the difficulty of cajoling girls from a distance; the existing staff was already wearied with overtime, and the minimum target was 700 000lb of processed tobacco a week. Although called a luxury by many, the national importance of tobacco was indicated, on 1 September 1943, by the Liverpool miners going on strike till the neighbourhood tobacco famine was relieved, which happened that same day. The Labour Department, recalling earlier clamour for direction to spare-time war service, in July broadcast appeals and advertised for women already employed to spend one to three evenings a week on light, well-paid work of national importance. [292] Public servants were encouraged in this enterprise, provided it did not interfere with their own duties. [293] Some hundreds of women came forward, to produce a substantial increase in tobacco output. [294]

Before the war there was strong feeling that a mother's place was with her children, and the war eroded this very little. Even in the excitement of mid-1940 crèches were scarcely considered: an Auckland letter suggesting that local halls should be used as child-care centres, freeing women for industry, [295] woke no response, nor did the suggestion from the Wellington Manufacturers Association that, in order to bring skilled women back to factories, it was willing to co-operate with recognised women's organisations in arranging care for their children. [296]

Wellington already had a Citizens' Day Nursery in Cambridge Terrace caring for the children not only of working mothers but also of those who were sick or travelling or having babies. [297] The war postponed a new building in Vivian Street but renovations on that site gave greatly improved quarters in mid-19 40. There were then about 600 daily attendances each month. [298] Late in 1943, as there was a long waiting list, the Nursery was enlarged. [299]

In November 1941 Webb, Minister of Labour, praising war-working women who left their children with others, said that the government might have to arrange nurseries where philanthropic women could care for the children of those on war-work, [300] but such co-operation was not developed. Again, in 1943, when labour demands were at their highest and young married women with earlier industrial experience had proved their worth, combining skill with steadiness, a Christchurch manufacturer declared that his firm was prepared to start a creche, [301] but no factory crèche appeared. In general, an unknown number of skilled workers, particularly those with only one child, made their own arrangements with relatives or friends, [302] while children of school age were packed off betimes, with neighbours or the children themselves in charge of the last hours of the afternoon. As pressure persisted, part-time work for mothers of school-age children seemed the most feasible advance. This was strongly urged by Manpower authorities, while in 1944 the New Zealand Employers Federation declared that, in consideration of the future generation of workers, no restriction should be placed in the way of a mother who wanted to work shorter or staggered hours. [303]

Only in Wellington, where demand for female labour was greatest and where there happened to be a sufficient number of forward-minded and educationally influential people, was there effective, though small-scale, provision for the care of pre-school children whose mothers were at work. One nursery was a community effort, two were State-made extensions of existing kindergartens.

Early in 1942 some Karori parents acquired a house with pleasant grounds in Raine Street, as an all-day place for the children of working mothers. The local play-centre, little more than a year old, decided to amalgamate with it rather than compete. With a trained Plunket nurse as matron, a Karitane nurse, a kindergarten teacher and mother helpers, Raine Street provided both a morning kindergarten and an afternoon play-centre, plus all-day care, including a cooked mid-day meal and a rest period, for pre-school children of mothers at work. Siblings up to eight years old could come for lunch and after school till 5 o'clock. [304] With various changes, this nursery was to persist well into the Fifties.

The Education Department, whose Director, Dr C. E. Beeby, was more concerned with pre-school education than were most of his contemporaries, moved to help the pre-school children of working mothers in the industrial areas of Wellington. The Department announced, early in 1943, that with the co-operation of the Kindergarten Association it would develop nursery schools solely for children of mothers in work of national importance, beginning in

Wellington where the need was greatest, and proceeding to other cities if this proved necessary. Existing kindergartens at Taranaki Street and Petone would be extended to take between them 100 children of 2½–5 years, from 7.30 am to 5.30 pm, five days a week, charging 1 s 3 d per child daily, including meals. The Minister of Education, Mason, while regretting that mothers of young children needed to go to work, said that government must accept that it was unavoidable in some cases and see that the children suffered as little as possible. Hundreds of nursery schools had been opened in Britain to meet such needs and this was an important step in New Zealand. [305]

The modified kindergarten at Taranaki Street was opened in mid- 1943, then at Petone in November. [306] Industrial mothers proved fewer than expected, but supervisors could claim that such places were a ‘godsend’ to some families living in desperately crowded conditions, where sending the pre-schooler to the nursery gave much needed relief to both mother and child. [307] In mid-1944 the Education Department reported that ‘although there had been great public demand for such nursery schools, the response once they opened, was fairly slow.’ One had a short waiting list, the other was not yet full, which suggested that in normal times there would be little real demand for them outside one or two areas in the main cities. [308] It must be remembered that apart from sickness, always a problem when young children are together in numbers and more so in the pre-antibiotic era, the effort of taking children to and from a nursery with no cars, and with trams and buses overcrowded, was formidable.

In Auckland, the Education Department's offer to pay for structural alterations and additional staff needed to convert some kindergartens into day nurseries was firmly rejected by Auckland's Kindergarten Association. A leading member, Mayor J. A. C. Allum, declared that it was most undesirable that mothers of young children should be diverted from their primary task of looking after their families and that, judging by the many young women still in government departments and other work not directly connected with the war, there was no need yet to put mothers into essential industry. Other speakers feared that if day nurseries were provided more mothers would be attracted from home duties to industries offering ‘phenomenal wages’, while some children, including those of servicemen, might be deprived of normal kindergartens. [309]

A manufacturer commented that, rightly or wrongly, mothers were in industry, their children under ‘scratchy, individual’ arrangements with relatives and friends instead of organised schemes; lack of proper care for these children was the cause of much absenteeism. [310] A woman social worker, familiar with industry, suggested compromise: nurseries could be provided for existing needs only, not for expansion; and, though her concern was mainly for older girls, she strongly opposed anything that would encourage women into industry. ‘The problem of young girls in Auckland is grave… and it all goes back to lack of parental control. If we are righting for the future of our race, we must look after our race. There is something wrong in our planning if we have to ride to victory on the backs of our 12- year-olds.’ She added that as Auckland was less industrialised than

Wellington the need for nurseries was less. [311]

Among speakers critical of mothers being employed out of their homes were Wellington members of the National Council of Women in conference during December 1942, who thought that it was not wholly an economic matter. Women needed interests outside the home, but this could be carried too far and home life, with all its influence, seemed in danger of disappearing. [312] The WDFU, in a mid-1943 conference, decided to seek government support in making mothers realise that their first duty was to their children, and not to making extra money while their husbands were overseas. [313] The Auckland Star on 24 April 1943, noted that at Wellington, where lack of accommodation precluded bringing in outside labour, National Service was urging women into part-time work. It asked, ‘Has the stage been reached when mothers of children should be officially urged, or permitted, to go into industry, even on a part-time basis? Their homes and children must suffer if they do.’ Full use should be made of the thousands of young women registered for national service, or refusing to register, before women with family responsibilities were asked to volunteer for essential work. ‘They are doing essential work now.’ [314] The attitude of the Roman Catholic Church was forthright:

If [said the director of Catholic education, Dr N. Gascoigne] there be one mother in this country today who has to work in a factory to make ends meet financially or through any misguided estimate that a mother in overalls is doing work more for the prosecution of the war than if she were at home, it is high time that the State ceased placing a financial barrier on motherhood, and that the true significance of motherhood in the well-being of the nation is recognised. [315]

Established opinion was firmly against mothers volunteering into regular employment, and those perturbed about young persons' behaviour usually attributed it to lack of parental control, due to fathers being away and mothers at work. But there are no records of the number of such mothers. The idea of institutional arrangements for children was not popular, as was proved by the nursery-kindergartens at Wellington. Efforts led by Mrs J. A. Lee at Grey Lynn to care for school-age children of working mothers remained little known, [316] though successful youth programmes were run in this area. [317] An article in a woman's magazine advocating day nurseries proved a damp squib: the Woman's Weekly of 29 April 1943, pointing to the wide use of day nurseries in England, America and

Russia, claimed that it was not enough to employ women as a last resort. The war must be won, and women would do their share if a large amount of their working power were released through the centralisation of nursery care. This produced no discussion in the next two issues, but on 24 June one letter suggested that mothers of school children might work two or three hours a day if factories would have them and another writer could not understand how anyone could want to be parted from her baby. [318]

Holidays accentuated problems for working mothers, and not only for them. Various efforts to meet these needs are discussed elsewhere. [319] War conditions also heightened the need for stay-at-home mothers and pre-schoolers to have small breaks from each other, giving rise to the play-centre movement. [320]

During 1942 the Services and essential industry seriously reduced the number of men available for jury panels in the Supreme Court, men between 21 and 60 years, of good fame and character. The Chief Justice in July suggested that jury service should be rated as essential and that the age limit of 60 might be raised. [321] The Auckland Star pointed to Britain where jury members had in war time been reduced from 12 to 7 and where they could be women. [322] Already Mary Dreaver, Labour member for Wakemata, had on 8 May brought in a Bill to allow women to be eligible for this duty, as they had been in Britain for about 20 years. As a private member's bill requiring appropriation, it was found ultra vires by the

Speaker, but it was re-introduced, by Governor-General's message, in October. It provided that women of between 25 and 60 years might serve on juries on the same terms as men, except that they would be placed on the jury roll only if they made application. In

Britain this service was compulsory for women but in New Zealand it would be voluntary, thus avoiding the problems of exemptions. Mrs Dreaver believed that a woman, until 25 years old, had not enough sense or knowledge of the world to be fit for jury service and that, although men were eligible at 21 years, in practice there were very few jurors of less than 25 years. [323]

The Act was passed without opposition but it did not attract much attention nor was there a flood of volunteers. By April 1943 in the Wellington district 17 women had applied for admission to the jury roll; [324] in Hawke's Bay two women applied and were approved. [325] In Auckland 15 women joined about 8000 men on the jury list. [326] In Christchurch, the Star–Sun noted on 21 January that no local women had applied, but by 3 February eight had done so. [327] On 20 October 1943 at Auckland Miss Elaine Rebecca Kingsford became the first woman juror, in a house-breaking case. [328] A year later, two women were on Auckland jury panels for the session in November 1944. The first was challenged on each occasion her name was called for a specific case, but in the following week another woman, unchallenged, sat on another house-breaking case, being the second to serve. [329]

In 1940, with eyes on Britain, a keen few wanted a woman's land army. The Mayor of Hamilton, H. D. Caro, believed that there were 400–500 women in the district ready to work unpaid on the land. [330] Others were dubious: [331] the Minister of Agriculture, Lee Martin, [332] said that women's labour was not yet wanted; several farmers' spokesmen said that the would-be helpers should work in farm homes and with the children, so that farmers' wives or daughters, already knowledgeable, would be more free to care for stock and crop. [333] Many farm houses (some yet without electricity) were laborious to run, without washing machines or vacuum cleaners. There were no stainless steel and formica surfaces. Much cooking was done on black-leaded, wood-burning stoves; coppers, wash-tubs and hand-turned wringers were the normal washing equipment, and for cleaning there were carpet sweepers, brooms, mops and scrubbing brushes. In the farmers' paper Point Blank, in mid-1941, letters discussing the ‘labour problem in the farm house’ urged women to make more use of electricity: an electric hot water service was rated by some as the biggest single factor for saving time and energy, and washing machines were highly rated. The painting of tables, benches and shelves with enamel to save scrubbing was also advocated. Letters advised readers to acquire labour-saving devices and ways of living and to forget about outside help. [334]

In August 1940 the WDFU, saying that hundreds of girls were already working on family and neighbours' farms, thought that a land army should be under the direction of a government department and pledged support for any ‘practicable plan’, stressing that service would be domestic where necessary. [335] But neither town nor country girls showed any enthusiasm for farm dishes and wash-tubs. Thousands of girls were aching to do useful patriotic work, stated the Woman's Weekly of 3 April 1941, ‘yet going out to do domestic work is degrading and a social come-down to many.’ It suggested that the ‘psychological effect would be altogether different’ if girls worked for farmers' wives under some ‘patriotic government-organised scheme’, were called war workers, wore uniform or at least insignia, and received their money indirectly from the farmers through a government agency.

Though a few women took over management of farms for brothers and husbands, the strength of the feeling that farming was a man's business was indicated by the reluctance of young farmers clubs to admit women to their meetings. [336] The woman's page in the New Zealand Herald of 23 May, however, noted that since the war began a small number of country girls familiar with farming but ‘not “land army” girls in the popular sense of the term’ had offered to work for farmers, who had ‘shown no hesitation in accepting their services’. Dairy farmers, used to the help of wives and children with milking, feeding calves, etc, worked with women more readily than did other farmers.

One line of dairy work was opened in 1940 and extended in early 1941 when herd improvement associations invited young women with farm experience and preferably able to drive both a car and a horse to become herd testers. At first there was a short training course at agricultural colleges, but soon the girls were learning the work at the milk depots. Pay was £11 a month, and they largely lived on the job save for a few days' leave at the end of each month. A girl would arrive in the afternoon at one of her 26 farms and stay overnight, weighing each cow's yield at morning and evening milkings and taking individual samples that were tested for butterfat content, either on a Gerber machine carried with her or later at the milk depot. If she had her own car, petrol and running expenses were paid, and to help girls buy cars, cheap finance was arranged. Otherwise a horse and buggy were provided free, and after Japan's entry most herd-testers turned to the horse. These girls proved acceptable and efficient. [337] They were carefully chosen, the ‘flirtatious type’ definitely banned, [338] preference being for the active commonsense adaptable sort, able to cope with a variety of horses, carts, roads, cows, farmers and farmers' wives. During the 1941–2 season, of the 220 field employees of the six herd testing associations, 180 were women; [339] by 1943 there were only about a dozen men in the service, though many girls were lost to it because they married farmers. [340]

In the latter half of 1941 the government, in consultation with the Farmers' Union and its Women's Division, sought to meet the growing shortage of labour with plans for a land corps attracting girls to the land and farmers to the girls. [341] In the reluctance of farmers to consider women as workers, traditional conservatism was reinforced by uneasiness about wages: if they had to pay men's award wages to women who could not do some tasks, such as heavy lifting or killing sheep, they would not be getting their money's worth. [342] This problem was met, on 6 November 1941, by regulations establishing wage rates for WWSA-selected girls of 18 years and more: on dairy farms 35 s a week plus keep for the first six months, and 42 s 6 d plus keep thereafter; and on other farms 30 s increasing to 35 s. The next day the Prime Minister announced that the WWSA was to form a land corps, recruiting women to replace young men called up from farms. With an inexperienced girl, the government would pay 15 s a week subsidy during the first six months. Each girl would be given a pair of overalls and, after a month's satisfactory service, a WWSA uniform with a green tie. On every farm concerned, there must be a man able to do the heavier work. [343] For welfare and discipline purposes, the WWSA would be in charge, but the Labour Department's placement service would co-operate in placing girls suitably. Girls working on the farms of close relatives were excluded from the scheme, for the aim was to direct a new stream of labour towards the land.

The Farmers' Union gave temperate approval: they could not, said its secretary, A. P. O'Shea, expect women to be as important as in

Britain, where farming was more intensive with more light jobs; the scheme would be a considerable help to dairy farmers, but on sheep farms it would be a full year before an inexperienced girl was really useful. [344] The Press thought the pay good enough to attract hundreds of women, and fair enough to the farmer if the right type of girl were selected. [345]

A month later, before anything had got under way, Japan's entry greatly sharpened the need for labour, but both girls and farmers were apathetic. As an article in Straight Furrow of February 1942 explained, farmers were ‘hard up against the brute fact that disengaged fit male workers—single or married, experienced or inexperienced, are simply not to be had’; even at the end of November 1941 the vacancies recorded by the State placement scheme totalled 848. [346] But farmers were still reluctant to face this fact while there was any chance of military service appeals succeeding, as a good many did in 1942–3. Among the first girls who applied many were town-bred; often to those with a country background farm work was too familiar to be interesting when set against a city job or a Service uniform. [347] As for the farmers and their wives, an ex-typist or hairdresser was about the last thing many wanted in their cow-sheds and paddocks, though they made many inquiries through the WWSA for women with farm experience who could milk. [348] Some farms that normally employed young men offered good living quarters, on others conditions were too rough for a girl. Many farmers' wives, especially those without young children, would rather work harder themselves, fitting more farm chores into their days, than be invaded by land girls. A page of photographs in the Auckland Star of 18 March 1942 headed ‘Women take their place on the work front of the Allies’, showed a Russian girl at a machine drill, an English woman welding, an Auckland Post and Telegraph girl in roomy slacks driving a mail van, and a woman behind the plough on a Waikato farm: sturdy, middle-aged, with muscular arms, gumboots, floral frock, apron and wide-brimmed hat.

By mid-January, more than a dozen girls had enrolled in Canterbury and two had been placed on farms; [349] and by the end of the month the Auckland branch of the Land Corps had 19 suitable young women but no requests for their services. [350] In North Taranaki, one young woman ‘from a responsible position in a New Plymouth drapery emporium’ was working on a Tikorangi farm. [351] Semple, Minister of National Service, openly disappointed with both girls and farmers, warned that the male farm labour situation was likely to get worse and urged both parties to make the Corps a success; he also urged women with experience to take farm work, beginning at the top rate, £2 2 s 6 d a week on dairy farms, £1 15 s on others, both plus board. [352]

The farming community still felt that women were more needed in the domestic area, and it was noted that a few girls on their own initiative accepted jobs with both house and outdoor work. [353] By 31 March 1942, only 104 women had been placed on farms under the Land Corps scheme, which was officially admitted to be disappointing. [354] The Controller of Employment told farmers that even women might soon be unobtainable: the Army, Navy and Air Force were taking them, there were many openings in the towns, there was talk of women working on trams, and ‘who knows what will come next’. As most of these jobs offered more attractions than farming, ‘you stand a chance of being left unless you act pretty promptly’. [355]

The approach of spring and the march of the ballots, even though military calling-up was now delayed for farm workers, [356] made some change. On 3 June, with 30 girls on Canterbury farms, the local placement officers called the scheme a success. A month later, in the

Auckland area, with applications outnumbering Land Corps girls, an organiser said that the placing of the first girl in a district was difficult, but thereafter applications from nearby farmers followed quickly. [357] ‘If 20 girls were to volunteer for farm work today they could be placed immediately,’ said a WWSA organiser early in August. [358]

Farmers were also seeking women workers directly through advertisements, a few from as early as mid-1940. [359] In the ‘farm labour wanted’ column of the New Zealand Herald on 25 July 1942 there were 17 advertisements apart from those seeking married couples or men with special skills such as fencing. Of these 17, nine asked for or accepted girls: ‘Boy or Girl, milking and light farm work’; ‘Girl, milk and light housework, £2 clear’; ‘Man, Youth or Girl, good in shed and general’; ‘Land Girls, 2 mates preferred, capable full charge 70 cows. Willing assist in house. Wages, £3 per week each, plus bonus end of season’; ‘Land Girl, experienced for dairy farm, small herd, light farm work, good home, working conditions and wages’. Within the Land Corps itself, in July 1942, there were 203 girls employed, 13 awaiting placement, 8 applicants not yet accepted, and there were 71 vacancies on farms. [360]

Meanwhile the clothing issue had proved quite inadequate, especially beside the generous uniforms of the WAAF and the WAAC. Girls were complaining of the expense, in both money and coupons, [361] of the heavy clothes and boots they needed. [362] It was obviously necessary to upgrade the land girls in clothes, pay and status.

In September 1942, the re-organisation of the Land Corps scheme as the Women's Land Service, was announced. Starting pay on dairy farms was now 4l s a week plus keep, rising in six months to 48 s 6 d; on other farms 36 s, rising to 42 s 6 d. The subsidy for inexperience was slightly increased: 20 s weekly for the first three months, and 12 s 6 d during the next three months, instead of 15 s a week for six months. The clothing issue was substantially improved. At the start, each girl would receive three overalls, an oilskin, sou'wester, straw hat, leather jacket, five pairs of socks, boots and gumboots if available. After a month's satisfactory work the walking-out uniform would be awarded: a two-piece light brown costume with felt hat, tie, gloves, shoes, stockings and great-coat. Clothing would be replaced free or an allowance of 4 s a week paid. There were holiday arrangements, giving not less than seven days every 12 weeks. [363] Farmers' applications had to be approved by Primary Production Councils and girls approved as regards health, morals, etc, by the WWSA, but appointments were to be made, with district Manpower consent, through the National Service Department which held a country-wide list of applicant farmers and available girls. As before, a solitary girl must have her own room in the homestead, two or more could live in separate quarters, suitably fitted up; the government now offered to rent huts to farmers for this.

Girls working on relatives' farms had previously been excluded from the scheme, which had concentrated on attracting and subsidising inexperienced labour, not concerning itself with farmers' daughters already firmly employed. Now such girls, if paid for fulltime work, could be members of the Land Service, receiving the very worthwhile clothing allowance. [364] The idea was to popularise the service and keep these girls on the land, though of course no subsidy was paid.

With these improvements in hand two members of Parliament, Mesdames A. N. Grigg [365] (National) and M, V. Dreaver (Labour), in land girl uniform toured the country, appealing for women to replace many of the 23 000 men held on farms. [366] There was still no great rush to cow-bails and tractors. In June 1943 there were, according to Mrs Grigg, 699 land girls, half being farmers' daughters working on family land; 127 applications had been withdrawn, which she attributed to laggardly issuing of uniforms. It appeared that even working clothes had not been fully supplied: 650 girls had overalls, 550 had working shirts, 645 had working hats, 592 had waterproof coats but only 343 had working boots. Dress uniforms had not yet appeared; National Service advised that dress shoes and hats had been issued, but stockings and blouses were being held ready to go out with the two-piece suits and overcoats, which would be available ‘within the next week or two’. [367] By September 1943, there were 954 land girls, 488 of whom were on relatives' farms, [368] and the Director of National Service had remarked that providing clothes for farmers' daughters was proving very costly, while the original purpose of directing inexperienced girls, a fresh stream of labour, on to the land was being lost. [369]

There was pressure from Primary Production Councils [370] and elsewhere for girls working full time on fruit and vegetable farms to be admitted to the Land Service, thereby obtaining official recognition, clothing allowances and travel concessions. Between September 1942 and the following February these girls were admitted, but thereafter the National Service Department asserted that, as originally planned, the scheme was restricted to dairy and general farming. [371] Clothing was far from plentiful, and expensive: the outfit cost ‘at least £25 per head plus £10 per annum upkeep allowance’. [372] The Department was aware that admission of farmers' daughters already working on dairy and general farms to the uniform and privileges of the Land Service had increased its numbers by more than half, with expenses in proportion, without thereby increasing farm labour. It was reluctant to add to this situation by admitting girls already working in market gardens, fruit and tobacco farms, many of whom also were on their parents' land. Had they been admitted, the 400 girls employed by the Department of Agriculture on vegetable growing for the Services would have had an equally strong claim.

In October and November, a brisk press and radio campaign urged women landwards, with slogans such as ‘food for freedom’ and ‘food production is war production’, while shop windows displayed the uniform. Advertisements in large type called for thousands of women to relieve thousands of men; over the radio came letters from land girls telling of interest and satisfaction, of a real and healthy life. In Straight Furrow, another article urged farmers to consider anew the growing answer to their labour needs. It pointed to Britain's increased production and her 60 000 land girls, saying that most of New Zealand's girls were doing magnificently, and that after one or two came to a district, more were wanted there. Many farmers, the article chided, were wholly unaware of the possibilities of female labour, others never failed to decry it, though they would watch their own wives doing a man's work; some, believing labour unobtainable, renounced all effort to find it. [373]

This campaign produced some critical letters, showing several attitudes. One complained that a paternal government, having with gay uniforms, high wages and short hours seduced farmers' daughters away to the towns, was earnestly appealing to town girls to go on the land, but the farmer and his wife would not be grateful for an utterly inexperienced girl who must never do housework and must have frequent holidays. [374] There was a good deal of objection to the an on domestic work. The president of the Otago Farmers' Union, referring to publicity about a girl, previously in a bank, now killing sheep, said that it showed the principle behind the employment of land girls to be altogether wrong. ‘A farmer can order a land girl to do almost anything outside, while he himself might have to remain inside to help prepare the meals. While a great deal of use can be made of land girls, I do think that farmers' wives should have assistance first’. [375] Canterbury farmers thought it anomalous that country girls were in an inferior position to town girls in obtaining admission to the service, and the member for Hurunui, W. H. Gillespie, [376] said that the service would not be popular so long as the farmer's wife had to be maid-of-all-work to the land girl. [377] Timaru farmers said that employing a land girl put extra burden on an overworked wife and that this was very largely the cause of the reluctance to apply for them. [378] Others complained of being constantly afflicted with land girl propaganda on the radio, painting over-attractive pictures of farm life; they did not need girls for such pleasant tasks as riding round sheep, but needed experienced men to drive tractors, lift grain on to trucks, haul lime, fence, shear, crutch and to grub gorse. Except on dairy farms, land girls would not improve production one iota, while if all the persuasion and energy were directed to getting the girls to help the farmers' wives, a tremendous burden would be lifted. [379] The New Zealand Manufacturers Federation considered that land girls should be drawn from non-industrial areas to avoid encroaching on the resources of essential industry and increasing civilian shortages such as blankets and pyjamas; their uniforms were a further burden to manufacturers. [380]

On the other hand, a Press correspondent said that no farmer's wife was asked to be maid-of-all-work to a land girl, only to cook for her, as she would for a man or boy employed, adding that girls could not be blamed for not taking up domestic work: ‘what they ought to do first is to train the employers.’ [381] To the Auckland Star it was astounding that while farmers were crying out for labour, they hesitated to employ land girls. This could only be accounted for by deep-seated prejudice or by unwillingness to provide suitable accommodation. From earliest colonial days, women had done their share on the land and in the milking sheds, on thousands of farms. Land Service girls had shown first class ability after very brief training; Britain had found work for thousands of them and New Zealand women were not behind the British in energy and adaptability. [382] Again, five months later, a Star article commented on farmers complaining of labour shortage while not making full use of land girls, seemingly from prejudice, expressed in such remarks as ‘I wouldn't have one on my mind.’ This attitude came partly from the objections of farmers' wives who thought that they themselves, if freed from the kitchen, would do better on the farm than any imported land girl, but the farmer himself thought female labour no solution to his problem, however satisfactory both locally and in Britain. Compared with Britain, on a population basis New Zealand should have 2500 land girls [383] instead of half that number, though the British figure included workers on poultry, fruit farms and market gardens, all barred from New Zealand's Service. [384]

By December 1943 there were 1592 land girls, of whom 847 were on relatives' farms, and a peak of 2088 (relatives, 1226) was reached in September 1944. [385] Complaints were made, largely by the WWSA, that some farmers' daughters were not genuine full-time workers but were collecting the clothing and other allowances while avoiding the attentions of Manpower officers. [386] At the same time, farmers were distinctly unwilling to take Maori girls, 46 of whom in March 1944 were waiting for places on dairy farms. [387] In

June 1944, when there was difficulty in placing girls already accepted and with men about to return from the Pacific, no more girls from relatives' farms were admitted. However, those farmers' daughters already in the Service stayed longer than the outsiders: in March 1945 they numbered 1149 of the total 1850, and a year later were 848 of the total 1228. [388]

Throughout, more women were on dairy than other farms: in September 1944 there were 1153 (relatives, 691) on dairy farms, and 935 (relatives, 535) elsewhere. From the outset to the end, 4290 girls applied to join, 1582 being already on relatives' farms; and 2711 passed through the Service. They attended in all 2963 farms (relatives, 1297). In June 1945, in line with other pay increases, their wages rose by 10 s a week. All recruiting ceased with hostilities in August 1945 and the Service was disbanded on 30 April 1946. [389]

Given that more than half of New Zealand's land girls were in farmers' families, they were a minor feature in the war scene. Deep-rooted antagonism between town and country was presumably a main cause; fear of emotional and sexual entanglement was probably another. In New Zealand's movement towards equality for women, the war years were too early for land girls to be accepted, or to act, merely as farm workers and not as women working on the land. Nor has this yet become general. Only on fruit, hop and tobacco farms and in shearing gangs is the post-war increase of women workers a notable feature.

In January 1941 the Air Force opened its doors to women for service in New Zealand as clerks, typists, telephone operators, dental and medical assistants, cooks, waitresses, drivers and aircraft cleaners. They should be of 18–45 years, and would volunteer for the duration. Promptly, 2000 did so, [390] some giving up good jobs for a 48- hour week at pay ranging, with sundry allowances, from 4 s 6 d a day as a second-class aircraftswoman to 7 s a day as a supervisor; plus the uniform and a sense of really ‘being in the show’. Employers were soothed with assurances that neither their stenographers nor women already filling the place of men in the forces would be filched away; that the wives of servicemen and women not already at work or in jobs not important to the war could release an airman from civilian-type duties. [391]

The girls applied through the WWSA, which made provisional judgments on suitability and was represented on Air Force selection committees. [392] At the start, as no sleeping quarters were provided, only those whose homes were near air stations were accepted, but later there were hostels on the stations. [393] The first 180 girls made their debut at Rongotai in April 1941. They wore belted jackets made of air force officers' cloth, with four pockets and straight skirts with pleats in front, grey lisle stockings, serviceable black shoes and blue-grey felt hats turned up at the back. [394] The hats were replaced by berets later. [395] The Rongotai women were firmly approved and other air stations soon had their own sections of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. [396]

In February 1942, while the Air Force was renewing its call for women, it was announced that the Army and, on a smaller scale, the Navy, wanted women for similar duties, at the same pay range but for 44 hours weekly. As before, enlistment was to be through the WWSA, which would make provisional selection. [397] The enrolment rate, especially for the Army, which wanted large numbers, was disappointingly limp. There were several reasons: the keenest had already hastened into the WAAF, which remained more popular; publicity was poor; [398] increasingly, better civilian jobs were open to women; it was now realised that Service pay, despite travel concessions, etc, was meagre, especially if one had to live away from home, and there were even murmurs for equal pay. [399] There was also discontent with WWSA screening: a writer in the Press said that it was time that the WWSA's powers were curtailed. ‘Why should a woman wishing to join one of the services have to join the WWSA before she can even be considered for her chosen service?’ It was superfluous, a waste of time, and until Army and Navy officers put their respective feet down in the matter, the results of their appeals would continue to be disappointing. [400] An article in the Auckland

Star pointed to another deterrent: ‘The woman over 45 today, fine though she is, thoroughly competent though she may be, is not the woman to put in command of large numbers of young girls. Their problems are not, and never have been, hers.’ Many young girls, seeing the women prominent in recruiting, had stated that they hoped their officers would not be so old. ‘This may sound harsh, but it is a fact that the fear of an old point of view at the top might have been a deterrent up till now in the recruiting response. Girls want young virile women as their leaders.’ [401]

Enlistment procedures, involving essential industries and Manpower officers, as well as the WWSA and the Services themselves, had certainly become very complex, and by July 1942 there were only 600 girls in the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps. [402] Thereafter, in the interests of speed and efficiency, WWSA membership and interviewing were tactfully eliminated, and the way to the Services was straight through the National Service Department. [403] The WWSA disapproved of this diminution. The Dominion Secretary explained that some districts had expressed great dissatisfaction that enlistments no longer came through the WWSA, which could comment on the suitability or otherwise of the girl applying, but were now made through Manpower or direct to the Army. With the latter, some ‘Very definite preferential enlistments’ were taking place, while some undesirable women had been taken on and then released. If the WWSA handled all enlistment, ‘it could more or less be the selecting body for the Army’. [404] This suggestion was not taken up.

In October 1942 regulations which legally constituted the WAAC, WAAF and WRNZNS (Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service) as parts respectively of the Army, Air Force and Navy furthered severance from the WWSA. These regulations applied appropriate areas of Army, Navy and Air Force law to the women, and provided for commissioned and NCO rank with insignia, saluting, etc. Grades such as section leader and supervisor had seemed adequate in the early stages, but with increasing numbers and mobility ranking badges gave inter-service recognition and incentive. [405] Despite these regulations, the WWSA retained its influence at headquarters: the commandant of the WRNZNS, [406] Miss Ruth Herrick [407] of the Girl Guides, was on its Dominion Council, as was Mrs V. Jowett, late of the Plunket Society, commandant of the WAAC.

Enrolment quickened in the latter half of 1942, suggesting that girls were relieved at not having to pass through the portals of the

WWSA and that Service selectors were less finicky. Other pressures certainly helped this quickening. Publicity was improved: girls were photographed on parade and on anti-aircraft guns, news articles described life in training camps and on stations. Manpower officers were becoming tougher in their directives, and many girls, rather than risk meat works or woollen mills or hospital housework, hurried into uniform, which also provided a refuge from the trials of clothes rationing and shortages. The snowball of enlistment got rolling and by the latter half of 1943 more than 8000 women were in the forces.

For the WAAF, 8000 volunteered and 4753 served, 135 going overseas. Its peak strength was 3746 in August 1943 and by VJ Day, two years later, was still 2500 and 629 in March 1946. [408] Besides the driving, domestic and clerical jobs to which they were originally invited, some did skilled technical work as wireless operators, instrument repairers, parachute packers, Link Trainer instructors and in radio-location and meteorology. [409] In the WAAC 5000 actually served and 920 went overseas; peak strength was 4589 in July 1943, subsiding to 2500 by VJ Day and by March 1946 to 969, with 91 still overseas. [410] The WRNZNS was modest in size, and selective: of 1459 women who applied, 640 actually served. It reached peak strength of 519 in October 1944, and had shrunk to 297 by March 1946. Most served ashore in clerical and domestic work, but a few manned motor launches in Auckland harbour. [411]

Where did they come from? In mid-1943 a survey of 2118

WAAC girls showed that 11.5 per cent were married but without children, the rest were single; 59 per cent were less than 24 years old. Before enlisting, 17.8 per cent had lived at home, not employed; 21 per cent had worked in shops, 26.3 per cent in offices, 17.3 per cent in secondary industries; 10.6 per cent came from hotel, domestic and catering work, 3.5 per cent from the professions, mainly dental and other nursing. [412]

The New Zealand Army Nursing Service ( NZANS) drew its volunteers from those already trained in hospitals, care being taken not to deplete any section or area too severely, while to replace them other girls were encouraged to begin training. In general, Service patients in New Zealand were treated in civilian public hospitals, where fluctuating pressures taxed staffs heavily; there were 65 positions staffed by the NZANS in home medical Service units at hospitals in military camps, Air Force stations, the naval base and, from November 1944, the Polish children's camp. Overseas service claimed 602 nurses, who held rank as officers; staff nurses were 25–40 years of age, sisters 25–45, matrons 35–45 years. Their organisation and activities have been recorded professionally; [413] to their skill and devotion the bodies and minds of their patients bore witness.

[1] Evening Post, 31 Oct 42, p. 10; Dominion, 9 Dec 43, p. 4

[2] Handkerchiefs were sometimes contrived out of flour or oatmeal bags when material was scarce. Press, 2 Aug 41, p. 8

[3] In the Pacific, tinned meats were esteemed much less than the other foods. This news was slow in reaching patriotic circles, which late in 1944 were dismayed to learn that for more than a year Pacific troops had simply dumped canned meat, perhaps a commentary on the plenitude of US Pacific rations. Auckland Star, 11 Sep 44, p. 6

[4] eg, Evening Post, 25 Jun, 1, 17 Jul 40, pp. 12, 12, 12; 7, 16, 28 Aug 40, pp. 14, 11, 14; Otago Daily Times, 7 Aug 40, p. 6; NZ Woman's Weekly, 24 Oct 40, p. 23; Evening Star, 3 Mar 43, p. 6; Dominion, 10 Aug, 5 Oct 43, pp. 4, 3; Auckland Star, 26 Jun 44, p. 2

[5] Annual Report of St John and Red Cross, Evening Post, 30 Jul 43, p. 4; Otago Daily Times, 11 Jun 42; Dominion, 8 Oct 43, p. 6

[6] Point Blank, 15 Oct 41, p. 45; Straight Furrow, 15 Mar 44, pp. 60–1; Comforts for men in the Armed Forces

[7] Wanganui Herald, 20, 24 Nov 42, pp. 8, 8

[8] Dominion, 4 Apr 42, p. 5

[9] Press, 7 Sep 39, p. 2

[10] Dominion, 23 Mar 40, p. 9

[11] Press, 28 Sep 42, p. 4

[12] Work of the Red Cross Society, Wellington Sub-centre, 1943, p. 2

[13] Press, 28 Sep 42, p. 4

[14] Ibid., 19 Sep 42, p. 4

[15] Evening Post, 16 Jul 41, p. 6

[16] Stout, pp. 371–3

[17] NZ Woman's Weekly, 11 Sep, 4 Dec 41, pp.26, 23; NZ. Herald, 19, 24, 26, 28 Nov 41, pp. 6, 2, 4, 4; Auckland Star, 9 Dec 41, p. 5

[18] McKinney, J. B., Medical Units of 2 NZEF in Middle East and Italy, pp. 186–8

[19] Stout, p. 373; A to J 1945, H–19, p. 3

[20] Dominion, 16 May, 19 Jun 42, pp. 6, 3, 1 Nov 43, p. 6

[21] NZPD, vol 261, p. 874; Evening Post, 27 Nov 42, p. 6

[22] NZ Herald, 9 Feb 44, p. 4

[23] Stout, pp. 369–70

[24] Evening Post, 13, 14 Jun 40, pp. 7 & 11, 12; NZ Observer, 19 Jun 40, pp. 6 & 15;

Press, 7 Jun 40, p. 8

[25] Evening Post, 27 Jul, 6 Aug 40, pp. 16, 14, 2 Aug 43, p. 6; Otago Daily Times, 23 Nov 40, p. 2; Standard, 5 Sep 40, p. 3

[26] Dominion, 24 Aug 40, p. 6

[27] Star-Sun, 6 Aug 40, p. 6

[28] Truth, 23 Jul 41, p. 34

[29] Evening Post, 12, 17 Jul, 19, 20 Sep 40, pp. 11, 12, 16, 11,2 Aug 43, p. 6; NZ Woman's Weekly, 24 Oct 40, p. 23

[30] Press, 22 Dec 41, p. 4; Dominion, 28 Feb 42, p. 5; NZ Herald, 26 May 42, p. 4; Evening Post, 24 Dec 42, p. 6

[31] NZ Herald, 1 Apr 42, p. 4; Press, 29 Oct 43, p. 2

[32] Evening Post, 22 May 42, p. 4; 2 Aug 43, p. 6

[33] Auckland Star, 22 Dec 43, p. 3; NZ Herald, 5 Jan 44, p. 5

[34] Dominion, 20 Apr 44, p. 6

[35] NZ Woman's Weekly, 26 Dec 40, p. 25

[36] Ibid., 9 Jan 41, p. 23; Auckland Star, 17 Jul 40, p. 5 (photo)

[37] Dominion, 5 Feb 44, p. 9

[38] Truth, 11 Mar 42, p. 25

[39] Dominion, 21 Oct 40, p. 10; Truth, 19 May 43, p. 17; NZ Woman's Weekly, 24 Jun 43, p. 23

[40] Star-Sun, 4 Sep 40, p. 3

[41] Ibid., 30 Aug 40, pp.3 (photo), 7; Auckland Star, 25 Aug 42, p. 2; NZ Herald, 14 Sep 42, p. 2; Press, 19 Dec 42, p. 6. The building was donated for the duration, materials were donated and workmen gave their Saturday morning's labour.

[42] Opened on 6 October 1939, it entertained 5000 men in its first year, 12 000 in its second and 30 000 in its third. Dominion, 6 Oct 42, p. 2

[43] The Cinderella Club was formed in October 1940 by a group of 66 Wellington business women. Ibid., 21 Oct 40, p. 4

[44] Ibid., 21 Oct 42, p. 3

[45] For example, the Tinui WDFU, the Newlands Women's Institute, the Hawera WWSA, the Masterton Women's Welfare League, Pukeatua Station (Hastings) and Martinborough Patriotic Committee. Ibid., 24, 29 Jun, 5 Oct 42, pp. 3, 3, 6; Evening Post, 12 Apr 43, p. 6

[46] Evening Post, 24 Jun, 1 Jul, 12 Oct 40, pp. 9, 12, 17; Dominion, 9 Feb 44, p. 8

[47] Auckland Star, 19 Jun 40, p. 11; NZ Herald, 14 Oct, 11 Nov 42, pp. 4, 4

[48] Evening Post, 12 Oct 42, p. 17; Dominion, 30 Apr, 21 May, 5 Oct 42, pp.6, 3, 3, 9 Feb 44, p. 3

[49] Evening Post, 12 Oct 40, p. 17; Auckland Star, 20 Aug 42, p. 6

[50] Dominion, 21 Oct 40, p. 10; Auckland Star, 20 Aug 42, p. 6, 4 Jul 44, p. 6

[51] Press, 30 May 40, p. 10; Star–Sun, 4 Sep 40, p. 3; Auckland Star, 25 May, 2 Oct 43, pp. 2, 6; Evening Post, 12 Oct 40, p. 17, 19 Aug 43, p. 6

[52] Evening Post, 12 Aug 42, p. 4; Dominion, 6 Mar 43, p. 6

[53] Auckland Star, 25 May 43, p. 2

[54] NZ Woman's Weekly, 4 Apr 40, p. 23; Truth, 9 Oct 40, p. 1

[55] Truth, 9 Oa 40, p. 1; NZ Herald, 9 Feb, 5 Aug 40, pp. 4, 4 (photo)

[56] NZ Free Lance, 2 Oct 40, p. 38

[57] NZ Woman's Weekly, 24 Oct 40, p. 1

[58] Ibid,; Truth, 9 Oct 40, p. 1

[59] NZ Free Lance, 13 Nov 40, p. 23

[60] NZ Woman's Weekly, 23 Jan 41, p. 30

[61] Ibid., 16 Jan 41, p. 34

[62] Auckland Star, 17 Aug 40, p. 10

[63] Ibid., 3 Jun 41, p. 9

[64] Truth, 14 Jan 42, p. 25

[65] Auckland Star, 21 Apr 41, p. 9

[66] Ibid., 5 Sep 42, p. 6; NZ Woman's Weekly, 15 Oct 42, p. 26

[67] NZ Woman's Weekly, 4 Dec 41, p. 23

[68] Auckland Star, 19 Aug 42, p. 3

[69] Ibid., 2 Dec 43, p. 3

[70] McLean, Mary, CBE('28) (d 1969): Principal Wgtn Girls' College 1901–26; promoter & Pres Women's Social Progress Movt; Chch city councillor 1944–65; 8 years Pres Chch branch Nat Council Women; Nat Pres Pan- Pacific & SE Asia Women's Assn 1961–5

[71] Press, 19, 20 Jun 40, pp. 2, 10; Evening Post, 6 Jul 40, p. 18

[72] Marsh, Dame Ngaio, DBE('66) (1899–1982): author & theatrical producer; NZ Red Cross Transport Corps during WWII

[73] NZ Woman's Weekly, 3 Oct 40, p. 27

[74] Press, 21 Apr, 1 Dec 41, pp.6, 2, 2 Feb, 14 Apr 42, pp.3 (photo), 2; Star–Sun, 17 Apr 41, p. 11

[75] Bell, Muriel Emma, CBE('59) (1898–1974): nutritionist to Health Dept Dunedin 1940–65; Fellow Royal Soc Medicine

[76] Press, 13 Oct 41, p. 2, 27, 31 Jan 42, pp. 4, 2, 5 Jan, 8 Mar 43, pp. 4, 2, 24 Apr 44, p. 2

[77] NZ Free Lance, 18 Sep 40, pp. 9, 37 (photo)

[78] 78 see p. 1101ff

[79] Press, 14 Oct 41, p. 6 (photo)

[80] Timaru Herald, 10 Nov 41, p. 6

[81] Dominion, 25 Jun 40, pp. 6, 5, 15 Nov 43, p. 4

[82] Hole, Mrs Ottcoline Valerie, MBE('46) (1892–1976): b Eng; NZ Red Cross Transport Corps 1939–45

[83] Evening Post, 2 Nov 39, p. 11, 12 Apr 41, p. 6

[84] Ibid., 31 Jul 40, p. 12

[85] Ibid., 19 Aug 40, p. 12; Palmerston North Times, 24 Jan 42, p. 3

[86] NZ Woman's Weekly, 25 Jun 42, p. 26, 28 Oct 43, p. 7; Evening Star, 12 Sep 42, p. 8;

Dominion, 15 Nov 43, p. 4

[87] Palmerston North Times, 31 Jan 42, p. 3

[88] Evening Star, 29 Aug 42, p. 8 (photo)

[89] Star–Sun, 11 Jul 40, p. 11; Press, 14 Dec 40, p. 9, 1 Apr 41, p. 2

[90] Taranaki Daily News, 29 Jun 40, p. 6

[91] Star–Sun, 9 Aug 40, p. 7

[92] Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, 7 Aug 40, p. 7

[93] Star–Sun, 10 Jul 40, p. 8

[94] Ibid., 25 Jul 40, p. 10

[95] Palmerston North Times, 28 Jun 40, p. 10, 16 Jan 41, p. 5; NZ. Free Lance, 2 Oct 40, p. 29

[96] Evening Post, 12 Jul 40, p. 11

[97] Ibid., 29 Jul, 21 Sep 40, pp. 12, 16

[98] NZ Herald, 21 Dec 41, p. 14

[99] Bennett, Dr Agnes Lloyd, OBEC('48) (1872–1960): b Aust; with NZMC Egypt 1915, Scot Women's Hospital Salonika, Serbia 1916; worked with WVS UK during WWII, later lecturer in hygiene to women's forces in NZ

[100] Report of deputation, 11 Jun 40, NS 13/3/9, pt 1, in War History Narrative, The Women's War Service Auxiliary' (hereinafter WHN, ‘WWSA’), pp. 3–5

[101] Fraser, Mrs Janet, JP (d 1945): b Scotland

[102] WHN, ‘WWSA’, p. 6, summarising conference of 11 Jul 40, NS 13/3/9, pt 1; Evening Post, 12 July 40, p. 11

[103] Mrs J. Fraser, Pres; Dr Agnes Bennett, Vice-Pres; Mesdames N. Adams (Auck, WDFU), H. Atmore ( Nelson, local Women's Corps), C. Mackie Begg (Dunedin, YWCA), W. H. Cocker (Auck, Women's Athletic Assn), W. Deans (Chch, Women's Institute), H. D. Bennett (Wgtn), M. J. Bentley (Wgtn, Women's Branch NZ Labour party), E. M. Knox Gilmer (Wgtn), Miss Amy Kane (Wgtn, Fedn Women's Clubs), Miss Ruth Herrick ( Napier, Girl Guides Assn). Evening Post, 7 Aug 40, p. 14

[104] They were Miss Mabel Howard of Chch, Mrs E. W. Moore, Auck, and Mrs E. Harris, Wgtn, all from Labour party organisations and Mrs V. Jowett, Wgtn, Plunket Soc

[105] NZ Herald, 8 Nov 41, p. 13

[106] Jowett, Mrs Vida Eliza, OBEC('44) (d 1959): member Dom Exec WWSA from inception, cmdr WAAC 1942–7

[107] Bentley, Mrs Mary Jane, OBE('46) (d 1958 aet 76): actively associated during lifetime with Otaki Health Camp, YWCA, Wellington Technical College Board of Managers (as Parents' Assn rep), handicapped children. In canteen group WWSA during WWII

[108] Gilmer, Dame Elizabeth, DBE('51) (1880–1960): daughter of Rt Hon R. J. Seddon; chmn Lady Galway Guild, exec member WWSA 1940–6; NZ rep Internat Council Women 1949; Wgtn City Council 1941–53

[109] Don, Mrs Frances May, JP (d 1965): b Dunedin; Inspector Factories Labour Dept Wgtn; member Wgtn Housing Allocation Committee of State Advances Corp; leading member Otago LRC 1930s, member (including Vice-Pres) Wgtn LRC after move to Wgtn 1936; active in Crippled Children Society 1941–; fifteen years with Nat Council Women

[110] Kane, Amy Grace, OBE('51) (1880–1979): exec member Federation Women's Institutes 1934-, Dom Pres 1938–43; Vice-Pres Assn Country Women of the World; Wgtn Hospital Board 1933–50; Wgtn HQ WWSA during WWII

[111] Evening Post, 9, 20 Aug 40, pp. 11, 4; Star–Sun, 22, 23 Aug 40, pp. 4, 2

[112] Evening Post, 20 Aug 40, p. 9

[113] Ibid., 23, 27 Aug 40, pp. 6, 8

[114] Dominion, 7 Sep 40, p. 6. Mrs Bennett was one of Bishop Bennett's daughters-in-law.

[115] NZ Herald, 4 Oct 40, p. 13; Press, 11 Oct 40, p. 24

[116] NZ Herald, 2 Dec 41, p. 2

[117] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 28

[118] Evening Post, 21 Oct 40, p. 5 (photo)

[119] Dominion, 23 Apr 41, p. 6, 2 Feb, 3 Mar 42, pp. 3, 3, 16 Aug 43, p. 6; NZ Herald, 11 Apr 42, p. 4

[120] Otago Daily Times, 17 Nov 41, p. 7 (photo)

[121] NZ Herald, 29 May 41, p. 4, 16 Jun 42, p. 2

[122] NZ Woman's Weekly, 11 Sep 41, p. 27; Dominion, 10 Oct 41, p. 4

[123] Dominion, 21 Jan 41, p. 8; Evening Past, 1 Feb 41, p. 16; Press, 7 Feb, 19 May 41, pp.8, 12 (photo); NZ Woman's Weekly, 3 Apr 41, p. 38; Otago Daily Times, 21 Nov 41, p. 4 124

[124] Press, 20 May 41, p. 7

[125] NZ Herald, 21 Jan, 2 Jun 41, pp. 11, 12; Press, 13 Feb 42, p. 7

[126] 126NZ Herald, 21 Jan 41, p. 11; Press, 1 Feb 41, p. 8, 13 Feb 42, p. 7; NZ Woman's

Weekly, 28 Nov 40, p. 28, 6 Feb, 6 Mar, 24 Apr 41, pp. 31, 37, 39

[127] NZ Herald, 28 Feb 41, p. 11

[128] Dir Nat Service to Dom Sec WWSA, 22 May 42, NS 13/3/9. WHN, ‘WWSA’, p. 10

[129] NZ Woman's Weekly, 6 Feb 41, p. 31

[130] NZ Herald, 4 Oct 40, p. 13

[131] Evening post, 19 Apr 41, p.10; Southland Times, 1 May, 25 Jun 41, pp.8,3

[132] Dom Sec WWSA to Min Nat Service, 8 May 42, and Dir Nat Service to Dom Sec, 22 May 42, NS 13/3/9, WHN, ‘WWSA’, p. 13

[133] NZ Herald, 17 Dec 41, p. 11, 14 Jan 42, p. 4

[134] Ibid., 1 1 Feb 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 29 Jan 42, p. 10; Auckland Star, 17, 18 Nov 43, pp. 6, 3

[135] For instance, at Auckland's Carrie Hostel groups of three or four came every morning to make some 150 beds; others mended bed linen, while others regularly served breakfast (business girls coming in at 7.15 am before going to their jobs) and lunches and dinners at weekends and holidays. Auckland Star, 11 Aug 44, p.2

[136] A to J 1945, H–11A, p. 27

[137] WHN, ‘WWSA’, pp. 15–18

[138] A to j 1944, H–11A, p. 25

[139] Dir Nar Service to Men, 24 Aug 45, NS 13/3/9, WHN, ‘WWSA’, p. 19

[140] A to J 1946, H–11 A, p. 75

[141] Evening Post, 5 Aug 42, p. 4; Star–Sun, 3 Sep 43, p. 6; Evening Star, 5 Sep 42, p. 8 (photo); Press, 22 Jul 42, p. 2

[142] Auckland Star, 3 Apr 43, p. 6

[143] Dominion, 10 Aug 43, p. 4

[144] NZ Herald, 2 Nov 42, p. 2; Dominion, 31 Oct 42, p. 8

[145] Dominion, 30 May 42, p. 8

[146] Ibid., 4 Mar 42, p. 5; Evening Post, 18 Aug 43, p. 8

[147] Star–Sun, 5 Jul 40, p. 4; Auckland Star, 22 Dec 42, p. 4

[148] Evening Post, 9 Jul 42, p. 4

[149] Ibid., 18 Mar 42, p. 4

[150] NZ Woman's Weekly, 1 Jan 42, p. 29

[151] NZ Herald, 9 Feb 44, p. 2

[152] Basic wage rates were not reviewed during the war, but the Minimum Wage Act of 1945 prescribed that from 1 April 1946 the minimum rate for adult men was 2 s 9 d by the hour or piecework, 22 s by the day and 105 s a week; for adult women, 1 s 8 d by the hour or piecework, 13 s 4 d by the day and 63 s a week. Yearbook 1947–49, p. 669

[153] Minimum award rates listed in A to Js 1939–46, H–l 1, Yearbook 1940, pp. 814–6

[154] In 1940 government paid all Service wives 3s a day with 1s 6d a day per child up to 5 children. In rhe Army soldiers below sergeant had to allot 3s to a childless wife, 3 s 6 d if there was a child, 4 s 6 d for two or more children, and could allot up to 5 s a day. Privates got 7 s a day on home service. 7 s 6 d when overseas; sergeants had 8 s 6 d at home, 10 s overseas, and a 2nd lieutenant's 13 s a day rose to 16 s 6 d when he embarked. Pay and allowances were tax free.

[155] NZ Herald, 2 Apr 40, p. 8

[156] Ibid., 14 Jan 42, p. 8

[157] Ibid., 10 Jan 42, p. 8

[158] Dominion, 9 Feb 42, p. 4

[159] Chappell, p. 344

[160] Press, 15 Jun 40, p. 16, 15, 18 Feb 41, pp. 14, 6

[161] A to J 1940, H–14, p. 17, 1941, H–14, pp. 9–10

[162] Ibid., 1942, H–14, pp. 1–2

[163] Auckland Star, 24 Sep 42, p. 6; Evening Post, 9 Sep 42, p. 3

[164] A to J1945, H–14. p. 10

[165] Ibid., 1946, H–14, p. 16

[166] Ibid., 1947, H–14, p. 12

[167] Webb, Caroline (d 1962): b England; daughter Archbishop West-Watson, married L.C. Webb 1932; headmistress Parents National Educational Union (PNEU) school (Selwyn House) Chch

[168] Press, 15 Sep 42, p. 4

[169] Evening Post, 2 Jul 40, p. 9

[170] NZ Herald, 2 Jul 41, p. 11; Auckland Star, 22 Sep 41, p. 8 (photo)

[171] NZ Herald, 13, 27 Jan 42, pp. 4, 2. Probably those who seized the wheels were Women's National Service Corps trainees; Mrs M. Dreaver explained in August that the Corps had successfully urged that they should work in trousers instead of the skirts in which they began. Ibid., 7 Aug 42, p. 2; Auckland Star, 18 Mar 42 (photo)

[172] NZ Herald, 26, 30 Jan, 18 Feb 42, pp. 6, 2, 4

[173] Press, 17 Mar 42, p. 4; Palmerston North Times, 31 Mar 42, p. 4

[174] NZ Herald, 18 Feb 42, p. 4; Press, 18 Aug 42, p. 6 (photo)

[175] Palmerston North Times, 31 Mar 42, p. 4

[176] NZ Herald, 30 Jan 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 19 Feb 42, p. 10

[177] Press, 20 Jun 42, p. 4

[178] Ibid., 20 Oct 43, p. 2

[179] A to J1942, 1943, both F–1, p. 2

[180] Star–Sun, 16 Sep 42, p. 4

[181] A to J1944, F–1, p. 2

[182] Ibid., 1945, F–1, p. 2

[183] Ibid., 1946, F–1, p. 4

[184] Ibid., 1943, D–2, p. 8

[185] Evening Post, 25 Sep 43. p. 4

[186] NZ Herald, 1 Nov 41, p. 12

[187] Ibid., 17 Apr, 14 May 42, pp. 4, 2

[188] Press, 2, 19, 25 Jul 42, pp. 3, 4, 6

[189] Auckland Star, 13 Apr 43, p. 2 (photo)

[190] A to J1943, D–2, p. 8

[191] Ibid., 1944, D–2, p. 7

[192] NZ Herald, 25 Sep 42, p. 2; NZPD. vol 261, p. 411

[193] WHN, ‘Police Department’, pp. 20–2

[194] Auckland Star, 14, 15, 17 Oct 40, pp. 8, 6. 9

[195] Evening Post, 17 Jul, 14 Aug 41, pp. 13, 11

[196] NZ Herald, 29 Apr 42, p. 4

[197] Press, 17 Feb 42. p. 4

[198] NZ Herald, 17 Feb 42, p. 7

[199] Auckland Star, 5 Mar 42, p. 8

[200] NZ Herald, 15 Apr 42, p. 4

[201] Auckland Star, 8 Jun 42, p. 6

[202] Evening Post, 23 Jun 42, p. 3

[203] Dominion, 17, 27 Jun 42, pp. 4, 6

[204] Evening Star, 3, 20 Jul 42, pp. 2, 2

[205] Press, 30 Jul 42, p. 2

[206] NZ Herald, 1 Sep 42, p. 2

[207] Press, 30 Jul 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 29 Jul 42, p. 4

[208] Evening Star, 19 Aug 42, p. 8

[209] Auckland Star, 3, 15 Feb 42, pp. 5, 4

[210] Dominion, 11 Mar 43, p. 4

[211] Ibid., 22 Mar 43, p. 4

[212] Ibid., 28 Apr 43, p. 6

[213] Ibid., 14 May 43, p. 4

[214] Auckland Star, 3 Feb 43, p. 5

[215] Press, 23 Oct 43, p. 4

[216] Evening Star, 19 Jul 43, p. 2

[217] Dominion, 30 Oct 42, p. 6, Evening Post, 29 Jul 42, p. 4

[218] NZ Herald, 21 Apr 44, p. 4.

[219] Dominion, 15 Mar 43, p. 9; Evening Post, 27 Jul 43, p. 4

[220] Evening Post, 31 Jul 43, p. 3

[221] Ibid., 10, 12, 19 Aug 43, pp. 4, 5, 6 (photo)

[222] A photograph appeared in the Evening Post, 19 Aug 43, p. 6; another is in Baker at p. 449

[223] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 43

[224] Ibid.

[225] Star–Sun, 6 Jul 40, p. 12; Auckland Star, 16 Aug 40, p. 15; Press, 21 Aug 40, p. 8

[226] NZ Herald, 1 Dec 41, p. 7

[227] Ibid., 21 Jan 42, p. 6; Press, 14 Mar 42, p. 6

[228] Dominion, 19 Mar 43, p. 4

[229] Press, 14 Mar 42, p. 6

[230] NZ Woman's Weekly, 21 Jan 43, p. 29

[231] Press, 27 Jun 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 12 Aug 42, p. 2

[232] NZ Herald, 20 May 42, p. 4

[233] Ibid., 18 Sep, 16 Oct 42, pp. 2, 2

[234] Auckland Star, 22 Oct 42, p. 6 (photo)

[235] NZ Woman's Weekly, 15 Apr 43, p. 23

[236] Dominion, 19 Mar 43, p. 4

[237] NZ Observer, 27 Jan 43, p. 5

[238] Evening Star, 16 Feb 43, p. 2

[239] Ibid., 8 Jan 43, p. 2

[240] Press, 19 Mar 43, p. 6

[241] Standard, 12 Oct 39, p. 2

[242] Auckland Star, 17, 30 Jul 42, pp. 6, 3; NZ Herald, 17 Jul 42, p. 2; Truth, 27 Aug 41, p. 7

[243] Evening Post, 11 Jul 42, p. 4

[244] Auckland Star, 16 Jan 43, p. 6; Evening Post, 21 May 41, p. 9; Dominion, 4 Mar 42, p. 5

[245] Evening Star, 26 Sep 42, p. 8

[246] Dominion, 15 Feb 41, p. 2

[247] Evening Post, 28 Aug 43, p. 3

[248] Ibid., 25 Sep 43, p. 3

[249] Labour Department estimate, A to J 1940, H–11, p. 4

[250] Ibid., 1944, 1945, both H–11, p. 4

[251] Ibid., 1946, H–11, p. 5

[252] Ibid., 1947, H–11, p. 5

[253] Ibid., 1943, H–11, p. 1

[254] Press., 21 Jul 42, p. 4

[255] A to J1943, H–11, pp. 1–2, 1946, H–11, p. 2

[256] Ibid., 1943, H–11, pp. 2, 4, 16; Labour Suspension Order, 1940/103

[257] A to J 1940 to 1946, H–11, pp. 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 2

[258] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 365

[259] Ibid

[260] NZ Herald, 8 May 40, p. 8

[261] Auckland Star, 30 May 40, p. 17; Press, 14 Jun 40, p. 8; Evening Post, 14, 15 Jun 40, PP. 5, 9

[262] NZ Herald, 5 Jun 40, p. 10

[263] Evening Post, 1 Aug 40, p. 7; Star–Sun, 9 Aug 40, p. 3

[264] Star–Sun, 29 Aug 40, p. 11

[265] In December 1940 these rates were increased by five per cent as from 3 October 1940. Emergency Regulation 1940/316, 317

[266] Evening Post, 2 Apr 41, p. 10

[267] NZ Herald, 23 May 41, p. 11

[268] Ibid., 10 Jan, 16 May 42, pp. 8, 8

[269] Press, 18 Feb 41, p. 6

[270] For instance, Hamilton had a munitions factory, and clothing firms set up branches in

Masterton, Levin and Wanganui.

[271] NZ Herald, 16 May 42, p. 8

[272] Auckland Star, 6 Oct 43, p. 2

[273] ie, 1d for every twelfth of a pound, including the amount allowed for keep

[274] Star–Sun, 23 Dec 42, p. 4; Dominion, 19 Nov 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 29 Dec 42, p. 6

[275] NZ Herald, 20 Apr 43, p. 2

[276] Evening Post, 23 Dec 42, p. 4

[277] NZ Herald, 29 Apr, 3 Jun 42, pp. 6, 2

[278] Dominion, 5 Mar 42, p. 7, 10 Mar 43, p. 4

[279] Ibid., 2 Jun 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 18 Nov 42, p. 4

[280] Auckland Star, 5 Jun 44, p. 4

[281] Ibid., 18 Nov 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 23 Dec 42, p. 4

[282] Auckland Star, 17 Aug 42, p. 5

[283] NZ Herald, 23 Dec 42, p. 4; Dominion, 17 Aug 43, p. 4

[284] Dominion, 17, 25 Jun 43, pp. 3, 3

[285] In February 1944 a woman appealed successfully against direction as a waitress to an

Auckland hospital where her weekly wage would be £2 5 s 3 d net, while her room cost £1 5 s. NZ Herald 24 Feb 44, p. 4

[286] Evening Post, 24 Aug 43, p. 2

[287] Auckland Star, 1, 16 Apr 43, pp.6, 2; NZ Herald, 11 May 43, p. 2; Dominion, 15 Apr 43, p. 4

[288] Evening Post, 6 Aug 43, p. 2

[289] Ibid., 31 Jul 43, p. 3

[290] Ibid.

[291] Ibid., 25 Sep 43, p. 3

[292] Ibid., 27 Jul 43, p. 4

[293] Memo of Public Service Cmssnr to Permanent Heads, 22 Jul 43, WHN, ‘Women in Industry’, p. 21

[294] Ibid., p. 22; Evening Post 7 Sep 43, p. 4

[295] Auckland Star, 29 Jul 40, p. 6

[296] Evening Post, 14 Jun 40, p. 5

[297] Dominion, 12 Nov 43, p. 6

[298] Evening Post, 6 Jul, 21 Aug 40, pp. 18, 14

[299] Dominion, 12 Nov 43, p. 6

[300] NZ Herald, 21 Nov 41, p. 6

[301] Auckland Star, 16 Jan 43, p. 6

[302] eg, the two-year-old child of an experienced machinist was cared for by a grandmother from Sunday night till 5 o'clock on Friday. NZ Woman's Weekly, 10 Jun 43, p. 16

[303] Dominion, 17 Oct 44, p. 6

[304] Dominion, 23 Nov 42, p. 2; Minutes and Correspondence, Karori Play Centre 1941–2, Secretary to Mrs J. Wood, 12 Jun 42, in Wellington Nursery Play Centre Association Records; Evening Post, 16 Feb 44, p. 4

[305] Dominion, 11 Feb 43, p. 4

[306] Evening Post, 6 Sep 43, p. 6

[307] Dominion, 28 Sep 43, p. 6

[308] A to J1944, E–1, p. 3

[309] Auckland Star, 27 Feb 43, p. 3

[310] Ibid.

[311] Ibid.

[312] Dominion, 9 Dec 42, p. 3

[313] Ibid., 17 Jul 43, p. 6

[314] Auckland Star, 24 Apr 43

[315] Dominion, 24 Apr 44, p. 7

[316] Auckland Star, 2 Mar 43, p. 2

[317] see p. 1052

[318] NZ Woman's Weekly, 24 Jun 43, pp. 28–9

[319] see p. 1050

[320] see p. 1126

[321] Evening Post, 13 Jul 42, p. 6

[322] Auckland Star, 16 Jul 42

[323] NZ Listener, 13 Nov 42, p. 9

[324] Auckland Star, 1 Apr 43, p. 4

[325] Ibid., 2, 9 Apr 43, pp. 2, 2

[326] Ibid., 28 Jun 43, p. 2

[327] Star–Sun, 21 Jan, 3 Feb 43, pp. 4, 4

[328] Auckland Star, 21 Oct 43, p. 3

[329] Ibid., 13 Nov 44, p. 4

[330] NZ Herald, 21 Mar, 15, 16 Apr 40, pp. 8, 9, 9; Press, 10 May 40, p. 15

[331] ‘There are few girls interested in farming, and still fewer farmers who want them’, said an employment officer (N. S. Woods, of the Government Youth Centre in Christchurch).

Star–Sun, 13 Aug 40, p. 6

[332] Martin, Hon William Lee, JP (1870–1950): MP (Lab) Raglan 1927–31, 1935–43; Min Agriculture 1935–41; MLC 1946–50

[333] NZ Herald, 25 Mar, 15, 18 Apr, 29 May 40, pp. 9, 9, 12, 10; Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, 16 Apr 40, p. 7; Evening Post, 6 May 40, p. 6; Southland Times, 4 Jun 40, p. 3

[334] Point Blank, 15 May 41, p. 45

[335] Ibid., 15 Aug 40, p. 47

[336] NZ Herald, 1, 24 May 41, pp. 8, 6; Southland Times, 7 Jun 41, p. 7

[337] NZ Herald, 29 Jul 42, p. 4

[338] NZ Woman's Weekly, 19 Feb 42, pp. 4–5

[339] Report of the NZ Dairy Federation, in NZ Herald, 11 Jun 42, p. 2

[340] Dominion, 16 Jun 43, p. 4; Star–Sun, 14 Oct 40, p. 3; NZ Free Lance, 4 Dec 40, p. 8;

NZ Herald, 6 Mar 41, p. 8; NZ Woman's Weekly, 20 Mar 41, p. 27, 19 Feb 42, pp. 4–5, and letter from Mrs Tui Hartley, RD 7, Dannevirke, to Cherry Raymond, 12 Sep 69

[341] Auckland Star, 17 Sep 41, p. 8; Press, 11 Oct 41, p. 11; War History Narrative, ‘Women's Land Service’, p. 11

[342] WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, p. 9

[343] This condition was discreetly waived in March 1942; ibid., p. 22

[344] NZ Herald, 10 Nov 41, p. 6

[345] Press, 11 Nov 41

[346] This article was prepared by the Nat Service Dept in December (WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, p. 13, referring to NS 1/16/13, pt 1) and appeared on 16 February 1942 in Straight Furrow, which had succeeded Point Blank as the organ of the Farmers' Union.

[347] Dominion, 5 Jan 42, p. 3; Press, 31 Jan 42, p. 3

[348] NZ Herald, 10 Jan 42, p. 4

[349] Press, 13 Jan 42, p. 2

[350] NZ Herald, 28 Jan 42, p. 4

[351] Palmerston North Times, 28 Jan 42, p. 3

[352] Evening Post, 29 Jan 42, p. 5

[353] Press, 10 Mar, 1 Apr 42, pp. 6, 4

[354] A to J1942, H–11A, p. 6

[355] Straight Furrow, 15 May 42, p. 13

[356] NZ Herald, 9 Jul 42, p. 2; Press, 17 Jul 42, p. 4

[357] Press, 3 Jun, 16 Jul 42, pp. 4, 6

[358] Auckland Star, 6 Aug 42, p. 3

[359] Taranaki Daily News, 18 Jun 40, p. 2

[360] WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, App C, list from NS 1/16/13, pr 3

[361] see p. 792

[362] Press, 1, 14, 16 Jul 42, pp. 2, 6, 6; Auckland Star, 11 Aug 42, p. 2; WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, pp. 19–20

[363] Auckland Star, 19 Sep 42, p. 4; NZ Woman's Weekly, 26 Nov 42, p. 26

[364] NZ Herald, 7 Nov 42, p. 8

[365] Polson, Lady Mary, MBE('46) (1897–1977): MP (Nat) Mid-Canty 1942 (returned unopposed on death of 1st husband A. N. Grigg); member Ashburton Hospital Bd 1940–3; married Sir William Polson 1943

[366] Press, 16 Nov 42, p. 2

[367] Auckland Star, 18 Jun 43, p. 2; NZPD, vol 262, pp. 838, 840, 846

[368] A to J1946, H–11A, pp. 63, 131

[369] Auckland Star, 10 May 43, p. 4

[370] Ibid., 10 May, 4 Nov 43, pp. 4, 4; Dominion, 14 Jul 43, p. 6

[371] WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, pp. 29–30, quoting memo from Min Nat Service to Dir Nat Service, 11 Feb 43, NS 1/16/13, pt 4

[372] Ibid., p. 33, quoting memo Dir Nat Service to Min Nat Service, 6 Feb 43

[373] Straight Furrow, 16 Aug, 15 Oct 43, pp. 23, 16–17

[374] Press, 21 Oct 43, p. 6

[375] Dominion, 27 Oct 43, p. 6

[376] Gillespie, William Henry (1893–1961): farmer; MP (Nat) Hurunui from 1943

[377] Press, 2 Dec 43, p. 6

[378] Ibid., 18 Dec 43, p. 4

[379] Ibid., 5, 10, 13 Nov 43, pp. 7, 4, 4

[380] Auckland Star, 23 Oct 43, p. 6

[381] Press, 6 Dec 43, p. 6

[382] Auckland Star, 23, 24 Nov 43, p. 4, editorial

[383] By June 1944, Britain's women's land army numbered 80 000, slightly short of its peak. Calder, p. 428

[384] Auckland Star, 5 May 44, p. 3

[385] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 131

[386] WHN, ‘Women's Land Service’, p. 34

[387] Ibid., p. 37

[388] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 131

[389] Ibid., p. 63

[390] Press, 28 Mar 41, p. 8

[391] Otago Daily Times, 6 Feb 41, p. 10

[392] NZ Herald, 1 Mar 41, p. 10

[393] Hall, D. O. W., Women at War, p. 28

[394] Otago Daily Times, 1 Mar 41, p. 11; NZ Woman's Weekly, 14 Aug 41, p. 26

[395] NZ Woman's Weekly, 15 Oct 42, p. 21

[396] Evening Post, 31 May, 3 Jun 41, pp. 8, 9

[397] Dominion, 6 Feb 42, p. 4; Press, 12 Feb 42 p. 2

[398] Auckland Star, 23, 30, 31 Jul 42, pp. 4, 6, 4; NZ Herald, 18, 23 Jul 42, pp. 6, 4

[399] Auckland Star, 30 Jul, 1 Aug 42, pp. 6, 4

[400] Press, 3 Mar 42, p. 8

[401] Auckland Star, 19 Aug 42, p. 3

[402] A to J1945, H–11A, p. 27

[403] WHN, ‘WWSA’, pp. 27–9

[404] Ibid., p. 32, quoting Dom Sec WWSA to Main Nat Service, 30 Mar 43, NS 13/3/9

[405] Press, 25 Jul 42, p. 2

[406] Members of the Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service were commonly known as Wrens.

[407] Herrick, Hermione Ruth, OBE(Mil)('46), CBE('62) (1889–): active Girl Guide organisation from 1931, Provincial Cmssnr Hawke's Bay 1931, Dep Chief Cmssnr NZ 1933, Chief Cmssnr 1934–65; Director WRNZNS 1941–5

[408] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 29

[409] NZ Woman's Weekly, 4 Feb 43, pp. 4–5; A to J 1942, H–37, p. 1, 1943, H–11A, P. 15

[410] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 29

[411] Ibid.

[412] Dominion, 3 Aug 43, p. 4

[413] Stout, T. D. M., New Zealand Medical Services in Middle East and Italy, Medical Services in New Zealand and Pacific; McKinney, J. B., Medical Units of 2 NZEF in Middle East and Italy

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 22 — Education

CHAPTER 22
Education

LABOUR came to office in 1935 with passionate belief that for all people education was the way to a better life. That Peter Fraser was Minister of Education both measured and sustained its importance. From overseas new ideas were coming, of education being broader, less academic, concerned not only with attaining standards and qualifications but with developing a wide range of attitudes, improving the whole of living; of working through energy created by programmes geared to abilities and interests rather than by routine, compulsion and competitive zeal. Such ideas were deeply acceptable to Labour, where most rankers were educationally under-privileged and most of the hierarchy self-read: they were to be grafted on to a system already geared to compulsory education.

The government's avowed purpose was that every child should have the education best suited to his abilities, free, in State-funded schools, for as long as he could benefit by it, with equality for town and country children. There should be new schools and equipment on a scale never contemplated before in New Zealand, staffed by teachers working with freedom, understanding and imagination. Inspectors were to be not dread judges but educational leaders, guiding teachers in the freedom and demands of the new style. The primary syllabus was being reviewed, with less stress on mechanical learning, more on practical means to promote real interest and knowledge. New text books, beginning with arithmetic, were being devised. The dreary pressure of the Proficiency examination, long the target of primary school effort, had been abolished in 1936, leaving some teachers confused, but with scope for livelier, more varied work. In the August holidays of 1937 educationalists of world standing, on their way to a New Education Fellowship Conference in Australia, lectured in Wellington to crowds of teachers and students, bringing first-hand news of developments and methods. Forthwith, at various centres, branches of the Fellowship were formed to see how far these inspiring ideas could be wrought into New Zealand's system. [1] Dr C. E. Beeby, leading local apostle of the new spirit, became Assistant Director of Education in September 1938 and was to become Director in January 1940. More children were continuing into secondary education, which was no longer to be the privilege of the well-to-do or the academically able, but to be claimed by all who wanted it, from country areas as well as towns. In consequence it was not enough, as Fraser said, to provide more teaching of the academic type, designed for the gifted few: ‘Schools that are to cater for the whole population must offer courses that are as rich and varied as the needs and abilities of the children who enter them.’ [2] Bold minds were beginning to question the relevance of ‘Matriculation’, the university entrance examination, which parents and employers had adopted as a universal measuring rod. As the country moved away from the Depression and money became more plentiful it was widely accepted that an increasing proportion of it should be spent on education. Advancing technology was freeing hands, beginning at such basic levels as the milking shed, which at once left more energy for education and created more need for it.

New and better buildings and more equipment were crucial to the aims. School building had stood still during the Depression, so that mere leeway was formidable, while education other than lecturing and written work with large passive classes vastly increased the need for new buildings or large renovations, to bring in light and colour, smaller classes, space for libraries, equipment and practical work. By 1939 new schools, both large and small, were appearing, shaped by the new feeling, while old ones were being re-modelled nearer to current standards.

In 1936, of about 2500 State primary schools, more than half had only one teacher, [3] and while about 20 per cent of all boys leaving primary school had not passed Form II, of those leaving to take up farming, New Zealand's greatest single industry, roughly one-third had not passed Form II, one-third passed it and left and one-third went on to a year or more of post-primary schooling. [4] To lessen the educational disadvantages of country children, small, isolated schools were being consolidated on larger centres, children coming in trains or motor transport to share better equipment, more varied and specialised teaching and more stimulating company. By 1939 some 280 small primary schools had been closed and consolidated; [5] a system of boarding allowances, 7 s 6 d a week in 1937, rising to 10 s in 1943, encouraged those in the most remote places to board near a main school.

The war, with its shortages of petrol and of tyres, checked the consolidation though, save for some careful minor pruning in the worst years, 1942–3, school transport was not curtailed. Building was greatly slowed, though it did not wholly stop, either in new schools or renovations. But whereas capital expenditure on school buildings had risen from £62,183 in 1934–5 to £544,759 in 1937–8 and £851,726 in 1939–40, it dropped steeply to £207,390 in 1942–3, rose again to £477,393 in 1944–5 and bounced to more than a million in the year ending March 1946. [6]

Not only was building delayed; some children lost schools that they already occupied which were taken over by the Army or by hospital boards. When home defence forces were suddenly mobilised in December 1941, much faster than camps could be built for them, a number of schools were used: they had ready-made, dry parade grounds, toilet facilities, lecture rooms and dormitory space if needed, though many Territorials could sleep at their homes. Some were cleared by the time schools opened in February, or soon after, but some were occupied for up to three months longer. Thus at Dunedin during February and March the children of St Clair, Tainui and Musselburgh were squeezed into other schools for half-day shifts, [7] and at Christchurch those of Sumner and Redcliffs were transported to Woolston for the afternoons. [8]

The most intensive invasion of schools was at Palmerston North where all but two of the primary schools were occupied until 6 March. The Education Department made a virtue of necessity with a ‘bold and imaginative’ experiment, concentrating on non-written work and promoting knowledge of the children's own community. The most junior classes were gathered into the two remaining schools and several halls; the rest, about 1700 children, were organised into groups, each with its own base, often in a home, with an empty shop as central headquarters, and various places as centres for activities such as music, handwork, art, nature study, physical education, library work, reading and films. There were visits to factories, railway yards, etc; swimming and ergot gathering; in the name of community training a ‘jobs bureau’ filled a good deal of time with tasks such as odd jobs for soldiers' wives, weeding public gardens, shelling peas or cleaning silver at the hospital, and distributing anti-incendiary sand to householders. It was all described in the Education Gazette and filmed by the National Film Unit. [9] Training in responsibility and citizenship was claimed, though balanced education was not. There was general thankfulness that the children had been kept busy, though parents and the local paper also mentioned lack of real education and too much running about. [10]

Most schools were cleared of the Army between March and May 1942, [11] but those occupied by hospital boards as auxiliary military hospitals were held for much longer. They were usually commandeered in a crisis, such as an outbreak of influenza, but what hospital boards had thus taken they tended to keep. They were reluctant to build for what they deemed temporary needs, while the Army argued that further epidemics could occur at any time. Meanwhile, parents and educationists protested that an emergency did not last two years, and that children being scattered into classrooms here and there in other schools and into makeshift quarters in halls, for months and years, was undue sacrifice, especially when for long stretches the school might house a mere handful of sick soldiers or none at all.

New buildings were preferred as hospitals. Thus Hamilton West school was taken over in 1940 soon after it was opened, the children going back to their 70-year-old building where demolition had already started. For two months after Christmas that year the new school held no sick soldiers and in response to public complaint was handed back in March 1941. [12] In August it was commandeered again and remained so in spite of protest, till a deputation waylaid the Prime Minister at Frankton Junction in February 1943. He promised interest, and the school was finally restored in May 1943, after a new hospital had been completed. [13]

Other new schools were lost to their pupils for about a year. Palmerston North Intermediate, taken in December 1941, was vacated in March 1943. [14] Marlborough High School was a military hospital throughout 1942, its pupils widely distributed, at one stage to 13 places. [15] Until February 1943, when a large new block was completed at Auckland's Green Lane Hospital, Onehunga Intermediate School was converted to hospital use, largely by 66 crippled children, their own Wilson Home at Takapuna being a military hospital from February until the end of November 1942. [16] Nor were mature buildings immune: at Whangarei 16 classrooms and two laboratories were occupied from the start of 1942 till the end of 1943. [17]

Maori secondary schools also came within range. The Auckland Star on 25 March 1942 commented that while the Maori had no greater right than others to educational facilities, their need was greater, and that St Stephens at Bombay, south of Auckland, in training Maori boys for leadership was already doing work of national importance. But St Stephens, taken over in February 1942, was not handed back till the start of 1945. [18] Its boys were fitted into Te Aute and Wesley (Paerata) colleges and some State schools. [19] In August 1942 Wesley, where a third of the students were Maori, was in turn taken over, not to be released till the start of 1944, some of its students going to Te Aute, the remainder to State schools. [20]

Auckland Teachers' Training College at Epsom suffered a long occupation. For three weeks in June 1940, during an influenza emergency at Papakura camp, its students moved into the newly completed Mt Albert School; in the third term of 1941 in another epidemic, they were awkward guests at the University. [21] In February 1942 the Hospital Board announced that the College would be retained indefinitely, the chairman, A. J. Moody, adding that the male students should be ‘popped into the Army tomorrow at 7s a day like the rest of the young men of military age. As for the female students, we need more VADs, or else they might be employed as pupil teachers.’ [22] The students, on £70 a year, replied that all those eligible for service were in camp or waiting to go, and that 7 s a day would be princely. [23] They squeezed into the Normal School at Epsom, where rooms built for 35 children sometimes held 150 students, [24] while the children with their teachers were dispersed to other schools. [25] From mid-1942 the Training College building was not used as a hospital; instead it housed the Army's Northern District headquarters, plus several other Services' branches, which did not begin moving out till April 1944. [26]

For the first years of the war, lowered rolls to some extent balanced reduction in building programmes and in staff: the birthrate fall in the Depression lessened the intake and towards the end of the war this trough was moving through upper primary classes. There were 58 757 children in infant departments during 1938; this number dropped to 53 808 in 1941; rose by 570 in 1942, reached 57 777 in 1944, 61 213 in 1945 and 66 698 in 1946. [27] In 1937 there were 207 879 children in public primary schools, 205 266 in 1939; from 1940–3 the population of these schools was steady at a little more than 204 000; it rose to 206 112 in 1944, to 209 786 in 1945, 218 490 in 1946 and 227 003 in 1947. In 1937 there were 27 931 pupils at registered private primary schools, 28 280 in 1939; rolls remained close to that figure until 1942, rose to 29 328 in 1943 and to 29 717, 30 401, 31 506 and 32 604 during the next four years. Maori village schools had 9642 pupils in 1937, 10 403 in 1939; their numbers rose to 11 009 in 1942 and to 11 274, 11 793, 12 190, 12 654 and 13 170 during 1943–7. [28]

Training Colleges had been closed during 1932–5, but since then entrant numbers had been increased, aiming for smaller classes and a higher school leaving age. On 3 February 1940 the Otago Daily Times remarked that though there was a ‘considerable surplus’ of teachers, they had been placed in supernumerary and relieving positions; it had been hoped that the staffs of larger schools would be increased so that no teacher would face more than 40 children, but there had been no announcement on these lines; the government presumably was waiting to see how many teachers enlisted. On 6 May 1940 the Educational Institute pointed out that there had been little improvement in the size of classes since 1935. Then there had been nine classes of more than 60 children, now there were six; then there were 349 classes of 50 to 60, now there were 343; then there were 1007 classes of 40 to 50 children, now 1150. [29]

Till mid-1942 education boards released almost all teachers who enlisted or were called up. This was broadly acceptable to the community, where teaching was rated by many as a ‘soft’ job. The teacher enlistment rate of 1914–18 had been high, [30] and in the 1940–1 flurry about disloyalty among teachers [31] it was reassuring to point to large numbers in the forces. Meanwhile women teachers were told that they would best serve their country by remaining in their professions, resisting impulses toward more obvious war work. [32] Married women who had retired were urged to return [33] and all teachers due to retire were asked to stay on; by February 1942 even superannuitants needed Cabinet permission to withdraw. [34]

During 1941 the shortage began to show, notably among teachers of science and mathematics in secondary schools. By the end of that year the prospect of women teachers in even boys' secondary schools was contemplated, without much enthusiasm, [35] and during 1942 there were 27 in such schools, the maximum for the war. [36] There was also special difficulty in small, rugged schools, such as those in saw-milling districts, where rough conditions were considered unsuitable for women. In the post-Japanese entry call-up, education boards maintained that defence of the country came first, but by about May it was realised that many teachers could not be adequately replaced and that some called into the Services were merely doing routine clerical or guard work in home service camps. [37] Meanwhile, on a generation of children who were growing up deprived of skilled teachers through ‘apparent neglect and indifference’, war conditions were beginning to tell. [38]

In mid-1942 the Nelson Board published figures showing that, of the total male primary teaching staff of 3833, no fewer than 2032 or 53 per cent were in the Services. [39] The Education Department reported that by the end of the year the forces had taken nearly 70 per cent of male primary teachers and 36 per cent of male post-primary teachers. [40] The Taranaki Board in June 1942, with 90 of its 152 male teachers in the Services and six schools closed, [41] decided henceforth to appeal for each teacher called up. [42] The Auckland Board followed suit on 1 July and within a month the Wellington,

Wanganui and Nelson boards took the same stand, while Hawke's Bay would decide each case on its merits. [43] In the next few months other boards also began to appeal for their men: in Canterbury, for instance, 67 calls to service had been adjourned sine die by November. [44] At the end of October all teaching was declared an essential industry, preventing movement to other jobs and giving boards more power to direct teachers where they were most urgently needed.

Apart from actual shortage, the quality of teaching fell. Those about to be called up were restless. In some schools there was a succession of relievers. Young, inexperienced teachers were suddenly dropped into responsibilities for which they were not prepared. Teachers emerging from retirement, their experience rooted in the chalk-and-talk routines of yesterday, found changes in the syllabus, lack of guiding text-books and children used to other methods, and frequently distrusted the innovations. Moreover there was scarcity, sometimes temporary, sometimes lasting, of almost everything—of paper, chalk, pencils, books, handwork, art and sports materials— which demanded economy and improvisation. A child of the time remembered, some 25 years later: ‘Our crayons were ghastly, all scratchy, and they did not colour well. School chalk drove the teachers mad. It was not of pre-war standard, but very gritty’. [45] There was even an acute shortage of school cleaners, long regarded as inferior persons. The Minister, H. G. R. Mason, when this problem was laid before him, bracingly answered that we learnt by doing, that if children kept their schools clean and tidy, without the notion of leaving certain types of work to poorer people, they would bring better attitudes to the care of their cities, and the community would be less troubled by the ridiculous divisions of snobbery. [46]

Was education a social necessity or a luxury to be abandoned in stern times? In the community, some regarded education as expendable or rather ‘postponeable’; others felt that it would be nonsense, while fighting for the children's future, to neglect them meanwhile. Many mothers, always those most involved with the upbringing of children, felt that this field should be their main concern in the war effort. Leaders in the Education Department believed deeply that education, especially the new education, was so much part of the moral and political principles for which the war was being fought that it must be maintained amid rival demands. [47] Large sacrifices, of buildings, teachers, equipment, were accepted as inevitable, but in many minor ways the Department tried to compensate, to push on in the direction of enlightenment.

A notable instance of this was the School Library Service. In 1941 the grant for school libraries was raised from £5,000 to £15,000, with which well chosen books were assembled and circulated by the

Country Library Service, concentrating first on country schools. For the first two years a small charge was made to each school, but thereafter the service was free. At the end of 1942 it was supplying 22 462 children in 402 schools; by 1945, despite the difficulty of getting books from overseas, it had 124 782 books serving 63 923 children in 1042 schools. [48]

Another area of advance was in physical education, hitherto a cinderella subject, dependent on the enthusiasm of individual teachers. In August 1939 an English expert, P. A. Smithells, [49] was appointed superintendent of physical education, a new position, and brought in a system based on that adopted in England in 1933. He toured the country lecturing, showing films and holding short courses, explaining to teachers a system built on running, jumping, catching and throwing balls. This was designed to foster general sporting activity, and was broader and more varied than the previous staple, ‘drill’, jerky movements performed in unison by squads of children. Specialists were trained, both men and women, and, though most of the men were rapidly taken into the forces, their skills proved useful there in remedial and other training. The rest, from centres scattered over the country, zealously worked out into far-flung schools, arranging their own transport by milk and timber lorries, Automobile Association men, school nurses, commercial travellers, road services, slow local trains, even railway jiggers, let alone boats, bicycles and horses. Though often short of such basic equipment as balls and rubber-soled shoes, they spread their gospel of movement and even within the war years built up physical education from scratch to a section with a staff of more than 50, with national recognition and, in 1944, a large, well-illustrated syllabus. [50]

Various teaching aids, now wholly taken for granted, were developed in those years. A library of film strips was built up, largely of British documentaries and the National Film Unit's portrayal of New Zealand industries and other endeavours. Broadcasts to schools were extended to three-and-a-half hours a week, bringing the voices of experts in music, speech training, social studies, into even remote schools, to relieve and stimulate both teachers and pupils. Some materials for arts and crafts, such as crayons and raffia, were no longer imported, but substitute activities were found with modelling clay and the spinning and weaving of wool. Spindles of varying simplicity were described and illustrated in the Education Gazette. [51] Spinning wheels, costing £2 10 s. each, and looms could be obtained from the Department, which also contrived local production of manipulative toys and number material for the infant rooms. [52] The Education Gazette, compulsory reading for every teacher, carried into every staffroom official information on all these improvisations and innovations. Biennial grading, designed to make the work of inspectors more flexible, with more opportunity for advice rather than judgment, was introduced in 1941. The school milk scheme, begun in 1937 to give a half pint of milk daily to each child who wanted it, was widened, despite a few suggestions that by cutting it out petrol would be saved and more butter and cheese sent to Britain. As the export of apples was checked by lack of refrigerated shipping, surplus apples were bought by the government from 1941 to 1945 for free distribution to schools during March and April.

Nor were kindergartens forgotten. Though outside the State system they were esteemed by the educational élite and catered for children between the ages of three and five years, when most started school. At the war's outbreak they were modestly established on voluntary contributions plus government grants: £1 for £1 building subsidies and capitation allowances. At the end of 1940 there were 39 kindergartens and 1810 pupils. [53] Teaching here was a rarified vocation: two years unpaid training and very low pay thereafter. By 1941, with only 31 trainees, prospects were desperate, and with more mothers going to work kindergartens were more needed than ever. Government bursaries for trainees, beginning in 1942 at £50 rose to £70 in June 1944, both plus boarding allowance of £25; grants for improved salaries were made from 1943. [54] By the end of that year there were 2 182 pupils in 46 free kindergartens, and 80 trainees; by the end of 1944 there were 2483 children in 53 kindergartens with 72 teachers in training. [55]

The voluntary organisation of pre-school play centres, which began in 1941, was also part of the new education movement that seeped in from overseas, beginning with a few crusading women who found others ready to perceive its advantages. The purpose was to help children from 18 months to five years develop happily through individual and community play under trained supervisors, plus mother helpers, with larger toys than many parents could afford, and company that neighbours and friends might not provide. Mothers would have a refreshing break once or twice a week and the fellowship of shared experience. War conditions, with husbands away or overworked and petrol restrictions curbing family movements and pleasures, heightened needs all round. Play centres, usually held in church halls, came from the co-operative efforts of mothers, who organised on committees, paid small fees (2 s 6 d a month, plus 3 d per child per day, was usual) and helped to provide toys and equipment. In rotation mothers helped the supervisors, improving their own knowledge of child management. Equipment and standards were very like those of the Free Kindergartens, which generally were very helpful, and several supervisors were kindergarten trained. Small loans from the New Education Fellowship bought equipment.

Play centres first appeared in Wellington, [56] among a group of enthusiasts that included the wife of the Director of Education and wives of training college and university teachers. Two such, Mrs Joan (F. L. W.) Wood and Mrs Olga (P. A.) Smithells, organised the first centre, opened in a Karori church hall by Mrs Janet Fraser on 24 April 1941, and within two months another group was working in Kelburn. These women were good publicists: through leaflets, a few broadcasts, and personal visits, they convinced others of the benefits of combined effort, in a society that generally believed that it was the duty of a mother who did not happen to live near a kindergarten to bring up her pre-school children unaided. A central organising body was formed in Wellington, and during 1941–2 centres appeared in several suburbs and in other towns, notably

Christchurch and Palmerston North where the pattern was repeated. [57]

In Christchurch, within a few months of Wellington's start, five women fired by Olga Smithells founded an impressive central committee, by no means limited to women, with the declared purpose of meeting the war-accentuated needs of mothers and children. By the end of 1942, they had four centres in action. [58] Plunket-organised crèches co-operated with two of these play centres, taking care of babies nearby on the same afternoon, so that mothers could have an afternoon clear of all their young. [59]

By 1944 Wellington and Christchurch each had 10 centres, Palmerston North had five and there were isolated groups in such places as Hanmer, Runanga and Raetihi. Auckland's first centre, which opened at Remuera shortly before Christmas 1944, found that despite initial enthusiasm only modest use was made of it; at about the same time, a group began in Dunedin. [60] For various local reasons, individual playcentres were sometimes short-lived, but the movement itself continues strongly to the present day.

Accrediting for university entrance was a major innovation during the war years. ‘Matric’, normally taken at the end of a narrow academic three-year course, had long been accepted as the necessary stamp of educational attainment; consequently many with no inclination towards university toiled with pre-university French and science and mathematics, to their own frustration and their examiners' dismay. For them, the Education Department in 1934 had instituted the School Certificate examination on a much wider range of subjects as the hallmark of satisfactory secondary education, but it failed to capture public imagination and, although its standard was no lower, it remained a poor relation of the matriculation examination. [61] It was thought that the impasse could be resolved by the shools accrediting those fitted for university, leaving School Certificate as the dominant visible target. Debate had been going on for years between schools and the university, and in 1942 agreement was reached. Joyfully, in 1943 the Education Department announced release from the fetters of ‘Matric’; broad-based School Certificate would come into its own, while those intending to go to university, after a further year's study, would be accredited with, or if not sit, the University Entrance examination, at a higher standard than before. Secondary schools would henceforth fully realise their double purpose of preparing a few students for university and the majority for immediate life and work in the community. [62] The new system would become fully operative in 1945. [63]

School Certificate certainly came into its own, but its enthusiasts could not have guessed how persistently parents and employers even 40 years later would still cling to University Entrance, accredited or otherwise, as the desirable seal of secondary education.

Raising the school leaving age was a long-standing Labour target which the war might well have postponed. Legally, with certain exceptions mainly covered by the Correspondence School, [64] children had to remain at school until 14 years old. But a child who had reached 13 years could leave school by obtaining a primary school certificate that he or she had passed Standard VI (Form II). [65] The Education Amendment Act of 1920 had raised the age for compulsory attendance to 15 years but operation of this clause was deferred; it could be made effective by an Order-in-Council. During 1942 the Minister of Education had occasion to state that, while the government hoped to raise the school leaving age when the war was over and thereby prevent the employment of children under 15, this would not be possible in the current shortage of buildings, staff and equipment. [66] But various public pressures, plus the government's own inclination, worked against postponement.

One pressure was the increasing public uneasiness about employment of young teenagers in factories. There were no records of the numbers and ages of those who, without legal impediment, started regular work on farms, [67] in shops and offices, or domestic duties. But by the Factory Act 1922, a boy or girl under 16 could not be employed except with a certificate of fitness from a factory inspector; only in special cases, authorised in writing by the inspector, could those under 14 be employed, and then not on, or close to, machinery. [68]

In 1934–5, 791 boys and 2011 girls under 16 were certificated for factory work. As the Depression receded their employment, along with others', increased, to 4462 (1890,2572) in 1936–7; dropped by about 300 through the next two years and rose again to 4546 (2139,2407) in 1939–40. The following year there were 4199 (boys 2119, girls 2080), of whom 440 (187 boys, 253 girls) were under 14 years, and in 1941–2 there were 4298 (boys 2153, girls 2145) of whom 480 were under 14. [69] During 1942–3 the certificates issued dropped by a thousand to 3263 (boys 1706, girls 1557), [70] possibly on account of growing comment.

For some time a number of schools, particularly technical schools, had reported that pupils were leaving early for industry. [71] Many employers preferred younger lads to those approaching military service age, [72] while the clothing trades preferred girls to start at 15 to 17 years, the age when they would learn most quickly. [73] Reports circulated of teen-aged workers getting £4, £5, or even more, per week. These wages often proved to be exceptional or for older workers, but overtime and piecework, plus employers' keenness to get and keep labour, undoubtedly increased youthful pay packets. [74] These were further improved by not being taxed: National and Social Security taxes, at the rate of 2 s, rising to 2 s 6 d in May 1942, out of every £1 earned, were not charged on the wages of those under 16 years.

Belief that the young were unduly affluent was widely linked with generalised complaints about juvenile delinquency. Vocational guidance officers and other concerned people deprecated early entry into dead-end or short-term jobs: ‘any mass use of young people for stop-gap or abnormal activities will but provide a problem in later years.’ [75] They also feared that boys and girls too immature to make progress at work might become job drifters. [76] A senior magistrate, J. H. Luxford, said that some girls who left school early became social problems, again through immaturity; their numbers, though not large, were ‘great enough to be alarming’. [77]

The Press, towards the end of 1941 and under the heading ‘Child Labour’, stated that there were now 6000 fewer children in primary and intermediate schools than in 1936, gave the numbers of those under 16 certificated for work in factories between 1934 and March 1941, [78] and stressed that a substantial proportion of these underage workers were also under 14 years. [79] More attention was given to the topic a year later when Dr A. E. C. Hare, in his first survey of labour problems, published in December 1942, stated that during the previous five years, 21 000 persons under 16, of whom a ‘not inconsiderable number’ were under 14, had entered factories. In some of these, wartime extensions of overtime made it possible to work a boy or girl of 14 or 15 years 52 hours a week, for weeks on end, which could lead to long-term health damage; he urged systematic medical examinations of such young people. [80]

In the Auckland Star of 15 December 1942 a full column article deplored the employment of children in blind alley jobs as wholly unsatisfactory. [81] A week later the Star, quoting Hare, held that the employment of children was bad from almost every point of view. At an age when they should be at school they were trying to fit into industrial conditions shaped for adults; the Labour Department's assurances of ‘careful inquiry’ into health aspects was unconvincing without medical inspection; getting too much money too soon, especially with military service looming at 18, was making young men reckless, bringing some of them into the courts, and would make discontented misfits of them when war pressure eased. Sometimes the war was an excuse for tolerating conditions that could be avoided, and while perhaps the employment of children could not be prohibited, should they not spend part of the day or week at a technical or trade school? [82] A correspondent, while generally deploring that children were being roped in to win the war, added that real child slavery existed in country districts, in farmers' own families. [83] The

Press also quoted fully from Hare, and pointed out that the Factory Act intended factory work for children under 16 to be exceptional, but for some years, even before the war, the Labour Department had been issuing under-age certificates as a matter of course, without probing individual cases. Its last report claimed ‘careful inquiry’ to ascertain that the health of workers was not impaired by overtime, but ‘it is not indicated how the inquiry was carried out.’ Moreover there seemed to be a conspiracy to ignore child labour; in the last five years no Minister, member of Parliament, trade union man or industrialist had spoken against it. The war was not an excuse for this silence, and even if the war made child labour inevitable, it was still possible to do much more to safeguard the health of factory children and to encourage them to continue their education. A nation that pushed a social problem of this magnitude out of sight, while claiming to lead the world in social services, was open to a charge of hypocrisy. [84]

Two weeks later the Press printed an article, not an editorial, which suggested soothingly that all young persons obtained jobs through the advice of the Youth Centre, a branch of the Labour Department. ‘Many wish to go into industry and are best suited for such work’; girls mostly went into light occupations such as sewing or leatherwork, and ‘among the girls there are always those who prefer routine factory work, but wherever possible they … receive training in some particular branch of a trade.’ [85] But it was the Press editorial of 23 December which in March 1943 stirred the governors of Christchurch Technical College, who had already asked the Minister about raising the school leaving age. [86] ‘War or no war, this is a matter that should be hammered away at,’ declared the chairman, and another member said that the country was getting back to child slavery. They consulted Vocational Guidance officers, who had long advocated that no child, irrespective of attainment, should leave school before reaching 14 years. One officer said that in Christchurch since the end of the school year in December at least 43 girls of 13 had left school, 28 going to work, mostly in factories and workrooms, and 15 staying at home, while 50 aged 14 years had gone to work and 18 were at home. Another reported that boys of 13 were going to work, and that of 819 primary schoolboys interviewed 113 intended going to work, 66 were uncertain and the rest were returning to school. [87]

In the House on 8 March 1943 Mrs A. N. Grigg referred to Hare's report and to the figures on the Christchurch girls; she added that it was the bright child, able to benefit from fuller education, who could gain a school leaving certificate early. [88] The Prime Minister remarked immediately that he would take Hare's report with caution, he knew some of these authorities and experts too well. A few days later he added that while the numbers concerned were decreasing, it was not desirable that children under 14 should work in factories. He agreed that it was the clever ones who could leave school earlier. He regretted that the leaving age had not been raised, owing to shortages of buildings and teachers, but hoped that it would happen soon. [89] On 20 March the Minister of Education went a little further: shortages had so far precluded change, but to wait for surpluses might be to wait for ever and the Department was considering means of introducing the change gradually. [90] Amid the educationists' stir, one parent publicly explained the advantage of early job-getting. Advising boys to learn a trade or go to secondary school might, he wrote, be theoretically right yet practically wrong. Many families with one breadwinner were too pinched to finance further schooling, and factories had all the apprentices they could take. ‘As a messenger a boy can earn 30s a week to begin with, and acquires an inkling of business, learns business terms and business manners, and after a while has a clearer idea of the sort of trade he would prefer than he ever would at school. All this is frowned upon, to the disadvantage of needy lads.’ [91]

Public opinion, encouraged by like proposals in Britain, was moving strongly towards the raising of the school leaving age, [92] though, according to one witness, some people were ‘using the child as a political weapon to condemn the Government.’ [93] The Woman's Weekly of 1 April declared that the shameful facts disclosed by Hare and Mrs Grigg should have moved public and political opinion to indignant action. The quarterly report of Vocational Guidance officers in Christchurch spoke firmly for raising the leaving age; there were few apprenticeships, as these were in proportion to the journeymen employed; too many boys, some only 13, were going to work direct from primary school, encouraged by the reluctance of employers to take on lads close to military age: their blind alley jobs would fail them when servicemen returned. [94] The governors of Christchurch Technical College, still hammering, adopted resolutions strongly condemning child labour and demanding longer education. [95] Their views were supported by the Press on 5 April and echoed by a school committee in Oamaru. [96] Several branches of the Educational Institute, including those of Auckland and Hastings, added their voices, [97] as did the Business and Professional women of Wellington, [98] while the Canterbury Manufacturers wanted the raised leaving age to be linked with vocational guidance and specialised trade training. [99]

Perhaps the last straw was the casual disclosure early in May, in

Wellington's Supreme Court, that a 16-year-old girl had already been working for three years in a soft goods factory, having simply ‘got a job there’. The Crown Prosecutor was ‘rather horrified’, inquiry was suggested, [100] and the Dominion held that this, coupled with the recent warnings of a Canterbury educationist that New Zealand was in danger of getting back to child slavery, would cause sharp misgiving. The public would want assurance that special watch was kept on child employment in the labour shortage, but singling out factory work was an anachronism: the problem was wider and pointed towards raising the school leaving age. [101]

On 11 May 1943 the Minister of Education told the Educational Institute that in the coming session of Parliament a one-year increase would be made, and on 22 June he told Parliament that the school leaving age would be 15 from the beginning of 1944. Fears of juvenile delinquency, he said, had not so far been realised, but all the conditions for it existed; an increasing number of young adolescents were missing the discipline of normal home life and it was essential for the school to keep its grip on them during these critical years. The change should be made now while the need was greatest and, though makeshift accommodation might be necessary for a few years, simple, prefabricated, portable rooms could be contrived to meet needs as they appeared. Not least of the problems would be the devising of courses suitable to non-academic 14-year-olds. [102]

Early in August a bill was introduced with two main purposes: the school leaving age would rise to 15; education boards, with ministerial approval, could set up kindergartens as there was now more kindergarten work than the pioneering Free Kindergarten Association could handle alone. The bill was well received. Doidge said that the Opposition welcomed it, but with two or three other speakers he deplored that it did not provide for religious training, as did Britain's current bill. ‘They are determined at Home that God shall not be shut out of schools,’ he said, and quoted Churchill saying that religion was the rock in the life and character of the British people on which they had built their hopes and cast their cares, a fundamental element that must never be taken from the schools. [103]

Fraser managed, with affable agility, to sidestep claims that government should recognise the growing feeling that religion should have a definite place in the school syllabus. The rebel ex-Labour member for Napier, W. E. Barnard, gave notice that when the bill was in committee he would move an important amendment relating to secular education. Fraser thanked him fulsomely for this information. There would not be time in the closing stages of the session for this important question to be properly considered, and therefore the bill would be dropped. Its main purpose, raising the school leaving age, could be achieved by Order-in-Council, and the religious issue could be discussed along with others at an educational conference proposed for 1944. [104] The kindergarten provisions were silently sacrificed.

Agitation for religion continued, drawing a good deal of strength from the Churchill utterance. In October 1943, the Wanganui Education Board believed that it should give the authorities a lead by urging legislation for the teaching of Christian principles as part of the school syllabus. [105] It was backed by the Dominion of 27 October and by several education boards, including those of Auckland, Wellington and Otago, [106] and in July 1944 the Dominion Federation of School Committees wanted the secular clause deleted and religion written in. [107] The Educational Institute, on the other hand, issued a pamphlet that saw the teaching of Protestant religion in State schools as an entering wedge that, followed by Roman Catholic and other pressures, might split the education system from top to bottom. [108] The promised education conference in October 1944, after long and close debate, decided that there was insufficient representative authority and unity for it to make any recommendations. [109]

After 1 February 1944, by Order-in-Council, all children up to 15 years had to attend school and it was an offence to employ them in school hours. Certificates issued to factory workers of 15 and 16 years numbered 1549 (881 boys, 668 girls) in 1944–5 and 1822 (919 boys, 903 girls) in 1945–6. [110] Tabled figures show that secondary school rolls had already risen in 1943 by 3055 and that the increase more than doubled in 1944. [111]

| Secondary schools | District High schools | Technical schools | Registered Private schools | Total
1939 | 18 176 | 5401 | 8 481 | 5137 | 37 195
1940 | 17 710 | 5253 | 8 009 | 5207 | 36 179
1941 | 16 986 | 5033 | 7 371 | 5325 | 34 715
1942 | 16 805 | 4852 | 7 923 | 5357 | 34 937
1943 | 18 324 | 5197 | 8 436 | 6035 | 37 992
1944 | 20 829 | 6187 | 10 233 | 6927 | 44 176
1945 | 21 566 | 6872 | 10 865 | 7831 | 47 134
1946 | 21 936 | 6656 | 11 712 | 8419 | 48 723

Mason claimed in 1945 that the change had been achieved with less difficulty than he had anticipated, although it had been accentuated by more children staying at secondary schools beyond the raised leaving age; pressure was most serious in Auckland, due to the population drift to war industries. [112] There as elsewhere increased numbers had been met by prefabricated classrooms and the planned

education under difficulties

distribution of children to schools where classrooms were available. [113] However there were reports of Auckland's grammar schools, besieged by over-many applicants, applying Otis intelligence tests to select the most promising, which the Minister declared was not a proper use for such tests. [114] Primary schools, too, were over-crowded: children were shuffled to classrooms here and there, taught in corridors and basements and, at Epsom Normal School, not yet vacated by Training College students, in a marquee. Cartoonist Minhinnick showed Fraser in a mortar board and gown, facing little girls: ‘and next, children, we come to the future imperfect tense— I shall be having a school’. [115] This was not a shortage new to Auckland in 1944: in some primary schools, such as Dominion Road and Orakei, classes had resorted to shelter sheds as early as 1942. [116]

Although 45 prefabricated movable classrooms, 27 ft by 24½ ft, which could take 50 pupils, were ordered for Auckland and 35 for

Wellington, [117] these were not immediately available; at Wellington Girls' College they were not in running order till 1945. [118] At Auckland where three new intermediate schools were planned one of these and a new technical school, both at Avondale, were to be buildings erected as a United States naval hospital, with future use as schools in mind. These were not available until 1945. [119] Other problems were shortages of text books [120] and of teachers. School boards now pressed vigorously for their teachers to be returned from the home forces, some talking of scandalous waste. [121]

Accommodation difficulties were not limited to Auckland and

Wellington: for instance, Cambridge school was reported to be hopelessly over-crowded, and at Te Awamutu children were taught in a corridor and a small disused cloakroom. [122] Dilapidation in such old schools as Thorndon in Wellington went unchecked. [123] It was clearly impossible during or just after the war to bridge the gap between existing buildings and growing school rolls plus the more spacious demands of changing education methods. A Waikato spokesman for the Educational Institute pointed out that the classroom space per pupil was often less than that allowed by the Agriculture Department for three hens. [124] Reports of over-large classes continued through 1944, there was renewed perturbation in 1945 and although, as mentioned earlier, [125] building programmes expanded greatly in 1945–6 and thereafter, buildings continued to drag after needs.

On the attitude of schools to the war itself, the Education Department repeatedly gave high-minded advice: these children would have to shape the world after the war and should not bring to this task minds warped with hatred, pride and intolerance. In October 1939 the then Director, N. T. Lambourne, [126] stated that mobilising public opinion through propaganda was part of modern war. Children could not be protected from all knowledge of the war but their minds should not be twisted, as were those of German children with lies, hatred and intolerance. The teacher should act as a buffer, passing on at each stage, from the infant room to the Sixth Form, what burden of knowledge he or she judged that the children could and should bear. In the primary school it was better to say too little than too much, but explanations would be needed to steady the children against half-understood statements by adults, newspapers, radio. At no stage should the teacher generate hatred of the German people, yet children should believe that freedom was worth fighting for, that democracy offered hope for a decent life, and believe that

Britain had strength both to win the war and to make a peace without bitterness or injustice. [127]

Six months later the new Director, Beeby, also said that the teacher could not ignore the war, but should act as a buffer between his pupils and the beastliness of war, to produce a generation without mental scars, though willing to fight if need be. Children should not be used for war purposes as in Axis countries, but true democratic values should be brought forward: the passionate love of freedom, love of reasonableness and tolerance of opposition were of fundamental importance. [128] As mentioned earlier there were, notably in the bad days of 1940, members of the public, some on school committees and boards of governors, who wanted direct, robust patriotism, with raised flags, in schools. [129] This was linked with uneasiness about disloyalty and lukewarmness in teachers, with charges of being anti-British, which by inference meant pro-Russian, not pro-German. The Minister of Education, H. R. G. Mason, as this excitement was rising, said that teachers must speak of the war in terms that could be understood by children, and that children should be prepared for adult democracy by training towards critical habits of thought. They should learn to see through false arguments and mass propaganda, to respect honest differences of opinion. The schools should never be places of propaganda, but it was not propaganda to teach that the Empire was based on democratic values, or to teach faith in race and country. He doubted, however, if frequent flag saluting would generate such feelings; rather it might become a meaningless habit. [130]

More than a year later, in mid-November 1941, regulations prescribed a fairly pedestrian flag-saluting ceremony for use on seven anniversaries: Waitangi Day, Anzac Day, Empire Day, King's Birth day, Dominion Day, Trafalgar Day and Armistice Day, plus any occasions decreed by the Minister or by the local school committee (mainly to pay tribute to the war death of an old boy). It was, explained the Education Gazette, difficult to teach love of country, which was a personal emotional development, but children could learn to be proud of New Zealand and the British Empire; and gratitude to those who had served the country in peace and in war might promote desire to serve likewise. The value of the ceremony was largely that the children would there unite in feeling themselves part of a great community, with all schools doing likewise.

The assembled staff and pupils would sing ‘God Defend New Zealand’ or other suitable song, a teacher or pupil would recite from memory, ‘We give thanks for the privileges we enjoy as New Zealanders and members of the British Commonwealth of Nations; we honour the memories of all who have served our country (especially Joe Blank.…) We will honour our King, obey the laws of his Government, and serve our country and our fellow men.’ The flag should then be broken at the masthead, preferably by a pupil; if the school had a bugler he could pay the General Salute or, if a death was being marked, the Last Post; or there should be a 15- second drum roll. A teacher, a pupil, or the whole assembly should then recite ‘The flag stands for our country and our people, and for our love of truth, justice, freedom and democracy, in which we are united through the person of our King, with all other members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’, followed by a 15-second silence, and the first verse of the National Anthem. At the end the only speeches should be those appropriate to the occasion. [131]

Despite the abolition of flogging for adults, [132] proposals for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools had little effective support. The Wellington Education Board held in December 1942 that ‘discipline’ was more necessary than ever. [133] The rector of Waitaki High School spoke of the ‘current deluge of sloppy sentimentality’ and asked whether he should turn out jellyfish and molluscs or hemen with backbone and spirit enough to face the stern realities of life, [134] A writer to the Press advocated continued or increased use of the cane: ‘One might even go so far as to say that it is the frequent use of the cane in youth that has made our men the great fighters that they are.’ [135]

Both teachers and pupils had from the early months been involved in various patriotic activities, largely through the Red Cross, which promoted both training in first-aid and knitting and sewing for soldiers and refugees. For instance, from 1940 to mid-1942 Auckland primary schools gave 30 550 garments to the Red Cross, as well as knitting hundreds more from wool supplied by local patriotic associations; [136] for the EPS, the boys of Christchurch's Shirley High School and Papanui Technical College made 300 medical splints; [137]

some direct requests were made by patriotic boards to girls' schools for items such as soldiers' hussifs and milk jug covers. [138] Camouflage net making gained help from school children.

School children, particularly Boys Scouts and Girl Guides, were obvious house-to-house gatherers for the many salvage collections, of scrap metal, bottles, paper, rags and rubber, both in special drives and as routine measures. For example, Wellington householders could easily contribute waste paper: they had only to write or to ring the local school and boys would call the following Friday, taking bundles to the school depot. [139]

Many schools raised money for patriotic funds through sales and entertainments, odd-job earnings and savings. Kelburn school, Wellington, in November 1941, gave £10 raised during the year in small entertainments arranged by the children themselves. [140] Okaiawa school, Taranaki, in August 1940 gave £25 from a highly successful bring-and-buy and the sale of bottles and bones collected by the children. [141] The not over-privileged children of Newtown school,

Wellington, in 1942 accepted a suggestion that the money for their annual picnic should go to soldiers' parcels, each of which carried a note from the children; the next year, inspired by warm letters from soldiers, they aimed to send £5 worth of parcels a month. [142] Sometimes, especially if parents and staff weighed in, these efforts were substantial, as when Devonport school, Auckland, having saved £150 in penny banks, topped it off with a gala that raised £250. [143] Sometimes the contributions were long sustained, as when Auckland Technical School pupils in December 1943 handed over £500, the third instalment of £1,800 raised since the start of the war. [144]

As in so many areas, a ‘lead’ could start a snowball, almost an avalanche. In the urgency of June 1940, the Canterbury Education Board's chairman and some headmasters launched an appeal for £2,500 to buy an ambulance, [145] with such success that £3,679 was contributed from about 400 public and private schools, a pleasing feature, it was officially said, being that the money came from the efforts of the children themselves, not from their parents. [146] ‘This was “90 per cent mythical”’, wrote a parent. ‘The competitive spirit has been worked up among the children to a surprising degree, and the parents have been paying the bill.’ [147] At a meeting of Canterbury school committees, one speaker said, ‘As for compulsion, there was a little, on the soft pedal. I had to give my children something because I did not want them to feel outsiders.’ It was also stated that the names of some children who had not contributed had been written on the blackboard. The Canterbury committees resolved that in future such appeals would require the consent of each school committee. [148] However, by September 1942 the Canterbury schools had raised £7,612 altogether for the ambulance and for soldiers' parcels [149] and by October 1943 had collected another £1,800 for the latter. [150]

The growing of vegetables in school gardens was suggested in 1940 by the Director of Primary Production, and favoured by the Department of Agriculture and school agricultural instructors. [151] Schools in the Bay of Plenty were notably active; [152] among them Poroporo school, Whakatane, grew 10 hundredweight of onions, while Paengaroa sent a ton of onions and two and a half tons of carrots to Papakura camp. [153] After the potato famine of mid-1942, [154] when for a few weeks a soldier's allowance was reduced to three ounces a day, Northland schools grew 14 tons for the Army, collecting depots being set up in Kaitaia, Kaikohe and Whangarei. [155] Only durable vegetables could be sent direct to camps, and as the vegetable shortage developed the schools' efforts became more generalised. Thus in the spring of 1942, nine Ashburton county schools grew early vegetables at home and at school, half the proceeds going to the school and half to patriotic funds. [156] In 1943 the children of Tauhei school, Morrinsville, in their spare time grew half a mile of carrots and a quantity of pumpkins. [157] In 1942 schools of the Wellington Education Board, some in home gardens, some cultivating patches of farmland, produced 75½ miles of vegetables, mainly onions, carrots and potatoes, some for home use, the rest for sale at patriotic stalls. [158] This cultivation was increased in 1943. [159]

Many children of the war years would long remember trying to gather ergot, a little, black, banana-shaped fungus about half-an- inch in length that grows on the seed of tall fescue and marram grass, and yields a drug that checks bleeding. In the summer of 1940–1, Britain asked for tons of ergot, and picking it seemed a task well within the range of children. But without sufficient help from elders, many gathered ‘smuts’, another seed disease; the collection of their pickings was not well-organised and the result was a pitiful few pounds from the whole country. [160] Next year the Department of Agriculture pushed the ergot campaign more briskly, with copious descriptions, illustrations and displays in shop windows, and pamphlets issued to scouts, guides, other youth groups and to farming bodies. The Education Department especially urged teachers and children to combine patriotism with pocket-money, at 3 d to 6 d an ounce. [161] It was reported that the government had earmarked £14,000 for ergot-buying, which would pay for about 14 tons. [162]

Results were generally disappointing: since ergot needs warmth and moisture, dry and windswept areas were useless. Many children and others lost interest after a few futile afternoons that half-filled a matchbox. Some Girl Guides collected four ounces valued at 2 s in 72 hours. [163] But in a few schools, zeal and fungoids came together: the children of Pirinoa, Wairarapa, collected more than 21 pounds, and the little school of Tinui 24 ounces; [164] at Feilding, where the crop was good and ergot-gathering was part of the special programme, 73 pounds were collected [165] and about Wanganui 171 pounds. [166]

Ergot gathering was not solely a children's activity; for instance, 50 Red Cross and WWSA women from Rangiora, on a Saturday afternoon, found a large quantity at Saltwater Creek. [167] From all sources, but largely from the province of Auckland, about 1600 pounds were finally assembled. [168] Happily, no ergot was requested in 1943.

In the first summer of the war, the Vocational Guidance officer at Auckland, aiming to improve town and country understanding and to recruit youths to farming, placed nearly 100 picked schoolboys, of 15 years or more, on farms during the holidays. They were paid at least £1 a week, plus keep, and many farmers found them more useful than expected. [169] Next summer the scheme was put forward more widely, through labour placement officers and youth centres in the four main cities. Some 754 boys volunteered, but only 318 were placed, for varying short periods at award wages, although farmers known to be requiring labour had been notified by placement officers that boys were available. [170] In October 1941 these officials again prepared their lists, this time including university students, and amid the post-Japanese entry call-up it was decreed that boys under 15 might work on dairy farms. [171] Award wages were £1 a week and board for boys not yet 17, and 26 s 6 d for those of 17 to 18 years. Demand was keener; by 13 December, 79 boys were on Canterbury farms where only 33 had been taken the previous year, [172] and in all 630 lads were placed. [173]

The following summer, 1942–3, the Auckland Star remarked that while in the past relatively few secondary school pupils had worked on farms or in factories and offices, that year only a few would make holiday. [174] Probably this was true mainly for district high schools. A survey at Whangarei showed that 102 high school boys would be on farms, 16 market gardening, 19 in shops, 31 in assorted jobs, and of 11 who did not intend useful work five had some physical disability. [175] Of Wairarapa High School's 220 boys, 175 were going on to farms and 38 were taking jobs mainly in the meat works. [176] The Waikato took many boys, often on the farms of relatives; [177] many returned to farms where they had already worked. [178]

In some areas there was a last minute rush, with farmers finally deciding to take on boys who meanwhile had turned to other jobs, and in the Auckland province demand was strong enough to draw

158 boys from Wellington. [179] Award wages, plus keep, were now 22 s a week for those of less than 17, 29 s for those of 17 to 18, 36 s for those of 18 to 19 years; it was arranged that boys, if needed, could remain in jobs till the end of February. [180]

Many farmers, while crying out for men to be released from the Army, were not overkeen to accept boys; [181] the Army harvesting scheme would supply stronger labour, strictly for busy periods, without the complication of giving board to boys. McLagan, Minister of Industrial Manpower, suggested that the poor response to the boys indicated that there was sufficient labour on farms, and that farmers who did not avail themselves of senior boys, students and teachers would jeopardise their chances of getting men released from the Army. [182] There were counter-charges that the Minister and the

National Service Department did not understand the nature and problems of farming, and that the schoolboy scheme was poorly publicised and organised. [183] The Press on its farming page observed that the current season's application scheme, conducted by Primary Production Councils, had not been as brisk in canvassing as had Youth Centre officials previously, was cumbersome, and that farmers were chary about inexperienced lads. However, the tabulation of local farmers' comments on the 1941–2 boys showed that the scheme could be thoroughly recommended: 42 per cent were classed as very useful, 51 per cent as sufficiently useful, seven per cent as insufficiently useful; in willingness, 13 per cent were fair, 33 per cent good and 54 per cent excellent. [184] Further, such a scheme promoted mutual understanding and interchange of workers between town and country, [185] necessary to encourage town lads back to the land.

Vegetable-growing greatly increased in the 1942–3 season, with sudden demands for picking and packing. Girl Guides, scouts, school parties and other batches of youngsters were organised to pick peas, beans, and tomatoes, to cut lettuces and pull onions. Some went out daily to the farms for a few days, some for longer, others camped on the job for a week or several weeks. There were disappointed murmurs from those who found that they worked for little money. [186] For instance, some scouts who camped for ten days at Pukekohe after paying £1 for their keep found that they had only about 5 s each to show for seven six-hour days. Growers replied that the boys were paid normal rates but were slow: Maori girls of their age could make £1 a day picking beans at 2 s 6 d a case. [187]

In all, McLagan claimed in February, 5140 boys spent all or most of their holidays on farms, and there would be many more of whom his Department had no record. [188] But presumably many in the tally had harvested vegetables, and there was no clear indication whether the work was six weeks among the cows and potatoes, or a few days making hay, thinning turnips or picking peas.

In the summer of 1943–4, with vegetables being canned, dried and quick-frozen for the Pacific, there were elaborate official plans for secondary school volunteers, boys 15 to 18, girls 16 to 18 years, in relays, to work an extra month if necessary between February and April. Other pupils (and school leavers) were invited to make their own arrangements for working on farms—there were no more efforts to coax reluctant farmers—but here too they would be exempted from school for up to four weeks if the district Manpower officer certified that they were doing work of national importance with parents or others. [189] Headmasters strongly opposed encroachments on school time, some saying that last year's pupils who made a late start had never caught up. [190]

Boys were not very keen on vegetable work, which had proved monotonous and no bonanza, [191] but some, as at Whangarei, helped in pea-picking rushes etc, earning 1 d per pound of peas, [192] and on 16 December 1943 about 70 from Auckland schools entrained for an army-style camp at Patumahoe, with teachers in charge and promises of films and sport facilities. Maximum wages were 1 s 6 d an hour, with 44 hours a week guaranteed. [193] Meanwhile, parties of schoolgirls were taken daily by bus to Mangere gardens. [194] These activities were shortened by dry weather: the girls' work ceased about 9 January, the boys' mainly before the end of the month. [195] However, during February the relay system brought about 100 high school boys and girls daily in buses to pick tomatoes and peas near Hamilton. [196]

In all, Vocational Guidance placed 1831 school children (including 47 school leavers) in holiday work between December 1943 and February 1944. Among these, 143 were on vegetables, 154 picked fruit, hops, etc, 296 harvested, 174 were on general farm work, 660 (mainly girls) in shops and offices, 75 in warehouses and woolstores. [197] Many others found their own work, but no complete figures were published. In the 1944–5 season, Vocational Guidance placed only 1674 in jobs, nearly half in shops and offices; [198] the special war pressures for school-holiday labour were over.

The Education Department played an early part in another special wartime problem. During 1942 when large numbers of lads under 21, together with older soldiers, were mobilised for home defence, and the early skelter had subsided into camp routines, there was general awareness that boredom was the soldiers' most constant enemy, boredom strengthened by separation from many channels of ideas and by the dominance of the lowest common factor in Army conversation. The Army was aware of immediate problems; educationists also foresaw intellectual deterioration and difficulties when soldiers returned to the community.

The problem had been recognised in Britain during 1940 when ‘military authorities were seriously worried about the combined effects of defeat, inactivity and bullshit on the morale of the troops’. [199] A committee in September 1940 reported that education in a broad sense was indispensable to morale, and that every unit should have its education officer. This led to a vast number of lectures and short courses on all sorts of topics, and to the creation of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs. To sustain purpose and morale through a long war, troops had to know why they were fighting, along with the background, development and possibilities of world events. Acquiring this knowledge became part of the British Army's training time, not only in the home forces but in all theatres of war, by lectures, pamphlets, exhibitions, wall newspapers, educational films and information rooms. [200]

By mid-1942, local university speakers and others were pointing out that New Zealand was the only English-speaking country which had no scheme for education in the Army. [201] Soon after, the Army Education and Welfare Service (AEWS) was generated, to stimulate mental liveliness within the forces, and to give as many as possible both desire and opportunity to pursue courses of study that would be not only of immediate interest but helpful in post-war occupations. A senior inspector in the Education Department, D. G. Ball, [202] seconded as a lieutenant-colonel, was its Director; it gave fruitful employment to a number of talented teachers, journalists, civil servants and librarians already in the Army; [203] a vigorous library system was built up to support all its activities. [204] To give information on, and stimulate interest in current affairs both social and political, their background and implications, bulletins were issued fortnightly on a wide range of topics, as foundations for informal talks and discussions that were part of Army training. The first bulletin, on events leading to the war with Japan, appeared early in March 1943. [205]

The Education Department, working through civilian regional committees, one to each military camp, co-ordinated all civilian education facilities, arranging lectures from local experts and various courses, providing vocational and technical training for those interested, in particular making use of the Department's Correspondence School and technical colleges. [206] Already some university colleges, by supplying books, notes and sometimes lectures, were encouraging students where possible to push on with their studies, [207] and this aspect was quickened, with AEWS acquiring text-books, both new and secondhand, which could be hired, arranging rooms for study and some lectures. [208]

The AEWS officially opened in March 1943, and within a few months vocational, cultural and entertainment activities, including arts and crafts, woodwork, hobby groups, music and drama, were under way among the men and women of the three Services, drawing keen response. [209] It soon spread to the Pacific, to prisoners-of-war through the Red Cross, and later to the Middle East and Italy, with thousands of books circulating through camps, air and naval stations and hospitals.

In preparing booklets for its courses AEWS made use of experts wherever they could be found. For instance the staff of Lincoln Agricultural College wrote six booklets— Principles of Animal Production,

Wool, Pig Farming, Grasslands of New Zealand, Crops and Cropping and How to start Farming—and collaborated on two others, Farm

Book-keeping and Biology. [210]

For several trade and vocational subjects there were almost no books available, so booklets suitable for individual study were produced. By November 1944, 30 such (some up to 160 pages long) had been published, 20 were being printed and 32 more were in preparation, the Education Department being ready to take them over when they should no longer be needed by the forces. Throughout these books there were practical exercises, with answers supplied, and at the end more comprehensive test papers. Answers to the latter could be sent to stations in Wellington, the Pacific and the Mediterranean, where they would be checked and returned with full model answers. [211]

By this time there had been nearly 9000 enrolments for courses within New Zealand, 6000 from the 3rd Division, nearly 4000 from the Navy and Air Force, and more than 2000 in the Middle East and Italy, where 30 full-time instructors were correcting students' work and preparing more material. Already thousands of those enrolled had been demobilised and a proportion did not persevere, but in November 1944 the roll of effective students in all areas exceeded 4500. The most popular subjects had proved to be bookkeeping, on petrol engines, carpentry, trade mathematics, animal husbandry, farm book-keeping, applied electricity, vegetable growing, English, radio mechanics, biology, needlework, grassland and arable farming, fruitgrowing and shorthand. In those subjects where Army workshops could provide accompanying practical work, this was arranged. [212] The vocational activities of AEWS continued strongly till the end of the war, and were linked with those of the Rehabilitation Department.

Universities were both remote from the war and highly sensitive to it. They were remote in that courses continued unchanged, people went on being absorbed in study and examinations about English poetry, French syntax, calculus, Europe in the nineteenth century; about zoology and botany and book-keeping and torts and a great many other topics all totally unconcerned with current crises. Some of the public felt that such labour was irrelevant, an untimely luxury. ‘Don't you know there's a war on? Why aren't you nursing, or working in a factory, or doing a man's job?’ were questions asked of students, many of whom questioned themselves in like terms.

On the other hand the war penetrated the universities quite as deeply as it did any other area of living, remembering always that very many students, then as now, were merely ‘the great dull flood that sweeps up the hill and back again with its ticket to a better job’. [213] But there were others not so readily soothed by the assurances of political leaders, more aware of war's desolation, of the distant political and financial chicaneries and manoeuvrings that cost the lives of thousands, aware also of the inner ruin that could attend even on victors. They were more sceptical about press victories, about statements on enemy losses, more inclined to think how long it took to train pilots, how quickly ships could sink, how hitches or stupidities hindered production. They knew that war eroded scruples, that truth was its first victim; that while compassion ran high for those bombed in London and Liverpool, there was satisfaction, even gusto, over the destruction of Hamburg and Cologne. They saw how intolerantly New Zealanders could turn on their enemy within, on the few hundred aliens mainly both loyal and frightened, and the few hundred pacifists.

This concerned minority had been aware of the war's presages. As Dr Beeby said over the peace ballot of 1935, [214] the student view was not typical of the community; if it were, their education had been wasted. [215] Probably education began years before, with All Quiet on the Western Front, Cry Havoc, and the poems of Owen and Sassoon. The ballot had shown pacifist tendencies among those who voted, but these were only 32 per cent of Auckland's 800 students, 37 per cent of Otago's 1139, 53 per cent of Canterbury's 980, 73 per cent of Victoria's 720 and 100 per cent of Massey's 54. [216] At least some discussed the implications of Abyssinia and China, saw a little of the complexity in Spain. They read the Left Book Club's issues, read Koestler's Spanish Testament, and Spanish Tragedy by E. A. Peers; they read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Snow's Red Star over China; they read and saw Odet's Till the Day

I Die, read Gunther's Inside Europe, Phyllis Bottome's Mortal Storm, and Gedyes's Fallen Bastions. They saw the shadow of the swastika growing while governments in Britain and Europe were more anxious about the shadow of the hammer and sickle. They wondered, as the crises quickened, whether it was worth while to toil on with reading and tests and essays when in a year or two they might be far from these things, might even be dead. Some knew what they would have to do, whether it was to enlist or take the path of the dissenter; others argued with friends or with themselves; and like everyone else they waited. Over against work the urge to enjoy youth deepened. Vita nostra brevis est, and there might not be much more time for talking and drinking, tennis and football, for climbing mountains, being in love. Discussion of the probabilities of war became for some much more absorbing than the abstractions of classes. ‘Bugger Chamberlain, he's messed up my exams’ [217] was the rueful thought of not a few as 1938's Munich crisis ebbed, leaving them stranded amid tasks undone. It was almost a relief in that next September when war came.

At the outset some volunteered for the special force that was to become the 2nd Division, some for the Air Force and the Navy; some, already Territorials, were called to fortress duty. Some now found study impossible, others earnestly sought to finish degrees that were well under way, or to get as much done as possible.

The University, while bent on maintaining standards, was concerned that those helping to defend society should not lose their hopes and labour in near-misses or by being called up just before examinations. Early in October 1939 Parliament, at the University's request, decreed that the University of New Zealand, during the war and for a reasonable time thereafter, could, despite some normal requirements (such as terms) not being kept, confer degrees, diplomas, bursaries, etc, and declare that students had passed sections or subjects ‘upon such tests, certificates or otherwise as the Senate may in its discretion from time to time deem sufficient,’ provided that the Senate was satisfied such shortcoming was due to the student being in the armed forces or on special civilian service, and provided that he had attained such a standard that he would have qualified had he not been called up. [218]

It must be remembered that the universities, under whatever name, were still in their colonial era: they were not until 1961 separate, autonomous degree-conferring institutions. Those in the four main cities, plus Massey and Canterbury Agricultural (at Lincoln) Colleges, were teaching bodies affiliated to the non-teaching, degree-conferring University of New Zealand, [219] whose Senate, assisted by an Academic Board drawn from all the parts, arranged syllabuses and appointed examiners. Originally, examinations were set and marked overseas, mainly in the United Kingdom, but a long battle had won increasing independence from British dons. In the mid- Thirties a scheme was devised whereby the heads of departments in the colleges could agree to take in each other's examination washing. This exchange within New Zealand began with Stage I papers: for instance in 1938 and 1939 Auckland was to co-operate with Victoria, and Canterbury with Otago for Stage I examiners. [220] But by 1941 each College was running its own Stage I examinations. [221] Similarly, by agreement among departments, more and varied stages were locally examined; in 1937 pairs of professors from different colleges examined Stage II of most arts subjects. [222] By 1939 some Stage III and Masters papers in certain subjects, such as History and Education and Chemistry, were examined in New Zealand, while others went to Britain and Australia. [223]

During 1940, students were advised to keep duplicates of theses sent overseas, and there was full debate on the question of using British examiners in war time. [224] In January 1941 the Senate declared that, while any examiners in England who had already set papers had been paid, it had been settled that all scripts in 1941 should be marked in New Zealand or Australia. In arts and science, papers for Stage III and masters would all be set and marked in New Zealand; in law and commerce, some papers were sent to Australia and some were handled locally. [225] In 1946 this was still the procedure, but the majority of subjects at all stages were examined in New Zealand. [226] Professor J. Packer [227] of Canterbury wrote that year: ‘It seems likely that, had the war not intervened, honours in most science subjects would still be examined overseas.’ [228]

The war, then, accelerated academic independence both within New Zealand and within each college. Pre-war arguments for such independence, based on integrity and commonsense, were augmented by the risk of papers being sunk on the way to England and by the complications of war concessions. These perforce threw responsibility on to a student's own teachers and professors, for no one else could judge the quality of his year's work, or such work as military calls had permitted. The Senate, in exercising the wide discretion conferred by the 1939 Statutes Amendment, obviously had to accept professors' recommendations, and could not limit these to Stages I or II only. By the end of 1940 the Registrar of the University of New Zealand had informed the New Zealand Students' Association that each college was itself empowered to grant degree passes on the year's work to students called up. [229]

In the Senate's discretion, its executive committee decided that those whose work professorial boards recommended should be granted a pass without sitting an examination; others, whether they had kept terms or not, could sit the November examinations or, if they preferred, have their fees refunded. A committee was appointed to deal with clear-cut cases and to report to the Senate on any presenting special difficulties. Also, mobilised students could pass in a single unit, [230] an innovation that did not become general till 1942.

There was room in all this for a good deal of uncertainty in student minds as to what concessions they might expect. At both

Canterbury and Victoria in October 1940, student meetings complained of gross injustices in war concessions and demanded a definite statement of policy for the future. [231] For the 1940 examinations there were applications for concessions from 61 entrance and 572 degree candidates, and 324 from accountancy students whom the Society of Accountants required to take the professional examinations before concessions were given. In these three groups normal passes numbered 5, 22 and 15, respectively; concession passes were granted to 30 entrance applicants, 498 degree candidates and 151 accountancy students—that is 721 out of 957 cases were passed; for most of the remainder, fees were credited or refunded. Special examination centres had been established at or near the main military camps. [232]

As the years passed some students struggled on with university work when in camp, even when overseas. In 1944 there were special examination centres in London, Montreal, Colombo, North Africa, in several prisoner-of-war camps, in six Pacific bases and on five naval vessels. There were applications for concessions from 230 entrance candidates, 1042 degree and 762 accountancy students; on marks, one, 115 and 77, respectively, passed, while 176 concession passes were granted to entrance candidates, 702 to degree seekers and 479 to accountants; in all, 193 passed on marks, 1357 with concessions. [233]

When conscription came in 1940, it was decided that approved numbers of students, the minimum considered necessary in national interests who were taking medicine, dentistry, science, engineering, mining, agriculture and architecture, should be exempted from military service. Other students were liable both to Territorial and overseas ballots and, from 1942 onwards, to Manpower direction. At the start, Territorial ballots were cushioned. When the first came on 1 October 1940 Semple, Minister of National Service, agreed that students whom the University was unable to credit with a pass at the end of September could arrange with Manpower committees to postpone their training till after the November examinations. [234] In 1941, for students on three months' service from January to March and therefore making a late start, the University arranged extra tuition; for those called up later, Manpower authorities could grant postponement till the end of September and, if credit passes were not given, till the examinations had been held. [235] Those called in overseas ballots might or might not obtain a few months' postponement from an armed forces appeal board. During 1942, Territorial demands were much tougher and instead of being for three months only, home service was continuous; overseas ballots mounted, and despite growing numbers of women, classes were thinned; at

Victoria Dr J. C Beaglehole remembered that ‘an arts professor or lecturer, gazing out sometimes over his class, might be pardoned for thinking it contained, besides women, nothing but the halt and the blind.’ [236] During 1943 many Territorials were released, to take up their studies again until liable for overseas service when 21 years of age. Numbers rose steadily, to expand almost violently in 1946.

The figures below, [237] which include students excused from lectures, represent those taking definite courses, and show how some courses withered while others throve.

| 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946
Agriculture | 353 | 360 | 333 | 112 | 296 | 780 | 1197 [*] | 1489 [†]
Architecture | 75 | 35 | 68 | 45 | 67 | 82 | 134 | 221
Arts | 1950 | 1971 | 1869 | 1572 | 1949 | 2508 | 2965 | 3825
Commerce | 746 | 508 | 492 | 403 | 553 | 827 | 1111 | 2162
Dentistry | 135 | 122 | 113 | 107 | 129 | 154 | 175 | 205
Diploma of Education | 65 | 65 | 56 | 32 | 43 | 40 | 67 | 103
Diploma of Public Administration | — | 8 | 16 | — | — | — | — | —
Divinity | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 18
Engineering | 184 | 163 | 181 | 157 | 235 | 309 | 399 | 705
Home Science | 144 | 170 | 184 | 186 | 190 | 207 | 207 | 207
Horticulture | — | — | — | — | — | 20 | 52 | 60
Journalism | 34 | 19 | 33 | 23 | 29 | 38 | 37 | 74
Law | 369 | 295 | 253 | 136 | 164 | 267 | 317 | 583
Massage | — | 30 | 32 | 31 | 33 | 40 | 44 | 43
Medicine | 563 | 639 | 626 | 637 | 789 | 844 | 893 | 895
Mining | 45 | 41 | 40 | 30 | 42 | 35 | 38 | 63
Music | 86 | 108 | 145 | 77 | 125 | 167 | 147 | 248
Science | 587 | 566 | 624 | 595 | 796 | 1002 | 1176 | 1516
| 5336 | 5140 | 5065 | 4143 | 5440 | 7320 | 8959 | 12417

In 1939 there were, in the six colleges, 4116 men and 1220 women taking courses: 3784 men and 1356 women in 1940; 3422 and 1643 in 1941; 2596 and 1547 in 1942; 3710 and 1730 in 1943; 5275 and 2045 in 1944; 6849 and 2110 in 1945; 10 175 and 2242 in 1946. [238]

It will be seen that medicine and science student numbers increased between 1939 and 1942, that engineering fell by 14.6 per cent, dentistry by 20 per cent, architecture and mining more steeply, while agriculture fell by almost 70 per cent because in the shortage of labour students could not be spared from the farms. Numbers in arts courses, favoured by women, fell less; in commerce they were almost halved; in law, a long course and practically a male preserve, they dropped nearly 70 per cent. At Victoria College a public administration course, inaugurated in 1940 for full-time hand-picked bursars from the Public Service, had to be suspended from 1942 to 1946 because the bursars could not be spared. The rolls of some colleges were more affected than those of others. Between 1939 and 1942, at Auckland the numbers of men dropped by 41 per cent, of women increased 19 per cent, and the total student roll fell 20 per cent; at Victoria, the roll for men dropped 51 per cent, for women it rose by 27 per cent, with the total loss 34 per cent;

Canterbury's men dropped by 47 per cent, women by 10 per cent, with a total loss of 37 per cent; at Otago the number of men fell by 22 per cent, women increased by 28 per cent, with a total loss of 7 per cent. [239]

Because of exemptions from lectures, the numbers actually attending were even smaller. For instance, while rolls at Victoria in 1942 totalled 914 (566 men and 348 women), it was reported at the end of March that fewer than 700 were taking lectures. [240] Auckland at the same time listed 983 students (635 men, 348 women), but only 829 attended lectures. [241]

Pre-war, the male staffs of the six colleges, including part-time lecturers, totalled less than 200. By 1942, 45 of these were either in the forces or full-time on special work, while 59 others were doing part-time special work, exclusive of any Home Guard or EPS duties, Replacements were very difficult and in science men with only BSc degrees had to be taken on. Savings in salaries were not enough to make up for the drop in fees paid, so the government compensated with special grants. [242] In some fields, staff shrinkage was conspicuous, notably in law: at Victoria the pre-war staff of three full-time teachers and one part-time was reduced to a solitary professor with some help from the profession and from a colleague in an Army department. [243]

In general, courses were simply carried on, with syllabuses unchanged despite the shortage of books, and standards much the same—though some staff members thought that they fell a little. In a few areas teaching and research were reshaped to meet war needs; in particular, the need for men trained in radio-physics caused re-organisation of physics courses and the multiplication of some classes. Chemistry and engineering departments co-operated with the

DSIR on defence research work, such as war gases and smoke bombs. Samples of war gases were made for use in detection training, and Otago produced supplies of antidote. Smoke bombs were produced at an Auckland factory with research and direction by university scientists. Canterbury's chemists helped in making gas masks for

EPS, being particularly concerned with the absorptive capacity of the activated charcoal. Large crystals of Rochelle salt, for naval sonar equipment, were made at Otago and during an acute shortage of matches honours students at all the universities worked in relays making two tons of potassium chlorate for the Ministry of Supply. At Canterbury and Auckland a good deal of staff, equipment and building space was devoted to defence work, notably in the radar field. Otago's Professor F. G. Soper [244] was chemical adviser to the government on munitions. [245]

Interest in Russia, generated by the war, brought in a new language. Dr Nicholas Danilow, [246] a Russian born in Riga who after 1921 had worked and studied in Vienna, went to England in 1938 and reached New Zealand late in 1939. In April 1940 his offer to lecture in Russian history was declined as inopportune by the Professorial Board at Otago. [247] In May 1942 he began teaching languages at Scots College, Wellington, where he continued for 13 years. In 1942 he also became a lecturer in German at Victoria University College and the principal, Sir Thomas Hunter, readily accepted his suggestion that since Russian had become an important language in the Western world it should be taught in the university. There was a great scarcity of books but Dr Danilow made his own available and during 1944–9 the Soviet government, through the legation in Moscow, gave about 400 books. In January 1944 the Senate of the University of New Zealand decided that Russian should be one of the foreign languages for a BA degree. [248] By 1945 Russian language and literature, modestly related to the history of the period studied, was a Stage I subject, Stage II followed in 1948 and Stage III in 1950. For more than a decade only at Victoria was Russian actually taught, but the other university colleges gradually followed suit. [249]

By tradition and training, in peace and in war, universities have often been ahead of their communities in resisting surges of intolerance and prejudice. In general, and modestly, New Zealand universities took this role: both student bodies and staff members stood against attacks on civil liberties, aliens and so-called subversions. As mentioned earlier, [250] they were themselves under fire for ‘disloyalty’ from the RSA and others who were principally concerned lest teaching should encourage belief in or sympathy with those associated enemies of the British Empire: communism, initially the USSR, and pacifism.

Said F. W. Doidge, MP ( Tauranga) in June 1940, ‘We know that Communist activities are going on all over the country—that even in the schools and universities Communist teaching is going on. I know that teachers in my own district are Communists, and there are mental blow-flies in our universities contaminating the minds of students, disseminating these dangerous doctrines.’ [251] In November an Otago Daily Times correspondent quoted from an ‘October number of a New Zealand magazine’ (unidentified) an article on ‘communism in student periodicals’, which ran:

A sound indication of the state of mind and attitude towards society fostered amongst New Zealand university students by the totalitarian-minded amongst our educational leaders is obtained from a careful scrutiny of the student publications of Victoria University College. For some years now the Wellington student periodical Salient has, with amazing consistency, been an Adolescent apologist for Marxism, pacifism, and anti-Christian ideas and all the intellectual junk of the extreme Left Wing.

There were traces of a similar attitude at Canterbury, continued the article, but in general the periodicals of other colleges gave diverse views. The uniformly Marxist and rationalist taint in Victoria's papers

Salient and its precursor Smad showed that its source was in the teaching of that College. Why were some people punished for subversion while others got off scot free? [252]

The Crown representative on the Armed Forces Appeal Board at

Christchurch in June 1941, tackling a non-religious objector, said that there were a lot of young fellows around Canterbury College with ‘colossal conceit and cheek’ who would take all the State's free education but make no return, and he asked pointedly who taught these doctrines. [253] Both the rector and president of the Students Association stated that there was no pacifist teaching or organised group in the College; undoubtedly a number held such views, but they were not more numerous than in other thinking sectors of the community. The rector, Dr H. G. Denham, [254] added that he could not understand their attitude and thought that it came from reading only one side of the question: ‘What they won't see is that under any other regime they wouldn't be left alive to think.’ [255] To further suggestions that he should certify that every professor and lecturer was behind the war effort, the rector replied that this was quite outside his jurisdiction: in the College, as in every profession, there were differences of opinion on some aspects of the war effort, but he was sure that all would fulfil willingly the obligations imposed by government. [256]

These are samples of the attacks. University Red-hunting was a time-honoured sport, with notable outbursts in the Twenties and Thirties. [257] Often these attacks did not go beyond vague name-calling, though even this promoted caution, a willingness to avoid notice. In the past, as J. C. Beaglehole has noted, college authorities had wavered, even bowed; now they showed a better sense of proportion. Indeed, against clamour for loyalty-testing, staffs and councils closed their ranks with trade union firmness, though the poor relation, the WEA, was not fully included in this solidarity. The Otago University Council, headed by ex-soldiers, in 1940 stoutly fended off the local RSA which wanted it to impose loyalty tests on its staff. At Auckland 16 Council and staff members protested against the ‘gestapo’ methods of the Auckland Education Board, prompted by anonymous letters, in dismissing two probationary teachers charged with Communist leanings; when the College itself was accused of cherishing communism the principal spoke of libel action. [258]

The students themselves, though they bridled now and then under these charges, tended to take them as part of the scene, a predictable method of attacking both their freedom of speech and their privileged position in society. Real leftists, an active minority, were gratified to hear that the universities were full of Communists; others knew that such statements were exaggerated. As an Otago man said, ‘one student, through Leftist leanings, a loud mouth, and a prolific pen, can create a false impression that the whole University is Communistic.’ [259] In mid-1940, a medical student wrote to his father, Bishop F. A. Bennett, [260] ‘You no doubt have read in the newspapers that the universities are hot beds of Communism. That is all rubbish.… However, the people of Dunedin are hyper-sensitive at present and pick on anything to work their excess energy off—alien refugees and to a lesser extent students are their objects of malicious interest just now.’ [261]

In the restless uncertainty of early 1940, widespread talk of communism, subversive influences and pacifism within the universities caused N. Begg, [262] vice-president of Otago's Students Association and president of the national student body, to issue a statement ‘for the enlightenment of all’. Many such references, he wrote, were loosely made and unconvincing, many were contrary to fact. On the other hand, some students had attacked New Zealand's policy towards the Empire and the war, and ‘though couched in the specious phrases of sophistry the criticism put forward by these dilettanti is also unconvincing.’ He believed that the attitude of the student body came from balanced thinking, not from noisy patriotism: ‘… indeed, I insist that the average student comes to his decision despite our accredited war aims, rather than because of them.’ Students realised that youth was required to make most of the sacrifice, required to do so by an older generation ‘whose hearts were so full of bitterness and hatred after the last war that the way was paved to a repetition of that war.’ They also realised that Britain's avowed championing of downtrodden smaller countries was scarcely consistent with its attitude to aggression against China, the seizure of Abyssinia, and the rape of Czechoslovakia; they realised that while Hitler's colonising was brutal, Britain's was not blameless and that, even in New Zealand, wrongs suffered by the Maori race had not yet been righted. But beyond these ‘hazy platitudes’ students saw that New Zealand was fighting for its way of living, against a madman bent first on the destruction of Britain, then on world domination: fighting for freedom in thought, in speech, in worship. This was the main flow of the river of student opinion, which so far had been judged by the froth on the surface of its whirlpools. ‘We hate war, but we will fight for the freedom we have always known and which has become associated with the name of Britain.’ [263]

Commenting on this the Otago Daily Times, while indignantly refuting the cynical suggestion that Britain's present championship of small countries was inconsistent with its former course, and brushing aside the special sacrifice of youth as inevitable and universal in war, thought that this statement reached, in the main, some reassuring conclusions. It added that as student opinions on social and political problems were influenced by their teachers, an expression of the views of university staffs would be of equal interest to the public. [264]

At bottom, the public tendency to imagine that student satchels held pamphlets from Moscow largely stemmed, as it had done years earlier and would again, from irritation at the student tendency, both in groups and as individuals, to question, sometimes brashly, established procedures and attitudes. Such questioning was ‘bolshie’, and though by no means the monopoly of students came from them more noticeably than from other young people. Their assumption that they knew better than their elders was attacked, often quite loosely, as communism. The editor of Kiwi, Auckland's yearly student magazine, which remained firmly literary, wrote in 1941:

There are two games played in Auckland.…. The first is called ‘Hunt the University’, to be played by an unlimited number.… The players suppose that the University is an awful place, full of Communists and Fifth Columnists. Then everyone starts to poke out his metaphorical tongue and spit metaphorical spit in the direction of Princes Street. Should any member of the University deny his communism the players then accuse him of having ‘Communist tendencies’ and resume spitting. In the other game, called ‘Examine Society’, played by not a few students, each announced his single-minded devotion to Truth, on account of which he should be free of the authority to which less rational beings must be subject; from the University, seat of intellect undefiled, he examined Society and gave instruction for its cure. In fact, the public and the University behave in a thoroughly foolish manner when speaking of the other. [265]

Some conservative minds were tolerant of university hotheads, believing that while young people must be allowed to toss ideas around, their leftist milk teeth would in due time be replaced by solid capitalist grinders. Thus a veteran Presbyterian scholar, Dr John Dickie, [266] addressing Otago graduates in May 1940, held that those who served the community, such as doctors, teachers and ministers, had no right to disregard the convictions or even the prejudices of those whom they served; parents had the right to resist, and if need be to suppress, at school or university, indoctrination with ideas that they regarded as subversive of general well-being. But no sensible experienced person would try to suppress free discussion among students, knowing that those who were extreme leftists at 20 were often hard-boiled conservatives at 40. [267]

More liberal university apologists pointed out that students and intellectuals were always the first targets of Nazi occupation. ‘Nazism and the university spirit are irreconcilably opposed’, said W. P. Rollings, [268] a Wellington lawyer who regularly spoke out for civil liberties and free minds, in May 1941; those who made unfounded attacks on institutions of higher learning should look at what had happened and was happening in Europe, then ask themselves if they were not doing Hitler's work for him, becoming tools of Fascism. [269]

No professors or lecturers were dismissed for their opinions, but the WEA, an off-shoot of the university, with its tutors employed by local College Councils, lost two for pacifism. The first was Alun Richards, trained as a Presbyterian minister, but working in 1940 as tutor-organiser for the WEA's Wellington district. Before any subversion regulations were passed he had written a pamphlet What Are we Fighting For?, sharply criticising British pre-war policy. This was published anonymously in November 1939, with a second, revised edition in December. The latter, on its inside cover, carried a ‘quiz’, proffering a choice of questions. One asked whether the pamphlet was written by, among others, Dr Goebbels, Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill or a lecturer under the New Zealand University. This slender connection with the University brought a complaint to the Council of Victoria University College, which in mid-1940 dispensed with Richards's services, while paying him for three months, the normal period for notice of ending an appointment. [270]

The WEA, at its annual conference in December 1940, battled for freedom of opinion, harking back to a resolution on academic freedom passed by the Auckland University College Council in August 1934. This held that a university teacher has no less privilege of free speech, within the law, than any other citizen and while there is a responsibility on him to weigh his public utterances, he may feel at times that his position involves the obligation to make a pronouncement not in accord with the opinions and traditions of the majority of citizens. The exercise of that freedom or obligation should not put his position at risk or make him subject to supervision or correction. [271]

The WEA's district council asked the Victoria University College Council for a ruling on what a tutor could and could not say and in February, at a meeting held in camera, the Victoria Council on the casting vote of the chairman declared:

The appointment of a tutor is subject to his services being dispensed with on being given the notice provided for in his contract or on his receiving payment in lieu of such notice. It is impossible and it is not desirable to attempt to specify what a tutor can or cannot do with regard to the free expression of opinion within the law. The tutors are adult educated people and it must be left to them to use their own judgment when they are about to give an expression of opinion, as to whether such expression is likely to lead the Council to the conclusion that they are not fit and proper persons to continue in the council's employment. [272]

In April 1941 a Council member, Mr Justice (later Sir David) Smith, [273] sought to rescind this and substitute the 1934 Auckland resolution. He cited authorities from England and elsewhere supporting this resolution, and he stressed that it was asked only that university teachers should be allowed to express their opinions within the law, this being one of the things for which the British Empire was fighting and which Hitler would destroy if he won. The College Council, he said, had no right to deprive a man of his job because it disagreed with an opinion that was quite within the law. He also pointed out that Richards had been prepared not to circulate his pamphlet, that there had been only one complaint against it, and that while enquiries had produced no complaints against Richards for partiality in his lectures there had been complaints against those who dismissed him; he added that those advocating academic freedom were not subscribing to the views expressed in the pamphlet.

The chairman, H. F. O'Leary, [274] spoke hotly against the Council discussing such a question while British troops were being driven out of Greece. ‘My blood boils when I think of this council solemnly discussing academic freedom—purely a catchword—while we face a peril such as we have never known.’ Ever since Richards's dismissal in July 1940 the Council had been pestered with applications, deputations and resolutions seeking reasons for it, but he was surprised that the Council paid any attention to them. The pamphlet, in the opinion of the majority of the Council, showed that Richards was not a fit person to be in the employ of the College, and that was what mattered, whether its statements were subversive or not. Tutors were not so innocent or unenlightened that they did not know the limits of what they could say and some of the WEA committee held views similar to those of the man dismissed.

Council member W. P. Rollings disputed that discussion of academic freedom should be ruled out because of the critical war situation, saying that such questions were raised only in times of stress. On the other hand M. F. Luckie [275] marvelled at Mr Justice Smith's view that a tutor would have to commit a criminal offence before the Council could discharge him, the strangest view of the relationship between master and servant that he had ever heard. At length it was resolved that: ‘A University teacher has the same liberty of action within the law as any other citizen; but academic freedom implies responsibilities and if the council decides that the actions of a University teacher indicate that he is unsuitable for his office because of his failure to appreciate these responsibilities, it has the right to terminate his appointment.’ [276]

Incomplete reporting of this resolution was the pretext on which

Victoria's principal, Sir Thomas Hunter, [277] and the Professorial Board sought to make ‘some points more explicit’ and also more liberal, with a supplementary resolution:

(a) that in his public acts, statements and publications a university teacher has the same freedom as any other citizen, except that he has the additional responsibility to make due allowance for the fact that, because of his position, his acts and utterances may have added weight; (b) that in his private and casual conversation a university teacher has neither more nor less freedom to express his own views than has any other citizen; (c) that in the discharge of his duties as a teacher within the university it is incumbent on a university teacher to state as fairly as he is able all aspects of any controversial matter that comes within the purview of his department. At the same time he is entitled, indeed it may be his duty, to express his own views and preferences, even though they may not be popularly accepted, provided always that he does so fairly and temperately and not for purposes of propaganda. [278]

These qualifications were rejected by both the rigid men and the liberals. F. L. Combs [279] was as much against the interpretation as he was against the resolution; W. P. Rollings distrusted trying to clarify one resolution by others, and to him the root trouble was that the Council, because the issue was raised by the WEA rather than by voices of higher rank, had failed to treat it as one of high principle; Mr Justice Smith said that the interpolation was an attempt to take the sting from a resolution that itself embodied the contradiction of offering freedom and then taking it away. [280]

Despite this rebuff the Professorial Board underlined its attitude by affirming its own resolution next month, and reported accordingly to the Council. Said Luckie: ‘Whatever may be the meaning of this, it cannot affect the decision arrived at by the Council. That still stands.’ The report was received without further comment. [281]

However the College Council, the Professorial Board and some staff members individually supported the WEA when in July 1942 the Wellington City Council withdrew its annual grant of £50 because the WEA's secretary, A. C. Barrington, was a well known pacifist and because some of its study material was sent to defaulters' camps. This material was paid for by the defaulters themselves, and tutors' services, which were available for study courses in prisons, were not provided. [282] A press letter, signed by three of the staff of

Victoria and three lawyers, [283] pleaded for restoration of this grant, pointing out that while it might be a valuable social service to attempt to enlighten those whom the community considered misguided and anti-social, the WEA's assistance to defaulters was too trivial a fraction of its activities to justify a deprivation that would seriously handicap its work with the 600 men and women enrolled in its Wellington classes. [284] Another staff member privately helped to make up the loss: Barrington's diary records that Dr A. E. C. Hare, research fellow, gave £25 in 1942, and in 1943 gave the fees (£12) that he himself received for WEA classes. [285] The College Council, prompted by Sir Thomas Hunter speaking for the Professorial Board, affirmed the need to provide adequate educational facilities in prisons, defaulters' and internment camps; it would make discussion-course material available to their authorities at the usual price, without sending a tutor. [286]

Alun Richards was joined in exile about two years later by N. M. Bell, a Christchurch pillar of the Christian Pacifist Society. Following the government's emergency regulation of December 1941, [287] whereby teachers who appealed against service on conscience grounds were at once sent on leave without pay, whether or not their appeals were allowed, the Canterbury University College Council in April 1942 proposed to the other councils that the regulation should be amended to apply to university teachers. The other councils rejected the idea, [288] but in August Canterbury's alone resolved that any person in its employ who refused service on conscience grounds should have leave without pay for the duration. [289] An attempt to replace this with a motion ‘more worthy’ of a university was defeated 9:8 at the end of September. ‘If we don't win this war we shall be faced with extermination. There is no place in this community for a conscientious objector, except possibly in a mental hospital,’ said one member, H. D. Acland. [290] Others spoke of the need for firmness, of the Council's public duty to see that teaching was in the right hands, and one said that a rescission would look like ‘crawling down’. [291]

The issue was revived early in 1944, when L. A. Baigent, nominated as a part-time lecturer by the head of the Canterbury English department, was barred from appointment as being a conscientious objector. A further effort to rescind the resolution, led by Dr Helen Simpson, was defeated 11:9 in the Council, [292] while the student Radical Club protested that the issue was not pacifism but civil liberties. [293] There followed what Canta, the student paper, called a ‘most regrettable correspondence in the press’, in which it was claimed that the marked tendency towards pacifism in college was a menace to the community. [294] The students' annual general meeting, with about 10 per cent present, urged (66:47) withdrawal of the resolution in order to maintain civil liberties, [295] whereon both Truth and the New Zealand Observer joined in the fray, commenting on proconscientious objector sentiment at Canterbury College. [296]

Considering all the accusations of disloyalty, student clashes with censorship authorities might have been expected, but they did not happen. Censorship lay further back, in the university organisation, in the restraining influence of College principals and student executives, avoiding anticipated pressure. The Security regulations that could suppress papers without proving subversion, and the example of Tomorrow, [297] extinguished thus in June 1940, blew chilly draughts in many directions. Thus at Victoria the debating society thought it unwise to discuss any large political issue at all, and 1940 was one of its dreariest periods. [298] Victoria's Salient of June 1940 offended in a short story: an innocent country boy, looking for a factory job, was instead persuaded to enlist, while a bystander advised him to have some fun before he went—‘These new bullets make a hang of a mess. I know a chap who had his doings blown clean away’. [299]

The editor and Students' Association executive were warned, by the Prime Minister himself. [300] The executive thereafter kept an eye on the yearly magazine Spike, edited in 1940 by the author of the offending story. A minor editorial note on a back page, which at first escaped executive surveillance, contained a ‘word of explanation’, stating that Spike 1940 was not the free expression of university opinion: considerable concessions had been made to forces within the community detrimental to free speech, in particular to the freedom of speech claimed by university students. ‘To these forces we yield now, but not without condemnation, and not without knowledge that this affront will be remembered in future time.’ [301] The executive had these lines blacked out before distribution. In the same issue an article, ‘Understanding the Facts’, railed against the loss of academic freedom in terms almost as direct as those blacked out, but with its main force pointed not against authority but at the sluggishness of student thinking.

Did university students, as such, feel themselves involved in the war when it was no longer a dread presage but a fact in day-to-day living? There were no college demonstrations, no conspicuous rallying to this or that war effort. Students and staff were involved as individuals in service at home or overseas, in the EPS and Home Guard, in fire-watching, in Red Cross activities, in fund-raising for patriotic purposes and in directed vacation work. For many, in daytime work sanctioned by National Service, part-time study absorbed most of their remaining energy. But for some this was not enough; an article on ‘The University and the War’ in Salient on 17 June 1942 complained of student inertia: anti-fascist speeches alone would not keep the Japanese away, trained and spirited defence would.

There were small bouts of organised activity for the International Student Service, an organisation which like the Red Cross worked across frontiers. From mid-1940 onwards, in all colleges, aware of their own easy life in contrast to the hardships of students in China and Europe, committees laboured, collecting a few hundred pounds yearly. Work days and baby sitting, with earnings for ISS, were a notable source, besides donations and the proceeds of college functions.

Contributions were also made, spasmodically, to patriotic collections. Thus, in the bad days of 1942, Victoria's students executive decided to invest £1,000 of its building fund in a Liberty loan, while giving £50 (one-twelfth of its year's income) to patriotic funds. [302] A year later, in a four-day burst of activity, £600 was campaigned out of 900 students for another Liberty loan, and another £634 invested from the building fund; [303] but in 1944 although £1,184 was subscribed to the Victory loan, more than £1,050 came from five people, with only three-and-a-half per cent of students, forty out of 1100, contributing. [304] Some early impulses towards special effort were rejected by authority, thereby discouraging others. Thus when the billeting of British children was first considered, an Otago student committee proposed that 1000 students would visit every household, delivering and collecting a questionnaire (which the Otago Daily Times had offered to print free), which they thought to be the quickest and most effective way of gathering information that might inspire Dunedin and the rest of the country. The Mayor appreciated their intentions but told them that they were interfering in things that did not concern them. [305]

Many university activities were curtailed. Student newspapers, with fewer subscriptions, fewer contributors, and rising costs, struggled along with difficulty: Salient was cyclostyled in 1940; Craccum ( Auckland) did not appear between 4 June and 11 August 1941. Capping festivities and inter-college tournaments, held much as usual in the first two years, were dropped in 1942, apart from actual capping ceremonies and balls, while in sport it was decided that no university blues would be awarded during the war. In 1944 capping day processions were still banned; despite the growing sense of victory, it was felt improper for privileged students to indulge in public frivolity and to waste calico on banners and petrol on transport. Revues and extravaganzas all disappeared in 1942. Victoria, with its strong tradition of political satire, presented hastily got-up shows in 1943 (‘Deep in the Heart of Cactus’) and 1944 (‘Zealous Zombies’), but revues in other colleges did not re-appear till 1945 or a year later. In 1945 tournament was back, a new experience for most, and capping processions likewise, with proceeds going to patriotic funds or international student relief.

The war, while reducing student numbers and activities, also reduced student liveliness. This varied from college to college and from year to year. In 1942 Craccum described the suspended animation that to some extent was present everywhere.

Frankly, Craccum has little policy this year except to keep its end up by garnering what news there is and trying to arouse interest in things concerning University life. Because there is a war we are all inclined to feel that existence is all that matters and that there is little beyond. The men students all seem to be restless to be away and the women students are restless because life is apt to be monotonous. [306]

It was widely held that Victoria was more politically minded than the other colleges. Tradition, its law school, its mainly part-time students with jobs in town, and its leading personalities, mainly leftists for a decade after the mid-Thirties, were factors making Victoria less liable to academic isolation. At Otago full-time medical, dental, theological, mining and home science faculties were substantially non-political, while at Auckland and Canterbury there were influential bodies of full-time architects, engineers and scientists, traditionally less concerned with social and political problems than their far-reaching skills might warrant. On the other hand, part-time study meant less energy for non-curricula activities and while the leading layer at Victoria might approach war-time controversies more boldly, this did not mean widely sustained interest. For instance, at the height of the conscription issue in 1940, a special general meeting insisted, against the prudence of the executive, that a new Peace Society should exist. Through the counsels of the principal, Sir Thomas Hunter, the more comprehensive name, Society for the Discussion of Peace, War and Civil Liberties, was adopted, but despite this widened scope the society soon died from inactivity. ‘The general sickness of the University Red’, Spike noted in 1942, had caused both the death of this society and the coma of the International Relations Club which had had its beginnings in the excitement of August 1939. [307]

For university Reds as for Reds elsewhere, Russia's entry changed the situation: imperialist struggle became holy war, while leftist pacifists found their pacifism less secure. One wrote in Salient that most pacifists were socialists, for only in a socialist world could peace be attained. Most socialists had been sceptical about the war, suspicious that Communism rather than Fascism was the Empire's foe. Now the issue was clear—Socialism against the barbarous onslaught of Fascism—and although the Empire had no love for the Soviet and newspapers were told not to refer to Russia as ‘our ally’, pacifists must decide whether pacifism or socialism came first, or else risk the awful consequences of Nazi victory. [308]

Some university ‘Reds’ seized the occasion to point out that in

Europe ‘subversive’ leftwing students had been prominent among

Hitler's opponents and victims. At Victoria the executive produced a manifesto, its opening phrases echoing Marx, adopted by a special student meeting on 2 September: ‘A spectre is haunting New Zealand—the spectre of the University Red. He is unpatriotic and addicted to foreign philosophies; his attitude to political and social problems is irresponsible and immature; he is defeatist and unwilling to defend his country against aggression.’ But at Prague and in

Poland, Norway, Holland and the rest of occupied Europe university students had been much more strongly opposed to the Nazis than had those hostile to the universities, the political and religious Right. To Japanese bombers the universities of China, regarded as hot-beds of Communism, were military targets. ‘It is not the cringers and lick-spittles who fill the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald but people who think and say what they think. Both of these dangerous habits are acquired at Universities, not by all students but by a sufficient number to give such places a bad name.’ Voices at Victoria had been raised against the men who paved the way for Vichy, against von Mannerheim and in defence of Russia, whose armies were now, in Churchill's phrase, holding the bridgeheads of civilisation; pacifism in the college had declined, not because of persecution but because of logical arguments brought out in free and open discussion. Unless they continued to speak the truth as they saw it, at the risk of unpopularity, they would betray the cause for which more than 300 fellow students were fighting in the Middle East. Therefore the students of Victoria College deplored the slanders which had from time to time been brought against them, and pledged themselves to maintain those principles of freedom for which British, Soviet and Allied youth were giving their lives. [309]

A similar note was sounded two and a half years later at Otago, when a socialist club was formed. A notice explained that students under Nazi domination had long and bitterly opposed Fascism, perceiving its true nature through political education provided mainly by student organisations, notably by socialist clubs. ‘There is, then, no reason to feel diffident about declaring yourself a Socialist, for in so doing you join the unsullied ranks of those who have always fought oppression and reaction.…’ [310] This club, after a few weeks, was organising widespread consideration of the issue of students increasing their war effort while maintaining their studies. [311]

‘Study for Victory’ was a slogan at British universities: the privilege of being a student in war time demanded harder, more systematic effort. It was an obvious enough idea, sounded for instance in several Salient editorials. [312] Indeed, a science student after mid-year examinations in 1943 urged that the tail-enders, too lazy or dull to make reasonable progress, would be of more use at factory or farm than cluttering classes. [313] Auckland's Council led the way with a new rule in May 1943 that first-year students whose work in the first term was unsatisfactory would be excluded from lectures and practical work. [314] At the end of that year, as part of Manpower directions, the government took a hand in deciding who should pursue full-time study and in what subjects. It was decreed that full-time students, or intending students of 18 years or more, must fill in National Service forms explaining what subjects they were taking, their present educational qualifications and marks gained in their last examinations, details to be verified by the registrar of their college or the principal of their last school. Those whose past records suggested that full-time study would be inappropriate might be directed elsewhere. Courses valuable to the nation would be approved more readily than others; except for those of rarest merit, law and commerce students could be part-time only, with daily employment allied to their studies. Approval once given would be withdrawn only if the student proved unsatisfactory, or if his qualifications made him necessary to an essential industry. In the long vacations all students were liable for direction to industry, the men for Territorial service. Extra-mural or part-time students already working in essential industry or liable to be directed there, could continue as they willed. This regulation meant, for instance, that at Canterbury between 450 and 500 full-time students from 1943 had to apply for permits to continue. [315]

Before and after the war many students sought holiday jobs, but in the summer of 1943–4 direction replaced choice. Full-time university and training college students were ‘Manpowered’ to essential work, and except for war-valued subjects—medicine, dentistry, science, engineering—the vacation was extended over March, to cover more seasonal work. The prospects of being sent, willy-nilly, to freezing works, woolstores, hospitals, canneries, laundries or fruit and vegetable farms were discussed with some unease. Auckland's Craccum wrote bracingly: ‘Well, in the fourth year of the war it came. After much criticism by the public and by the students themselves, the Varsity war effort, up to the present rather negligible (if we discount the contributions of individuals acting on their own initiative) has been given some coherent direction’. This had not been received with enthusiasm. True, there were drawbacks to it: everyone knew that there was mismanagement in high places, and students might think the war rather unnecessary or fought for motives very different from those advanced by the propagandists. But now students as a body could show their willingness to bring the end of the war a little nearer, which would be in their own interests as much as in anyone else's.

There has been in the past a very general public tendency to regard the Universities as nothing more than refuges for selfish young hot-heads, all Communist or Socialist agitators, who are of little practical value to the community. Here's our chance to show we are at least capable of doing three months' work without any unnecessary fuss or self-glorification.

Don't get that doctor's certificate. Don't apply for that cushy job. Maybe Westfield won't be pleasant, but be a man, my son. [316] During October Manpower officers interviewed more than 2 300 full-time students. [317] Direction was not over-drastic. Those who found themselves reasonable jobs went to them. Those who lived at home were available from the start of December, those away from home would not start till after New Year. [318] The Auckland Star on 19 October 1943 raised its voice against taking March out of the university year, ‘which seems to proceed from the notion that university education is a luxury that can be curtailed at will without loss to the community’; it would mean a shortened year for all students in order to obtain an extra months' holiday work from full timers, of whom Auckland would yield only about 300. There was concern among some parents and educationists about indoor work after a year's study [319] and, especially for girls, about direction away from home and about the class of work, but in the event for many girls the work was not too arduous and the people encountered were interesting. Others, such as those working as wardsmaids in hospitals, learned the realities of low pay and how far broken shifts could spread 40 hours of work, without overtime. [320]

In all, 1690 male university students worked that summer, joined during January by 388 from training colleges and by 212 teachers. Farming claimed well over 400. In the freezing works 291 university and 83 training college men students, plus 14 teachers, made a worthwhile contribution to that hard-pressed industry. The woolstores took 335, mostly from university; 241 did medical work in hospitals and 44 had scientific jobs; engineering, vegetable-growing and a wide range of labouring and other jobs took up the rest. Of the women (625 from university, 947 from training colleges and 558 teachers), 456 worked on farms, 170 in orchards, 513 grew vegetables; 23 had scientific jobs; in hospitals, 38 did medical work, 49 were nursing, and 97 did domestic work; many more did domestic work in other places and a wide range of assorted jobs. [321]

Some universities were rueful about their lost March; Manpower authorities paid polite tribute, especially to the freezing workers, [322] and by no means all the students concerned were fully occupied. It was the ‘longest and most futile vacation’ in Canterbury's history, stated Canta on 4 April 1944; no one would complain if the shortened term had been justified by production, but between the farmers, the government and the weather, it was common knowledge that since mid-January the demand for student labour in Canterbury had not approached the supply.

The 1944–5 vacation was not extended. Students were urged to find jobs themselves and have these approved by Manpower officers; there would be holiday breaks both after the examinations and before the new term; women sent to domestic tasks in hospitals would work for one month only; men would be directed mainly to the woolstores, freezing works, farms, orchards and vegetable gardens; women to vegetables, hospitals and domestic work on farms; returned men and certain senior students were exempt. [323] The pattern of work was much the same as in the previous year, though fewer were involved: 2123 university students as against 2315 in 1943–4, though the total university roll had increased by nearly 2000 to 7320. The numbers of training college students doing holiday work dropped by 381 to 954, teachers by 261 to 509. [324]

By 1944 student numbers were rising steeply. Prospects of peace and general prosperity raised the appetite for study in the normal in-flow area, even for courses such as law and commerce where Manpower pressures would permit only part-time study. Ex-servicemen were beginning to appear. Thus at Auckland there were 65 holders of Service bursaries in 1944, and 140 the following year; [325] students taking definite courses, including those exempted from lectures, numbered 1310 (1012 men, 298 women) in 1939; 1185 (904 men, 281 women) in 1940; 1247 (872 men, 375 women) in 1941; 983 (635 men, 348 women) in 1942; 1245 (847 men, 398 women) in 1943; 1946 (1438 men, 508 women) in 1944; 2284 (1789 men, 495 women) in 1945, and rolls would rise by 1000 in 1946 to 2680 men and 604 women. [326] In August 1944 the Auckland Star reported that many Stage I classes were more than 100 strong, and for English I more than 200 packed into the largest room, with notebooks overlapping and elbows bumping. For physics, chemistry and mathematics, as no available rooms were large enough, classes were divided, with lectures and laboratory work repeated. With time spent on teaching thus increased, there was less for marking the higher stacks of papers, and written work was limited to ‘well below what it should be.’ [327] Similar roll rises occurred in the other colleges, as indicated in the totals tabled earlier. [328]

The heritage of the Depression, augmented by the war, made both staff and students patient about conditions. They were aware, through International Student Service propaganda, of the incredible difficultties in which some others studied. They were used to making do, to improvising. The Auckland Star also reported that a typical student comment was ‘It could be worse’; conditions hindered study and were a ‘confounded nuisance’, but it was thought that those who wished could get from the lectures all the help necessary to pass their examinations. The returned men, and others, anxious to make up for lost time, were not agitators for ideal academic conditions; they were concerned chiefly to obtain the teaching they needed to get them though their examinations and on with their lives. The dean of a hard-pressed science faculty held that during the war the colleges had ‘learnt how to do the maximum amount of essential work—teaching and research—with the minimum of resources. In the transitional period one of the things which has helped greatly has been the atmosphere created by the ex-service student, his seriousness, his maturity, his desire to concentrate and his willingness to accept improvisations.’ [329]

To men leaving the forces the government, through Rehabilitation, gave assistance over a wide field of occupation-oriented education, in which university career training courses loomed large. [330] By March 1947 when it was all in full swing, the number of yearly grants towards accountancy courses, both in and out of universities, totalled 8060, followed by Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees with 2795 and trade courses with 2185 grants: accountancy qualifications were valuable in the Civil Service, banks and commercial institutions, while many of the arts students were or would be teachers. [331]

Most university grants were towards continuing studies interrupted by service, but some went to men who, from either youth or lack of opportunity in years shaded by the Depression, had been unable to embark on the university careers they desired but who had shown ability in the Services. The post-war professions would be studded with those who, but for war and Rehabilitation, would have worked in other places. In general the success rate was rewarding: over the whole educational field Rehabilitation reports noted high pass rates—in 1949 up to 83.2 per cent for full-timers and 45.6 per cent for part-timers—though these were influenced by concessions. [332] Even those who did not complete a degree gathered qualifications and awareness that would enrich their lives; the passing of even a few units, besides contenting employers, gave deep personal benefit to many, in attitudes, in self-regard and in reading habits.

The older students often combined maturity, varied experiences and a strongly practical outlook with weak or remote academic backgrounds. On 30 July 1945 Craccum complained that returned men were given no help except war concession passes, which meant a lowering of standards that no sane university should contemplate. The slower-learning student, after five years of the physically toughening and unacademic environment of war, deserved more than vague promises of less being expected in marks; he deserved extra tuition and personal help.

Tutorials, taken for granted by later student generations, were then a rarity, but the ex-serviceman's need to question and clarify was recognised and was met by special government grants. [333] As a

Canterbury writer on university reform put it: ‘They were offered supplementary lectures, but they said, “No, thank you, we want tutorials in small groups of not more than eight. We want to be able to take the tutor for a ride. We want to be able to clear up our difficulties in our own time and way.”’ [334] At Canterbury, which in 1947 had about 900 ex-servicemen among its 2467 students, [335] the rector stated that during the previous two years there had been about 160 of these tutorial classes, covering upwards of 60 units or subjects, attended by servicemen in groups of eight or less: the work there had been beneficial to teachers and students alike and had stimulated a demand for similar teaching methods over the whole college, a ‘demand which it is impossible to meet in present conditions of staffing and accommodation.’ [336] After 1949, as ex-service student numbers diminished, the Rehabilitation Board's tutorial grants were tapered off, ending in 1951.

A professor of English noted that in such tutorials where topics were largely selected by the class itself, there has been a healthy tendency to get at the very fundamentals of the subject—to ask what literature is, and what criticism does— instead of proceeding on the hazy assumption that such fundamentals were settled. At the same time, the elementary terms in which such discussions have to be carried on show an absence of mental maturity in students even of mature years, so that there is a danger of lowered standards in too great a reliance on such classes. Another tendency that has to be resisted is a desire on the part of some students to turn such discussion groups into mere ‘cramming’ hours, aimed at the mechanical passing of examinations.

He added that in Honours classes, where the best of both the returned men and the younger students intermingled, ‘the most original and worthwhile work, the invigorating leaven of unusual ideas, has most often come from the maturer minds of the servicemen’; he was doubtful, however, whether the less able majority of them had gained much except a professional qualification. [337]

A history professor thought that returned men had in particular ‘taken a useful part in tutorial and discussion work. In the short run, they created great difficulties for our Stage III and M.A. work.

Their grasp at these stages naturally varied widely, but in many cases the added toughness and maturity arising from war service was beneficial to us all, including the staff.’ [338] A professor of education was conscious that many of the older men were thinking harder and with a fuller sense of responsibility than was usual with students; they were more critical and inclined to challenge situations, and they asked questions which normally did not come from the average student. Occasionally a man in difficulties would try a ‘bout of “wangling”’, but such cases were rare. [339] On the other hand the acting head of a political science department, after speaking of the returned men's maturity and wide range of social experience, ‘particularly valuable in tutorials,’ went on: ‘Against this has to be set the fact that a high proportion of the students who are very weak academically are ex-servicemen. Many of these would never have become university students but for their eligibility for rehabilitation bursaries. Their presence in classes has not done much to depress standards because as a rule they don't participate in discussions.’ [340]

The 1939 legislation enabling the University of New Zealand to make concessions as it saw fit to students in the Services was renewed in 1943, to remain in force for five years from the end of the war. The aim, as before, was to lessen the loss of time and standing caused by war service without lowering the standard of degrees or professional qualifications. Accordingly entrance conditions were eased, failures by small margins became passes, there were special examinations in March; there was slight easing in cross-credits between courses, in the prescribed order of subjects and in the time conditions for Honours and scholarships. Moreover, to shorten the time needed to complete a degree there was, after approved service, the option of complete exemption from one or more of the less essential subjects of a course, subjects which the candidate would not be taking to a higher stage. This concession could mean the gift of one or two subjects in arts, science or commerce, and up to four in law: law was a long course, lengthened just before the war, and it was arguable that most New Zealand practitioners would never concern themselves with constitutional or international law, or with conflict of laws, but the omission of jurisprudence was more regrettable. A leading professor of law assessed the merits and demerits of service and post-war study and concessions, and to a large extent his remarks could apply to other courses:

It was unavoidable that a five-year course should be cut down for a returned serviceman, and that his experience and maturity should be accepted in lieu of some part of the course. But in my opinion concessions have been on a far too liberal scale for the good of either student or the profession. In many cases the concessions granted will seriously hamper the professional work of those who have received them. Greater maturity no doubt has enabled ex-servicemen to benefit more from their law course in some directions. For all that, far too much necessary academic grounding has been lost because of grants of exemption in subjects and because of the special March examinations where the student crammed the subject for himself in a few weeks, and there is no doubt in my mind that a number of poor students have been passed by a concession in marks who, had there never been a war, would have taken many years to qualify.

Standards were also affected by the taking of subjects during the war by members of the Forces. This work was all done extramurally, necessarily was of a lower standard, and of course done under conditions not conducive to proper learning of any subject. Libraries, enabling reference to cases, for example, were simply not available. This was inevitable, but does affect standards. One can only marvel at the pluck with which the study was done.

On the credit side has been a great increase in full-time study. Returned men who have had the time, thanks to Rehabilitation Bursaries, to learn to dig out their law from the reports and to follow up a hint given in lectures to its conclusion, have studied at least some part of the law intensively and this should help them enormously in practice, especially in their first few years .… Taking it all in all, the ex-service students developed habits of working harder, simply because they wanted to get down to the business of earning a living. On the other hand, much of the value of leisurely development was lost because of the far too practical attitude towards learning of many returned men. Some unwillingness to theorise and speculate has meant a loss of understanding. There was perhaps a bit more willingness to raise and discuss points in class, which might have been even more evident but for the increased numbers. [341]

The Rehabilitation Department, surveying examination results, found a pleasing record of success, with ex-service students doing rather better than the rest. In 1946, the full-timers passed in 70.8 per cent of the total subjects attempted, part-timers in 60.2 per cent; [342] in

1947, passes in these groups were 79.3 per cent and 52.2 per cent respectively; in 1949, 83.2 and 45.6 per cent. [343] The concessions involved may be gauged by figures supplied by Sir Thomas Hunter for the years 1939–47 inclusive. [344]

| Applications considered | Passed on marks(1940–7) | Concessions granted
Degree | 9300 | 1244 | 6136
Accountancy | 5266 | 592 | 2868
Entrance | 1252 | 36 | 874
| 15 818 | 1872 | 9878

Outside the classroom, returned men were active in student affairs and in sport, and some early tendency to form pressure groups was not maintained. [345] Possibly their presence contributed to the growth, noticeable in student newspapers, of interest in public affairs, with less emphasis on inner college matters. Their presence, even the anticipation of their presence, must have influenced the vexed question of student representation on college councils: it was difficult to maintain that student bodies in which a substantial number had risked their lives and done responsible work were too immature to have any say in running their university. In this field the colleges varied widely. At Victoria since November 1938 a representative with voting power had been appointed from the students by their executive; at Canterbury the Council in August 1943 inaugurated a student representative to speak but not to vote; Otago in 1945 agreed that the Students' Association should appoint to the Council a graduate of two years' standing; Auckland's students in 1945 were battling for their place in the sun but did not get it till 1947. [346]

Returned men were only a part of the university scene in the late-war and post-war years. The overwhelming feature was the growth in student numbers, with staff and buildings relatively at a standstill. The government gave what seemed possible: in 1939 its grants to the universities totalled £157,000; in 1946, £455,000, with a further £146,000 for buildings, more than double the amount for that purpose in either of the two years before the war. [347] But with the building trade distracted by shortage of materials and of houses, a few temporary buildings and the conversion of some larger Army huts were the universities' ration. The dividing of classes and repetition of lectures, which even so had the air of public meetings, became commonplace, and staff quarters shared the overcrowding: for instance, in the English Department at Auckland one senior lecturer had a small room in a metal hut, another shared with a lecturer a dark and noisy room, and the professor's room was a classroom every day of the week. [348]

On staff–student ratio, Canterbury figures may be cited. There, in 1935–8, a staff of 75 both full-time and part-time taught 1032 internal and 108 external students; by 1945 the staff had increased to 86, while there were 1620 internal and 272 external students. [349] There was also severe shortages of laboratory equipment and of some books. A professor of botany wrote in 1948, ‘The text book shortage is tragic; large classes of students have to share a single library copy of a book which all should use regularly.’ [350] Geography I classes at

Canterbury had, since 1944 at least, been issued with cyclostyled copies of the set text-book no longer available in printed form. [351]

In these conditions two courses were possible: to build larger universities and recruit more staff, or to reduce student numbers by tougher entry and standards. The Auckland Star in August 1944 saw conflict between the idea of a university as the natural centre of an aristocracy of intellect and an institution where entry was a democratic right: ‘It is to be feared that the latter conception has won the conflict in New Zealand.’ [352] Voices, even some student voices then and later, supported the idea of reduced numbers, [353] but the Star was right: the universities were bent on the expansion of staff and buildings. A year later another article in the Star said that New Zealand must compete for professors and lecturers on the world market: inbreeding led to stagnation and degeneration. It adversely compared local pay rates and staff–student ratios with those overseas— Auckland had one lecturer to 32 students: Britain, excluding

Oxford and Cambridge which had one lecturer to 5½ students, averaged one lecturer to nine students; Sydney, 1:15; Melbourne, 1:17—saying that staff should be doubled as soon as possible. [354]

Canterbury had already urged increased salary scales: lecturers' pay, which then ranged from £300 a year to £650, should range from £400 to £1,000; for professors, then on £900–£1,000, the basic salary should be £1,350. [355] In January 1946 the Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, Mr Justice Smith, told the Senate that it was trying to run a third-rate university with no comprehensive view of its purpose and should, with the college councils, devise a five-year plan to raise standards. He spoke of teachers burdened with clerical work as well as over many students, and proposed as a first step full-time heads for all colleges at £2,000 a year. He also urged that instead of each college advancing its claims for money, there should be a quasi-independent third party, like the British University Grants Committee, to make financial recommendations to the government, and pointed to the British government's having recently more than doubled its university grant to £5.9 million. [356] This was followed up strongly by Professor Ian Gordon [357] in the New Zealand

Listener. New Zealand had always run its university on the cheap and now enormous classes were straining buildings, staff and equipment inadequate 10 or 20 years ago. Rooms filled with two or three hundred were so common now that they had ceased to be even a grim joke; the largest were fitted with microphones and loud-speakers, laboratories were packed morning, afternoon and evening, with students queuing up for the available apparatus; pressure on libraries was such that students were facing examinations having had no chance of getting near some of the important books. In most departments, save for junior assistants, there had been no increase in staff in years, though student numbers might have tripled. This rise, claimed Gordon, was one of the most remarkable social changes in the country. He said that the 1944 roll of the University of New Zealand (at 6584) exceeded that of any British university in 1939 except London: Cambridge then had 6000 students, Oxford 5600, Manchester 2800, Edinburgh 3700. There was still good work being done here, but unless all concerned faced up to the need to pay more, the university would suffocate in numbers. [358] A few months later he extended this theme: the university was at the crossroads, its choice one of profound significance for the future. Should it continue, as it had done largely in the past, to do a good job in the basic training of young undergraduates, or would it develop in addition a research programme that would bring the New Zealand university in line with those elsewhere? [359]

The answer was to come piecemeal: in the years ahead lay a University Grants Committee, six separate, degree-conferring universities, the long pursuit of staff, buildings and equipment; and, mercifully unguessed at in the late Forties, further bewildering student increases. At a time of crisis the universities identified themselves with national needs, co-operated in a massive rehabilitation programme and were launched upon an expansion course that was to reflect national rather than university ideals.

[1] 'A to J1938, E–2, p. 3

[2] Ibid., 1939, E–1, p. 3

[3] Ibid., 1938, E–2, p. 3

[4] Ibid., p. 20

[5] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 212

[6] A to J1946, E–1, p. 2

[7] Evening Star, 28 Jan, 3 Feb 42, pp. 4, 4

[8] Press, 28 Jan 42, p. 4

[9] Ibid., 3 Mar 42, p. 4

[10] Ibid., 17, 27 Feb 42, pp. 4, 6; Education Gazette, Apr 42, pp. 89 and 78, where a child reported: ‘Dad brought home a last and some leather yesterday and told us he was sending in a bill to Dr Beeby for shoe repairs.’

[11] An exception was the special school for the deaf at Sumner, taken over by the military in December 1941. From its seaward position it was considered vulnerable and on 11 March 1942 the Christchurch EPS told the Minister of Education that it would be ‘nothing less than monstrous’ if more than 100 deaf children were brought to a place of danger. The military occupation continued till the beginning of 1942, the children meanwhile going to improvised schools in a large house at Fendalton. ( A to J 1944, E 4, p. 4)

[12] NZ Herald, 20 Feb, 14 Mar 41, pp. 6 & 11,6

[13] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 234

[14] Palmerston North Times, 3 Feb 43, p. 4

[15] A to J1943, E-2, p. 3

[16] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 231; Auckland Star, 28 Nov 42, p. 6; Nz. Herald, 19 Dec 42, p. 4

[17] NZ Herald, 30 Jan, 9 Feb 42, pp. 6, 6; Auckland Star, 10 Nov 43, p. 3; A to J1943, E–2, p. 3

[18] NZ Herald, 24 Feb 42, p. 4

[19] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, p. 126

[20] Auckland Star, 27 Oct 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 8 Jan 44, p. 7

[21] NZ Herald, 25 Nov 41, p. 6

[22] Ibid., 10 Feb 42, p. 4

[23] Ibid., 20 Feb 42, p. 6

[24] Auckland Star, 20 Mar 42, p. 3 (photo)

[25] NZ Herald, 1 Jul 42, p. 4

[26] Ibid., 3 Apr 44, p. 2

[27] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, Table V, p. 55

[28] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 931

[29] Southland Times, 7 Mar 40, p. 4

[30] A to J1947, E–1, p. 4

[31] See p. 225

[32] Evening Post, 23 Aug 40, p. 6

[33] Ibid., 21 Mar 42, p. 9

[34] Press, 7 Feb 42, p. 6

[35] NZ Herald, 23 Oct 41, p. 2

[36] A to J1943, E–2, p. 3. It seems that at least as many entered boys' secondary schools during 1916–18. Ibid., 1917, E–1, p. 5, 1919, E–1, p. 34

[37] NZ Herald, 28 May, 12 Jun 42, pp. 2, 2; Otago Daily Times, 26 May 42, p. 2

[38] F. M. Renner, headmaster Rongotai College, Wellington, NZ Herald, 31 Jul 42, p. 4

[39] Ibid., 4 Aug 42, p. 4, quoting from National Education

[40] A to J1943, E–1, p. 1; another report ( ibid., E–2, p. 3) stated that the forces had taken 39% of post-primary men teachers. According to Yearbook 1947–49, p. 156, such teachers (excluding those in private or Maori schools) numbered 908 in 1940, dropped to 707 in 1942, rose to 759 in 1943, 878 in 1944 and 1044 in 1945, while the 630 women post-primary teachers of 1940 rose to 718 in 1943, 761 in 1944 and 838 in 1945; by 1947 there were 858 women and 1254 men.

[41] NZ Herald, 28 May 42, p. 2

[42] Ibid., 12 Jun 42, p. 2

[43] Ibid., 6 Aug 42, p. 2; Evening Post, 23 Jul 42, p. 4

[44] Press, 21 Nov 42, p. 4

[45] Mrs R. G. Spooner, Opotiki, to author, 15 Sep 69

[46] Evening Star, 21 Jul 43, p. 4

[47] A to J1941, E–1, p. 2, 1942, E–1, p. 1

[48] Ibid., 1946, E–1, p. 5

[49] Smithells, Philip Ashton (1910–77): b UK; Superintendent Physical Educ Dept NZ 1939–47; Dir Physical Educ School, OU from 1947

[50] WHN, ‘ Education Department’, pp. 196–209, drafted by P. A. Smithells; A to J 1940, E–1, p. 4, and subsequent reports; Auckland Star, 27 Aug 40, p. 9; Dominion, 12 Oct 43, p. 3; NZ Herald, 25 Mar 44, p. 4

[51] Education Gazette, 1 Aug, 1 Oct 42, pp. 184, 232, 1 Jul, 2 Aug 43, pp. 154, 196

[52] A to J1943, E–1, p. 3, 1945, E–1, p. 4

[53] Ibid., 1941, E–1, p. 5

[54] Ibid., 1946, E–1, p. 3

[55] Yearbook1945, p. 111, 1946, p. 130

[56] see p. 1097

[57] Wellington Nursery Play Centre Association, Folder 30 (Wellington Central Committee Minutes 1941–4), Folder 31 (ditto, Minutes 1944–9), Folder 38 (Karori Play Centre Minutes & Correspondence 1941–2)

[58] Press, 30 Jan, 12 Nov 42, pp. 2, 2. The committee comprised the five women—Dr Helen Field, Mesdames Read Masters and Hallam Gresham, Misses R. Wilkie and D. E. Dalton–with Dr H. E. W. Robertson and Messrs A. C. Brassington, W. S. McGibbon and L. C. Webb.

[59] Press, 24 Nov 42, p. 2

[60] Wellington Nursery Play Centre Association, Folder 27 (Annual Reports 1943–4, 1944–5); Auckland Star, 9 Dec 44, p. 8, 3 Mar 45, p. 3

[61] A to J1944, E–1, p. 2

[62] NZPD, vol 262, p. 935; A to J1944, E–1, p. 1

[63] Auckland Star, 21 Oct 43, p. 4

[64] In 1922 the Department of Education began providing correspondence classes for the primary education of children unable to attend school on grounds of remoteness or illness; classes were extended in 1929 to provide secondary education, to University Entrance examination level; by 1938 correspondence tuition had been further extended for young people unable to attend post-primary evening classes; the post-primary section of the Correspondence School outstripped the primary section within the next decade; and by the 1980s of a total of 19 000 students, 3500 were secondary pupils, nearly 13 000 tertiary, with 390 pre-school, 914 primary and 1248 pupils in need of specialised tuition.

[65] Education Act 1914, sec 59; Mason in NZPD, vol 263, p. 573; NZ Herald, 14 Mar 41, p. 6

[66] Press, 22 Aug 42, p. 6; Dominion, 7 Dec 42, p. 6; see p. 1131

[67] The Agricultural Workers Act 1936 prohibited the employment for hire on a dairy farm of anyone under 15 years but this did not apply to boys working on family farms.

[68] In 1942 the Labour Department confirmed that those under 14 were not employed on machines, adding, ‘it may be that in some workrooms, girls over 14 years of age are employed on power machines of the standard type, but the work is usually of a comparatively light nature.’ A to J 1942, H–11, p. 4

[69] Ibid., 1940, 1941, 1942, all H–11, pp. 3, 3, 4; only in the last two cited do the annual reports of the Labour Dept give figures for the under-14-year-olds

[70] Ibid., 1943, H–11, p. 5

[71] Otago Daily Times, 23 Nov 40, p. 8; Evening Post, 3 Apr, 23, 31 Jul, 11 Dec 40, pp. 15, 4, 6, 15, 20 Feb, 25 Mar 41, pp. 10, 6, 5 Feb, 24 Mar 42, pp. 6, 8; NZ Herald, 5 Feb 41, p. 10; A to J1943, E–2, p. 4

[72] Evening Star, 26 Mar 42; Evening Post, 17 Aug 42, p. 4; Auckland Star, 4 Feb 43, p. 4

[73] Otago Daily Times, 2 Aug 40, p. 5; Auckland Star, 28 Nov 44, p. 4

[74] eg, NZ Herald, 22 Feb 41, p. 10, 31 Jan 42, p. 6; Dominion, 1 Sep 42, p. 4; Evening Post, 1, 6 Nov 41, pp. 8, 11

[75] Otago Daily Times, 2 Aug 40, p. 5; see p. 1046

[76] NZ Herald, 11 Jun 42, p. 2

[77] Evening Post, 23 Jun 43, p. 6

[78] see p. 1129

[79] Press, 23 Oct 41, p. 4

[80] Hare, Labour in New Zealand 1942, pp. 35–6

[81] Auckland Star, 15 Dec 42, p. 2

[82] Ibid., 21 Dec 42

[83] Ibid., 31 Dec 42, p. 2

[84] Press, 23 Dec 42

[85] Ibid., 8 Jan 43, p. 6

[86] Dominion, 7 Dec 42, p. 6; see p. 1128

[87] Press, 6 Mar 43, p. 6

[88] NZPD, vol 262, pp. 246–7

[89] Ibid., pp. 247, 316

[90] Auckland Star, 20 Mar 43, p. 6

[91] Press, 9 Mar 43, p. 6

[92] Ibid., 9, 11 Mar, 19 Apr 43, pp. 6, 4 & 6, 6; Evening Post, 6, 13 May 43, pp. 4, 4; Calder, p. 542

[93] Press, 3 Apr 43, p. 4

[94] Ibid., 17 Mar 43, p. 4

[95] Ibid., 3 Apr 43, p. 4

[96] Ibid., 16 Apr 43, p. 4

[97] Ibid., 5 Apr 43

[98] Evening Post, 6 May 43, p. 4

[99] Star–Sun, 15 Apr 43, p. 4

[100] Dominion, 5 May 43, p. 6

[101] Ibid., 5, 8 May 43, pp. 4, 4

[102] Evening Post, 22 Jun 43, p. 3; A to J1943, E–1, pp. 2–3

[103] NZPD, vol 263, p. 586, also pp. 591, 663; Dominion, 6 Aug 43, p. 4. A. J. P. Taylor, stating that the British 1944 Education Act made religion compulsory for the first time, did not attribute this to stronger Christian convictions, rather the reverse. Hitherto it had been assumed that schools would provide religion without being told to do so, but now the Christian devotion of teachers and parents could no longer be relied on, and Christianity had to be propped up with legislative enactments. English History 1914–45, Pelican edition, p. 689. Angus Calder wrote: ‘Future historians of the decline of religion may well conclude that the making compulsory of the joyless and perfunctory service in schools was all that was needed to consummate the process. However, it seemed at the time to be a triumph for the Churches.’ The People's War, p. 545

[104] NZPD, vol 263, pp. 110–11

[105] Domnion, 21 Oct 43, p. 4

[106] Ibid., 9 Dec 43, p. 4, 27 Jan 44; Press, 19 Nov 43, p. 4

[107] Auckland Star, 6 Jul 44, p. 6

[108] Dominion, 5 Oct 44, p. 4

[109] Auckland Star, 30 Oct 44, p. 6

[110] A to J1946, H–11, p. 4; see p. 1129

[111] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 931

[112] The population of Auckland increased by 25 440 between 1940 and 1944. Auckland Star, 16 Sep 44, p. 6

[113] A to J1945, E–1, p. 2

[114] NZ Herald, 18, 26 Feb, 6 Apr 44, pp. 4, 8, 4

[115] Ibid., 9, 10, 18 Feb 44, pp. 4, 4, 4

[116] Ibid., 24 Sep 42, p. 4

[117] Dominion, 9, 10 Feb 44, pp. 4, 4

[118] Ibid., 25 Sep 44, p. 6

[119] A to J1945, E–1, p. 2; Auckland Star, 19 Dec 44, p. 6

[120] NZ Herald, 2 Feb, 12 Apr 44, pp. 2, 6; Auckland Star, 31 Jan 45, p. 3

[121] NZ Herald, 6 Apr 44, p. 4; Auckland Star, 19 Jul 44, p. 6

[122] NZPD, vol 263, p. 233

[123] Dominion, 23 Jul 43, p. 3

[124] Auckland Star, 3 Aug 44, p. 3

[125] see p. 1118

[126] Lambourne, Nelson Thomas, ISO('37) (1877–1966): Dir Educ 1933–40

[127] Education Gazette, 2 Oct 39, pp. 197–8

[128] Evening Post, 1 May 40, p. 9

[129] See pp. 124–7

[130] Evening Post, 9 Jul 40, p. 8

[131] Education Gazette, Dec 41, p. 250

[132] see p. 1045

[133] Dominion, 11 Dec 42, p. 6

[134] Press, 11 Dec 42, p. 2

[135] Ibid., 21 Nov 42, p. 6

[136] Auckland Star, 25 Jul 42, p. 3

[137] Press, 16 Jul 42, p. 4

[138] Evening Post, 23 Jul 40, p. 13

[139] Ibid., 25 Oct 41, p. 11

[140] Ibid., 12 Nov 41, p. 6

[141] Taranaki Daily News, 12 Aug 40, p. 9

[142] Dominion, 7 Jul 43, p. 6

[143] Auckland Star, 9 Nov 43, p. 2

[144] Ibid., 4 Dec 43, p. 4

[145] Press, 20 Jul 40, p. 14

[146] Ibid., 15, 24 Aug 40, pp. 6, 8

[147] Ibid., 16 Aug 40, p. 14

[148] Ibid., 15 Aug 40, p. 8

[149] Star–Sun, 24 Jun 42, p. 6; Press, 19 Sep 42, p. 4

[150] Press, 25 Oct 43, p. 4

[151] Evening Post, 22 Aug, 25 Sep 40, pp. 8, 9

[152] Auckland Star, 20 Aug 40, p. 5

[153] Dominion, 7 Mar 41, p. 9; NZ Herald, 24 Apr 41, p. 11

[154] see p. 781

[155] NZ Herald, 17 Dec 42, p. 2

[156] Press, 11 Sep 42, p. 4

[157] Auckland Star, 4 Dec 43, p. 4

[158] Dominion, 19 Dec 42, p. 8, 13 Sep 43, p. 4

[159] Evening Post, 20 Apr 43, p. 4

[160] Ibid., 24 Nov 41, p. 9

[161] Ibid., 6, 15 Dec 41, pp. 10, 7; Press, 17, 24 Nov 41, pp. 6, 6; NZ Herald, 20 Dec 41, p. 10; Education Gazette, 1 Dec 41, p. 255

[162] Palmerston North Times, 8, 14 Jan 42, pp. 7, 4

[163] NZ Herald, 4 Feb 42, p. 6; Evening Post, 5 Feb 42, p. 9

[164] Evening Post, 6 Mar, 23 Apr 42, pp. 6, 8

[165] Palmerston North Times, 23 Mar 42, p. 3

[166] Evening Post, 21 Oct 42, p. 7

[167] Press, 4 Mar 42, p. 6

[168] NZ Herald, 22 May 42, p. 5

[169] Point Blank, 15 Oct 40, p. 25; Press, 22 Oct 40, p. 9; Evening Post, 28 Oct 40, p. 6

[170] Straight Furrow, 15 Nov 41, p. 12; A to J1941, H–11A, p. 10; also Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, 25 Jul 40, p. 6; NZ Herald, 5 Aug 40, p. 4; Evening Post, 28 Oct, 26 Nov 40, pp. 6, 4; Otago Daily Times, 1 Nov 40, p. 6; Press, 29 Nov, 6, 18, 24 Dec 40, pp. 8, 8, 8, 6

[171] NZ Herald, 19 Dec 41, p. 6; see p. 1129, fn 67

[172] Press, 6 Nov, 5, 13 Dec 41, pp. 4, 6, 8

[173] A to J1942, H–11A, p. 6; also NZ Herald, 5 Nov 41, p. 8

[174] Auckland Star, 11 Dec 42, p. 2

[175] Ibid., 2 Dec 42, p. 4

[176] Dominion, 5 Dec 42, p. 6

[177] NZ Herald, 4 Dec 42, p. 4

[178] Dominion, 22 Oct 42, p. 4

[179] Auckland Star, 19 Dec 42, p. 6; Dominion, 2 Jan 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 10 Dec 42, p. 2

[180] Journal of Agriculture, 15 Dec 42, p. 321

[181] Press, 19 Dec 42, p. 4

[182] Dominion, 3, 5 Dec 42, pp. 6, 6; Press, 7 Jan 43, p. 2. For Army Scheme, see p. 720

[183] Dominion, 4 Dec 42, p. 4; Otago Daily Times, 4 Dec 42, p. 2; Press, 19 Dec 42, p. 4

[184] Press, 5 Dec 42, p. 3

[185] Ibid., 27 Nov 41, p. 6; Evening Post, 26 Nov 40, p. 4

[186] Auckland Star, 16 Oct 43, p. 2

[187] Dominion, 29 Dec 42, p. 4

[188] Auckland Star, 25 Feb 43, p. 6

[189] Ibid., 17 Nov 43, p. 4

[190] Dominion, 19 Nov 43, p. 6

[191] Auckland Star, 16, 22 Oct 43, pp. 2, 4

[192] Ibid., 8 Dec 43, p. 6

[193] Ibid., 16 Dec 43, p. 6

[194] Ibid., 5 Oct 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 19 Jan 44, p. 4

[195] NZ Herald, 19 Jan 44, p. 4

[196] Ibid., 5 Feb 44, p. 8

[197] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 36

[198] Ibid., 1945, H–11A, p. 84

[199] Calder, p. 250

[200] Ibid., p. 251

[201] NZ Herald, 27 Jan 42, p. 2; Salient, 23 Apr 42; Dominion, 8, 19 Jun 42, pp. 6, 2

[202] Ball, Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas George, OBE('46) (1895–): teacher 1919–27; inspector native schools 1928, senior inspector Head Office 1940; Dir AEWS 1942–6; Asst Dir Educ 1950; chmn Maori Educ Foundation from 1961

[203] NZ Observer, 17 Mar 43, p. 13

[204] NZ Libraries, Jul 44, pp. 97–116

[205] The bulletin's editor was Captain Leicester Webb, in civil life a university lecturer and leader-writer on the Christchurch Press. Press, 9 Mar 43, p. 4

[206] Ibid., 10 Dec 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 10 Dec 42, p. 2; A to J1943, E–1, pp. 4–5

[207] Dominion, 19 Jun 42, p. 2

[208] Press, 2 Mar 43, p. 3

[209] Truth, 22 Sep 43, p. 21; Auckland Star, 12 May 43, p. 2

[210] Report of Lincoln Agricultural College, on War History File, ‘Universities and the War’ (hereinafter WHF, ‘Universities’)

[211] Evening Post, 28 Nov 44, p. 5

[212] Ibid.

[213] J. C. Beaglehole, Victoria University College, p. 271

[214] See p. 175

[215] Dominion, 14 Sep 35, p. 10; see pp. 175–6

[216] Evening Post, 17 Dec 35, p. 12

[217] Heard on the steps of Victoria University College, Wellington, in September 1938, by author

[218] Statutes Amendment Act 1939, sec 53

[219] Otago retained its foundation title of ‘ Otago University’, the other three were named Canterbury University College, Auckland University College and Victoria University College ( Wellington).

[220] Minutes of the Senate of the University of New Zealand 1938, p. 16

[221] Ibid., 1942, p. 27

[222] Ibid., 1936, p. 23

[223] Ibid., 1939, p. 72

[224] Ibid., 1940, p. 87

[225] Ibid., 1941, pp. 66, 68

[226] Ibid., 1946, p. 76

[227] Packer, Professor John (1899–): b Aust; lecturer then Prof Chemistry CUC 1923–65; chmn Canty branch NZ Inst Chemistry 1936, Dom Pres 1949; member Academic Board NZU 1943–61, Senate 1954–61

[228] University Reform: report by a committee of Canterbury University College Students' Association, p. 9

[229] Salient, [1940], vol III, no 8, [p. 3]

[230] Minutes of Senate… 1940, pp. 59, 73

[231] Evening Post, 9 Oct 40, p. 11

[232] Minutes of Senate… 1942, p. 50

[233] Ibid., 1946, p. 56

[234] Salient, [1940], vol III, no 8, [p. 3]

[235] Evening Post, 14 Jan 41, p. 10

[236] Beaglehole, p. 232

[237] A to Js 1940 to 1947, all E–7, Table M2

[238] Ibid.

[239] Sir Thomas Hunter, Report of the War's Impact, dated Dec 1948, p. 2, in WHF, ‘Universities’

[240] Evening Post, 24 Mar 42, p. 4

[241] NZ Herald, 1 Apr 42, p. 4

[242] Hunter, Report of Dec 1948, p. 5, in WHF, ‘Universities’

[243] Professor R. O. McGechan, Replies to Queries by Sir Thomas Hunter, 27 Apr 48, ibid., p. 14

[244] Soper, Professor Frederick George, CBE('50) (1898–): b Wales; Prof Chemistry OU 1936–53; OU Council 1944–51, 1953–63; Senate NZU 1946–61; Vice-Chanc OU 1953–64; Dir Woollen Mills Research Assn 1937–50, Dep Dir Scientific Development (Chemistry) DSIR 1942–5; Pres NZ Inst Chemistry 1947; Vice-Pres NZ Royal Soc; exec Wool Industries Research Inst 1957–68, dep chmn 1963; chmn NZ Nuffield Advisory Cncl 1960—73

[245] Hunter, Report of Dec 1948 and accompanying documents, WHF, ‘Universities’; F. G. Soper, ‘Chemistry in New Zealand’, in Journal of NZ Institute of Chemistry, Nov 75, pp. 99–100; Otago Daily Times, 14 Mar 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 10 May 41, p. 10; see p. 493

[246] Danilow, Nicholas (1896–); military service Russia 1916–17; left Russia after Revolution 1917; to NZ 1939, school teacher 1942–55, 1942 lecturer VUW in German, introduced 1st NZU course in Russian, retired as Associate Professor 1968; Visiting Prof AU 1968–9

[247] Otago Daily Times, 17 Apr 40, p. 13; Danilow to Historical Publications Branch, 1979

[248] Dominion, 19 Jan 44, p. 6

[249] NZ Slavonic Journal, Supplement to No 5 (Winter 1970), pp. 1–3; NZ University Calendars 1944–50

[250] See p. 224ff

[251] NZPD, vol 257, p. 230

[252] Otago Daily Times, 22 Nov 40, p. 5

[253] Press, 14 Jun 41, p. 12

[254] Denham, Dr Henry George (1880–1943): Prof Chemistry CUC from 1923, Rector from 1941

[255] Press, 14 Jun 41, p. 12

[256] Ibid., 21 Jun 41, p. 5

[257] Beaglehole, pp. 191–2, 213–18; W. Appleton in a 1938 election speech, ‘I know a little about Victoria College. There were Communists at Victoria College when I was there and there are ten times as many there now…. The spirit of Communism is permeating our scholastic system from the professors down.’ Evening Post, 28 Sep 38, p. 22

[258] See p. 230

[259] Otago Daily Times, 16 Mar 40, p. 9

[260] Bennett, Bishop Frederick Augustus (1872–1950): 1st Bishop of Aoteoroa 1928

[261] Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, 4 Jul 40, p. 8

[262] Begg, Neil Colquhoun, OBE('72) (1915–): Dir Medical Services Plunket Soc, Pres Medical Assn NZ; 2NZEF 1941–6; paediatrician Dunedin Hospital 1949–56; author; chmn NZ Historic Places Trust

[263] Otago Daily Times, 2 May 40, p. 6

[264] Ibid., 3 May 40

[265] Kiwi, 1941, pp. 3–4

[266] Dickie, Very Rev Dr John (1875–1942): Prof Presby Theological Hall, Dunedin 1909, Principal 1928; Moderator Assembly 1934; theological writer

[267] Evening Post, 8 May 40, p. 4

[268] Rollings, William Penrose (1905–43): b Aust; lawyer; member VUC Cncl from 1939

[269] Evening Post, 1 May 41, p. 8

[270] As an unskilled carpenter, Alun Richards faced an uneasy future. This was relieved by Andrew Fletcher of Fletcher Brothers, a firm with a great future, at the suggestion of the carpenters' union secretary taking him on as an adult apprentice. Besides learning to build houses, he wrote weekly articles for the New Zealand Listener, signed A.M.R., for about three years, then worked for Internal Marketing and Economic Information, and later for CORSO, before returning to the Church. There, besides ministering, he edited books that in Britain, the USA and the Pacific pioneered comic strip techniques to convey serious ideas. Information from Alun Richards, Oct 75

[271] Evening Post, 11 Dec 40, p. 13

[272] Ibid., 26 Apr 41, p. 8

[273] Smith, Hon Sir David, Kt('48) (1888–): Judge Supreme Court 1928–48, 1949–50; VUC Cncl 1939–45; Chancellor NZU 1945–61; chmn NZ Bd Trade 1950–9

[274] O'Leary, Rt Hon Sir Humphrey, KCMG('47), PC, KC (1886–1953): VUC Cncl 1934–46, chmn 1941–6, NZU Senate 1943–5; Chief Justice NZ 1946–51

[275] Luckie, Martin Maxwell Fleming (d 1951 aet 83): lawyer, Wgtn City Cncl 1913–47, Dep Mayor 17 years; chmn Wgtn Manpower Cmte 1940; chmn No 4 Armed Forces Appeal Bd 1941; VUC Cncl 1921–31, 1939–49

[276] Evening Post, 26 Apr 41, p. 8; full text of resolution, ibid., 29 Apr 41, p. 6

[277] Hunter, Sir Thomas, KBE('39) (1876–1953): b London, educated NZ; Principal VUC 1938–50, former Prof Philosophy; NZU Senate from 1912, Vice-Chancellor 1929–47

[278] Evening Post, 27 Jun 41, p. 6

[279] Combs, Frank Livingstone (1882–1960): Vice-Principal Wgtn Training College 1936–8; twice Pres NZ Educational Institute

[280] Evening Post, 27 Jun 41, p. 6

[281] Ibid., 25 Jul 41, p. 6

[282] Ibid., 7 Jul 42, p. 4

[283] R. S. Parker, F. L. W. Wood, J. C. Beaglehole, A. W. Free, A. Eaton Hurley, W. P. Rollings

[284] Evening Post, 13 Jul 42, p. 4

[285] Barrington, Diary, 17 May 43

[286] Evening Post, 25 Sep 42, p. 4

[287] See p. 262

[288] See p. 263

[289] Press, 1 Sep 42, p. 4

[290] Acland, Henry Dyke (1867–1942): CUC Bd Governors from 1909, chmn 1918–28; NZU Senate from 1928

[291] Press, 29 Sep 42, p. 5

[292] Ibid., 29 Feb 44, p. 4

[293] Ibid.

[294] Canta, 13 Apr 44

[295] Press, 14 Apr 44, p. 4; Canta, 27 Apr 44

[296] Canta, 8 Jun 44

[297] see p. 893

[298] Beaglehole, p. 235

[299] Salient, vol IV, no 5, 6 Jun 41, p. 2

[300] Beaglehole, p. 235

[301] Spike, 1940, p. 77; Beaglehole, p. 242

[302] Salient, 17 Jun 42

[303] Ibid., 14 Jul 43

[304] Ibid., 4 Oct 44

[305] Otago Daily Times, 1 Jul 40, p. 6. Later suggestions to emulate Victoria in contributing to War Loans failed to carry the Otago students' executive. Salient, 14 Jul 43

[306] Craccum, Apr 42

[307] Spike, 1939, p. 73, 1942, p. 33; Beagkhole, pp. 235–6

[308] Salient, 2 Jul 42

[309] Spike, 1941, pp. 36–7; Evening Post, 29 Sep 41, p. 4 (abridged)

[310] Critic, 6 Apr 44

[311] Ibid., 22 Jun 44

[312] Salient, 26 Mar 42, 26 May, 11 Aug 43

[313] Ibid., 9 Jun 43

[314] NZ Herald, 18 May 43, p. 2

[315] Press, 13 Oct 43, p. 2; Dominion, 26 Apr 44, p. 4

[316] Craccum, 13 Oct 43

[317] A to J1944, H–11A, p. 37

[318] Dominion, 8 Oct 43, p. 4

[319] Truth, 22 Dec 43, p. 7, NZ Herald, 16 Mar 44, p. 4

[320] Dominion, 29 Nov 43, p. 6

[321] A to J1944, H–11A, pp. 17, 37

[322] NZ Herald, 4 Dec 43, p. 8; Auckland Star, 16 May 44, p. 4; Craccum, 4 Oct 44

[323] Critic, 1 Sep 44; Craccum, 4 Oct 44

[324] A to J1945, H–11A, p. 85

[325] Craccum, 28 Jun 45

[326] From Table M2 in A to Js, E–7, for the years concerned

[327] Auckland Star, 15 Aug 44, p. 7

[328] see p. 1154

[329] Professor R. Jack, Otago, Replies to Queries by Sir Thomas Hunter, nd, on WHF, ‘Universities’, p. 6

[330] see p. 1281ff

[331] A to J1947, H–18, pp. 12–13

[332] Ibid., 1951, H–18, p. 7, and see p. 1178

[333] see p. 1282

[334] G. S. Troup in University Reform…, p. 18

[335] A to J1948, E–7, p. 2

[336] Professor A. H. Tocker, Replies to Queries by Sir Thomas Hunter, 3 Oct 47, WHF, ‘Universities’, p. 8

[337] Professor S. Musgrove, ibid., nd, p. 22

[338] Professor F. L. W. Wood, ibid., nd, p. 10

[339] Professor A. B. Fitt, ibid., nd, p. 21

[340] K. J. Scott, ibid., nd, p. 11

[341] McGechan, ibid., 27 Apr 48, pp. 14–15. The Hon Sir David Beattie, Governor-General, formerly Mr Justice, in a broadcast interview on 3 February 1980, said that he and his contemporaries were ‘known to some of our colleagues as “LIB Rehab”.’ He mentioned the March examinations and said that the standard was not as high as it is at present.

[342] A to J1948, H–18, p. 10

[343] Ibid., 1949, H–18, p. 10, 1951, H–18, p. 7

[344] Hunter, ‘Concessions’, p. 6, in WHF, ‘Universities’

[345] Craccum, 6 Jun 46

[346] Ibid., 6, 28 Jun, 5 Oct 45, 19 Jun 47

[347] Hunter, Report of Dec 48, pp. 5–6, WHF, ‘Universities’

[348] Musgrove, Replies to Queries by Sir Thomas Hunter, ibid., nd, p. 22

[349] Tocker, 3 Oct 47, ibid., p. 7

[350] Professor H. D. Gordon, 31 Mar 48, ibid., p. 12

[351] Information supplied by P. Wheeler, Mar 80

[352] Auckland Star, 26 Aug 44

[353] Craccum, 6 Jun 46

[354] Auckland Star, 14 Aug 45, p. 6

[355] Evening Post, 2 Apr 45, p. 4

[356] Ibid., 17, 22 Jan 46, pp. 12, 6

[357] Gordon, Professor Ian Alistair, CBE('71) (1908–): b Scotland; Prof English VUC 1936–74; Vice-Chancellor NZU 1947–52, member University Grants Cmte 1962–72; 6 overseas visiting university posts, NZ rep 3 internat conferences; AEWS Pacific &

Japan 1944, 1946

[358] NZ Listener, 15 Feb 46, pp. 14–15; Yearbook 1946, pp. 142–3

[359] NZ Listener, 10 May 46, pp. 12–13

[*] includes 862 male and 44 female students on short courses at agricultural colleges

[†] includes 1086 male & 2 female students on short courses at agricultural colleges

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 23 — The Arts Survive

CHAPTER 23
The Arts Survive

WHEN the war began New Zealand writing was on the move. Overseas literary and social-political influences were guiding writers into new styles and subjects. The Depression reinforced worldwide literary interest in the poor, the under-privileged, the misfits, the inarticulate, the tough, in the special victims of an economic system whom hard work could not save or who had ceased to believe in hard work. In both poetry and prose there was direct and implicit protest against a system where want and frustration rewarded effort, where prices and mortgages defeated those who worked the land and where there was hunger in the midst of surplus. The Spanish war, which strongly affected many influential English writers, drew very little mention in New Zealand. [1] Of direct social satire there was little. The Sky is a Limpet, A. R. D. Fairburn's brilliant Joycean slash at Savage, was a solitary comet; for the Press from 1939 and the Listener from 1941 Allen Curnow as ‘Whim Wham’ made regular, often piercing, comment in verse on news, both overseas and local.

There was however, strong and conscious groping for expression of New Zealand identity, breaking clear of literary colonialism. There was search for awareness of the land and its occupants, for the human condition which had come out of the environment and the past. For some, this search was quickened by 1940 being the centennial of organised British settlement, with the question ‘What are we, after a hundred years in this land?’ asked at many levels. At their most literary, these ideas found clearest expression in three essays by M. H. Holcroft [2] — The Deepening Stream (1940), The Waiting Hills (1943), The Encircling Seas (1946)—and one by Roderick Finlayson [3] Our Life in this Land (1940); in Fairburn's Dominion (1938) and in poems by Allen Curnow and Charles Brasch. [4] In many other places they sounded more faintly.

The centennial produced many books. There was a large crop of histories—of provinces, towns, churches, societies. ‘Books are being printed and published in New Zealand at a greater rate than ever before’, declared John Harris, [5] librarian and reviewer, in April 1940. Besides the histories there were biographies, studies in economics and education, and a good deal of verse. [6] Government centennial publications, attractively produced, which summarised development over various fields, included Eric McCormick's [7] formative critical survey, Letters and Art in New Zealand.

In 1942 John Harris, examining the large increase in local publishing since 1933, as recorded in General Assembly Library copyright lists, noted that 305 books were published in 1940, 238 in 1941. There was relatively little imaginative work. By far the greater number were informative, with scientific and technical works leading the field. Most of them were commissioned by institutions or official bodies such as the Cawthron Institute, the Dairy Research Institute, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, other government departments and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. History writers were generally commissioned by the government for centennial purposes, or by local historical committees. [8] Later copyright lists for the war period show that publishing totals for 1942–3 did not fall much below those of 1941 and that in 1944–5 they rose to 270 items.

Apart from the Government Printer there were several sizeable publishing firms, notably Reed's, which matured in the centennial boom, and the veteran Whitcombe and Tombs. They concentrated on factual works about New Zealand, scientific, technical, educational and professional works (including weighty legal tomes), books on history and natural history, on Maori subjects, on many aspects of farming and on baby care. In 1945 a Whitcombe's manager spoke of the ‘Rescue the Perishing Department’ which reprinted books considered worth preserving, such as Maning's [9] Old New Zealand

(1922 and 1930), Satchell's [10] The Greenstone Door (1935) and The

Land of the Lost (1938), and Jane Mander's [11] The Story of a New

Zealand River (1938). Over the years the firm had published a number of novels; ‘the results have been patchy and this has taught us caution.’ It was usual for a London publisher on receiving the manuscript of a New Zealand novel to consult with the London office of Whitcombe and Tombs which, if it approved the book, would arrange to take a few hundred or a thousand or so copies, which would be printed in addition to those destined for the British publisher's usual markets. [12]

In 1935 John Lehmann, [13] editor of England's New Writing, began his search for imaginative work, especially of prose which in length or style was too unorthodox for established magazines. This search included work from colonial and foreign countries. Later, in his biography, he wrote that there are no satisfactory explanations for sudden flowerings of talent but that once the process starts it generates its own momentum, with people coming forward who might never have thought it worthwhile to develop those gifts in themselves or even to realise that they possessed them.

Why was it then that out of all the hundreds of towns and universities in the English speaking lands scattered over the seven seas, only one should at the time act as a focus of creative activity in literature of more than local significance, that it should be in

Christchurch, New Zealand, that a group of young writers had appeared, who were eager to assimilate the pioneer developments in style and technique that were being made in England and

America since the beginning of the century, to explore the world of the dispossessed and under-privileged for their material and to give their country a new conscience and spiritual perspective. [14]

Lehmann attempted no answer to his question but explained that his friend William Plomer [15] had shown him a little pamphlet. Conversations with my Uncle (1936), from an admirer in New Zealand,

Frank Sargeson. [16]

I was struck at once by the wit and the style of the short pieces, the skilful use of the vernacular idiom, and the tension between rebellion and acceptance underneath which lay an extraordinary warmth of feeling for the New Zealand scene….

Sargeson became a frequent contributor to New Writing and his letters led Lehmann to a circle of young writers of like mind and to publishing poems and stories by Brasch, Finlayson, Curnow, Fairburn and Glover. [17]

Sargeson, who claimed that he was strongly influenced by Sherwood Anderson [18] and that during the slump he was ‘more continuously in contact with the social nondescripts and misfits for whose company I always had a strong predilection’, [19] was at the start of a long, luminous and very influential career. For most of the war period he was known mainly for his short stories, though by 1944 his novel

That Summer was appearing in English New Writing. Both by example and by direct help and encouragement he was already influencing many other writers in New Zealand.

With few local publishing outlets, most non-factual writers' overseas appearance preceded or kept pace with New Zealand publication and recognition. Most novels, such as John A. Lee's Children of the Poor (1934) and The Hunted (1936), Robin Hyde's [20] Check to Your King, Passport to Hell (both 1936) and The Godwits Fly (1938), John Mulgan's [21] Man Alone (1939), found English publishers. Poets such as Robin Hyde, Eileen Duggan, [22] Gloria Rawlinson [23] and the youthful Fairburn had slim volumes published overseas; others, such as R. A. K. Mason, had poems accepted in English anthologies. A few small books of verse emerged during the

1930s and'40s from one or two private presses, such as the Handcraft Press, Wellington, and between 1932 and 1943 a Wellington journalist, C. A. Marris, [24] annually collected a book of conventionally poetical Best Poems. Poems and stories also appeared, under the same literary editor, in Harry Tombs's [25] quarterly magazine Art in

New Zealand.

The new poets and writers had little use for or place in these pages, satirised by Denis Glover in his Judgment of Paris (1938). Those who 30 or 40 years later were to be the grand old men of New Zealand's established literature were then struggling prophets, with little honour, save among the literary elite, in their own country. From 1934 until it was suppressed, for anticipated sedition, in June 1940, the radical fortnightly Tomorrow was the main platform for the lyrics and lampoons of the poets, the sketches and stories of prose writers. The New Zealand Listener, begun in June 1939, printed poems and stories from time to time. In its earliest years, the prose was often humorous, but some was edged, such as Sargeson's ‘Two Worlds’, A. P. Gaskell's [26] ‘The Picture in the Paper’, Leon du Chateau's [27] ‘The Law of the Tribe’ and Finlayson's ‘The Everlasting Miracle.’ [28] In Auckland, the short-lived Phoenix quarterly in 1932–3 had brought together some stirring minds, and later the printers Ron Holloway and Robert Lowry, with their own distinctions and very narrow means, offered a few of the rising authors to a limited public in works such as Sargeson's Conversation with my Uncle, Gaskell's Brown Man's Burden (1938), Fairburn's The Sky is a Limpet (1939), and Finlayson's Sweet Beulah Land (1942).

In 1936 in Christchurch the Caxton Press, run by Denis Glover and a few others, emerged from a year of stabled infancy. With commercial work providing its bread and butter, Caxton began its crusade to print whatever in prose or verse its directors considered worth printing. In its first years it was notable for its elegant small editions of poetry, produced with little expectation of profit. Glover's special interest apart, poems required less print than prose. Allan Curnow in 1945 remarked that of Caxton's 39 publications between 1935 and 1941, 25 were of verse. He added that their publication created an audience for verse; ‘Some verse they actually called into being because they were at hand to print it.’ [29] Its poets were almost a club: Mason, Glover, Fairburn, Curnow, Brasch, Dowling were core members, with a few somewhat older such as Ursula Bethel [30] and J. R. Hervey, [31] and a fledgling or two, such as Anton Vogt, [32] gathered in their company. Caxton also produced prose works, among them Sargeson's A Man and his Wife (1940), G. R. Gilbert's [33] Free to Laugh and Dance (1943), the first and last volumes of Holcroft's trilogy, G. M. Smith's [34] successive vigorous Notes from his back-block hospital in Hokianga, Professor F. Sinclair's [35] spirited prejudices, Lend me your Ears (1942), and Randal Burdon's [36] New Zealand

Notables (1941 and 1945).

Between 1942 and late 1944, with Glover away in the Navy, the Caxton Press reduced its output of imaginative work, and at this stage co-operative efforts developed, bringing new life into the publishing scene. Before the war, there were three separate co-operative bookshops—Progressive Books in Auckland and Christchurch and Modern Books in Wellington—each publishing a few pamphlets. In 1942 they combined to form the New Zealand Progressive Publishing Society in Wellington. The Society believed strongly that more local publishing was needed if New Zealand were to develop an independent and native literature. Having very little money, it had to publish work which did not use up much capital and brought quick returns. It concentrated at first on topical booklets chosen by an able selection committee, which had the help of informed readers, all voluntary workers. It published over a wide range. There were informative booklets such as H. Belshaw's [37] A General Survey of

Problems of Reconstruction; D. Robb's [38] Health Services and the People; L. Hearnshaw's [39] Hours of work in Wartime; The Shadow over New

Zealand: venereal disease (1942); W. B. Sutch's [40] Workers and the

War Effort (1942) and his Goodbye to Gold, a guide to the International Monetary fund (1944); Christina Guy's [41] Women on the

Home Front (1943), a discussion on help in the home; R. Gardner's [42]

Industrial Development in New Zealand (1944), R. L. Meek's [43] Maori

Problems Today (1944). It also produced A. R. D. Fairburn's reflections on national character, We New Zealanders, and his rejection of jingoism, Hands off the Tom-Tom (1944).

It reprinted in cheap editions several Caxton Press publications, also Stella Morice's [44] The Book of Wiremu (1944), a children's story, centred on a Maori boy, already serialised in the Listener (April– June 1941) and destined for a long life. It also printed new work such as Curnow's Sailing or Drowning, Holcroft's Waiting Hills, Clyde Carr's Poems, Burdon's Outlaw's Progress, Isobel Andrews's [45] play about women, The Willing Horse (1944), Arthur Barker's [46] translations of French poems, Twelve Echoes from France and Twelve

More Echoes (1943 and 1944), and New Zealand New Writing (1942–5).

During 1945 financial difficulties pressed upon the Progressive Publishing Society and unpaid effort could not endure for ever. Towards the end of the year it closed down, but its current publications were taken over by one member, Blackwood Paul, [47] returned from AEWS to civilian life as a Hamilton bookseller. He established a publishing side to his business, preserving the Society's ideals for the promotion of New Zealand literature and history. Beginning modestly, Paul's during the next 25 years produced handsomely many books which in earlier decades local publishers would not have attempted. Its enterprise in this area was in time shared but not equalled by other firms.

The Progressive Publishing Society's series of stories and verse,

New Zealand New Writing, edited by Ian Gordon, the young Professor of English at Wellington's university, was an echo of the English production edited by John Lehmann. Its first number, produced late in 1942, declared that it was an experiment not so much in writing as in publishing; some of its authors were well known, a few pieces had already appeared in other pages. It hoped to attract readers and encourage writers but at first no payment could be made. The Listener was pleased that during 1942, ‘in the worst crisis of our history’, someone had found time to assemble and edit a ‘distinctly better than average representation’ of local writing talent, and that someone else had found paper on which to print it.‘New Zealand has not so far been inarticulate, but it has not talked to itself. Now it proposes to do so.’ [48]

Contributors to the third and fourth issues received modest payments and though the struggles of production permitted only four issues, the last in March 1945, a number of writers had gained a wider public. Some of these authors, and others, were also published by the Caxton Press: 15 appeared in Speaking for Ourselves, edited by Sargeson in 1945. The Caxton miscellany Book, which had paused at No 6 in September 1942, was revived and expanded in February 1946 and No 9, the last, in July 1947, consisted mainly of short stories.

In all, the war years saw increased outlets for New Zealand poems and short stories whose brevity made them easier to publish than novels. The short story directly reporting an incident or episode was an inviting means for presenting a slab-of-life, its realism groomed by creative perception. War experiences, with service atmosphere and language at hand, were obvious themes, but they did not swamp the field. Glover's D-Day (1944), the essence of action, did not have a host of followers. In New Writing stories of fighting and of ships bombed were a modest minority; in Speaking for Ourselves there were no combat stories but three on the jangles of homecoming (dislocated values, bad memories, strangers in marriages, banal talk); one on an airman's off-duty adventures, and Gaskell's ‘Purity Squad’, where a Home Guard lunch is the setting for male gossip. His ‘Tidings of Joy’ ( New Writing No 4), about a 1941 Christmas party in a farming community darkened by news of two men lately killed, is powerful in its understatement and faithful in its record.

A literary score-keeper, Professor Robert Chapman, [49] in 1953 noted that out of the contributors to New Writing, Speaking for Ourselves and Book 9, 25 made no further appearance but 12 others, in the second half of the 1940s produced novels or short story collections or fiction in Landfall, the enduring quarterly begun by Charles Brasch in 1947, which on average printed two short stories or extracts from novels in each issue. [50] Chapman also noted that of ‘considerable’ fiction, always an arbitrary listing, [51] the period 1940–6 saw the appearance of only three novels and three collections of short stories. [52]

Between 1946 and 1951 eight New Zealanders published ten novels [53] and three story collections. [54] Two of these novels— For the Rest of Our Lives and Brave Company —were about the war, both giving it almost documentary treatment. About half the stories in Davin's [55] The Gorse Blooms Pale were of war, the others were set in Southland or elsewhere. Sad, off-duty airmen and men with scarred minds moved through most of Cole's [56] It was so Late; Gaskell stayed with his footballers and Home Guardsmen.

Apart from fiction, accounts of war experiences by New Zealanders soon appeared, augmenting the crop from overseas. Among them, in 1944, were A. S. Helm's [57] Fights and Furloughs in the

Middle East and F. Martyn's [58] Tripoli and Beyond. In 1945 came two that, in very different ways, held with authority the spirit and atmosphere of 2NZEF at its best: Jim Henderson's [59] Gunner Inglorious and James Hargest's [60] Farewell Campo 12. Some, such as

Passage to Tobruk: the diary of a Kiwi in the Middle East and Air-gunner, the adventures of Flying Officer H. Lyver, both by Francis

Jackson, [61] published in 1943 and 1944, were very popular. In Passage to Tobruk comradeship and badinage were wrapped around the main events up to Sidi Rezegh in November 1941, and a Singapore refugee ship's escape from a Japanese submarine is folded into the return voyage of the wounded from Africa. It had 143 small pages and eight drawings by Peter Mclntyre, [62] official war artist; in its first few months nearly 12 000 copies were sold. [63]

Top sales were claimed by The Book of the Guard, 36 pages with text by Ian Mackay, [64] some self-confessed doggerel, with photographs and cartoons and drawings by several local artists. [65] In April 1944 a notice in the Listener claimed that this was the ‘funniest book the war has brought out so far. Sales and advanced bookings have already reached 25 000—the present is the third printing with no indication that it is slowing down. At 2s it is the cheapest book of laughs on the market.’ [66] John Mulgan's Report on Experience, the outline of a book he had hoped to write, looked at war as it happened about him, relating it to the background of soldiers in New Zealand and in Britain. But perhaps the war's most notable book was Infantry Brigadier, written by the Territorial soldier who was to become in turn a wartime hero and editor-in-chief of the official war history, Sir Howard Kippenberger. [67] Infantry Brigadier, published in 1949, became both a popular book and something of a text book.

The war produced a publishing hybrid till then unknown in New Zealand: fiction printed locally for English publishers. Losses by bombing and shortage of paper and manpower obliged British publishers to send out only a small proportion of the books called for. To keep their names and their authors before the public, some publishers took the unprecedented step of having popular books set up and printed in New Zealand for sale there. The authors chosen included Frances Parkinson Keyes, Louis Bromfield, Warick Deeping, H. E. Bates, Peter Cheyney, Anne Duffield, Agatha Christie,

John Brophy and Helen Ashton. Some of the printings were large— up to 10 000 or 15 000 copies. Such sales, it was remarked, had never been enjoyed by New Zealand novelists, although Nelle Scanlan's [68] Pencarrow trilogy and Ngaio Marsh's detective stories were popular on the world market. During the war years Nelle Scanlan's March Moon and Ngaio Marsh's Colour Scheme and Died in the Wool were printed locally and sold well, but not at the rate of Frances Parkinson Keyes, whose ‘good stories’, without advertisement, topped selling lists. [69]

In all it could be said that in the war New Zealand writing did not wither and that in publishing, as in other fields, shortage of overseas supplies stimulated local production. Factual writing was only slightly less than in preceding years, for poetry and short stories outlets increased modestly, and in the topical booklet field, in which many ideas were stirring, Progressive Publishing offered readier channels to bookshops than had existed previously.

As for reading in general (apart from the restraints of censorship [70]), the position for booksellers and librarians during the war could be summed up as ‘fewer books, more readers’. The Southland Times, in June 1940, reported that paper shortage in England had reduced the books available, especially cheap reprints and first novels. [71] Of Britain Angus Calder wrote:

Publishers were limited, first to sixty per cent, then to forty per cent, of the paper they had used before the war. At the peak of the war effort, when official publications were accounting for a hundred thousand tons of paper a year (and the War Office alone was using twenty-five thousand tons), less than twenty-two thousand tons were available for books. On the one hand, many well-loved children's comics had disappeared entirely; on the other, important publishers of serious books found it hard to keep them in print. The blitz made matters worse. Twenty million unissued volumes were lost. A species of black market publishing arose. Mushroom firms which, because they had not existed before the war, had no quota and need not declare their stocks, found stray sources of paper in the hands of jobbing printers, and published much trash. Meanwhile a thirst for classics was impossible to slake, new copies of novels by Trollope and Jane Austen were eventually quite unobtainable. [72]

New Zealand restrictions imposed at the beginning of 1940, to conserve sterling funds, reduced the importation of books and periodicals by each bookseller and library to 50 per cent of the value of those imported during the year ending 31 March 1938. Under persuasion, Nash, Minister of Customs, allowed libraries to import the same value as before, with the stipulation that the second 50 per cent was to comprise only material certified by a special bureau of the Education Department's Country Library Service as of worthwhile character. An allied purpose was to prevent overlapping in the purchase of expensive works, necessary for reference but required by only a few libraries. Many librarians were not happy about submitting lists of desired imports to a government department, seeing this as suspiciously like a censorship organisation, but they accepted it as a means of getting more books on their shelves. Booksellers spent their available funds carefully, reducing numbers of copies rather than numbers of titles, and inevitably tended to pass over highpriced books of limited appeal, concentrating on those of more general interest. [73]

The Southland Times in June 1940 reported that Invercargill libraries and bookshops showed that ‘in keeping with the trend which has been noticeable throughout New Zealand during the past few years, the reading public is turning more and more to non-fiction which deals in an interesting manner with the international situation, and to fiction with a setting in spy intrigue or international politics.’ Books like Nemesis by Douglas Reed and Failure of a Mission by Sir Nevile Henderson (formerly ambassador to Berlin) were in keen demand, as was non-fiction written in frank, outspoken style from a personal and fresh viewpoint, such as Margaret Halsey's With Malice towards Some. Others in demand were Philip Gibbs's Broken Pledges, a biography of Göring [74] by H. W. Blood-Ryan, Martha Dodds's My Years in Germany, Nora Wain's Reaching for the Stars,

John Gunther's Inside Europe and Inside Asia, Douglas Reed's Disgrace Abounding and Hitler's Mein Kampf. Doctors' biographies, such as The Healing Knife and Leaves from a Surgeon's Case Book by James Harpole, were also popular. In fiction the public appetite was for spy dramas and international intrigue such as A. G. Macdonnell's The Crew of the Anaconda and Dennis Wheatley's The Scarlet Imposter. [75] Three months later Invercargill's city librarian confirmed that there was a big increase in reading, with books about espionage and the Gestapo high in popularity. [76]

There were similar reports from other centres, Auckland book clubs found much more demand for popular non-fiction dealing with world politics and war. [77] The public librarian of Christchurch in May 1940 noted more interest in books on Balkan and Baltic countries, on the last war and on Egypt; in November statistics showed that Christchurch library issues during the past four months had exceeded those for the corresponding months of 1939, books on foreign affairs being largely responsible. [78]

A year later in October 1941, when the war had settled more heavily, Wellington's city librarian, J. Norrie, believed that, although major events always captured attention, people were not reading the war news in detail or listening to the long overseas broadcasts as they did a year before, when these had been eagerly appreciated. As relief from the daily bombardment of harrowing reports, through press, radio and speech, people were reading more but reading less about the war, ‘though, of course, books of the Douglas Reed, John Gunther, Philip Gibbs and Strasser type are still in demand…. Last year a great many people used to take out books bearing on the war, but this year that seems pretty well confined to broadcasters and school teachers.’ The public was turning more and more to good fiction, biography and cultural literature ‘for relief from the strain imposed on the mind by last year's concentration on war news and war books, almost exclusively.’ It was noticeable that films and broadcasts of good Victorian novels and plays attracted attention to such works and other ways of escape were found in greater attention to books on music, which had become an important section of the library, of drama and even of poetry. [79]

In April 1943 the Listener questioned several librarians, who said that there was no slackening in demand for political or semi-political books by writers such as Gunther, Reed and Quentin Reynolds, and there was keen demand for books about Libya, New Guinea and other countries which were being fought over. There was also notable demand for Tolstoi's War and Peace. There was less interest in specific topics, such as air raid shelters, which had been rushed in 1942.

Interest in Douglas Credit, theosophy and the occult had waned— ‘fantastic things that flourish in peace time don't seem to have survived the times of worry.’ Keenness on compost, however, was ‘on the up and up’, as was planting by the moon and stars. A senior group of librarians claimed that there were two reactions: among the young, a sense of responsibility was disappearing; among adults it was growing. Many people found that they could not read fiction any more but must have more serious material. [80]

In mid-1943 the Dunedin Evening Star, commenting on publishers' rationing of popular novels, said that libraries were obtaining only half or less of the copies formerly available. Recent books by such authors as Frances Parkinson Keyes, Eric Knight, Georgette Heyer, Douglas Reed, A. J. Cronin, Anne Hepple had long waiting lists. Older Westerns and detective stories were being read more, and earlier authors such as Trollope, Belloc, Bennett, Begbie, Mulford, Punchon, Charlotte Bronte, David Lyall were coming back into favour. [81] Meanwhile trade in second-hand books, where prices had increased but little, was growing, with special interest in art books, New Zealand and political history. [82] Also, by special arrangements with overseas publishers, new editions of popular small books were being printed in New Zealand.

By mid-1944 in Wellington's Central Library shelves the children's and popular sections looked fuller than they were: there were books only on the higher shelves, nothing near the floor. Half of the children's room was out of use and much of the remaining shelf space was empty. Quick turn-round of books meant less time for repairs and the bindery was short-staffed. Though their prices were high, wartime books with poorer paper and narrow margins could not stand repeated repairs. Many were draggled and worn. But already rationing was less severe than it had been 18 months earlier when if a dozen copies were ordered two or three might arrive. American books were more plentiful and of better quality than British; though more expensive and more difficult in licensing they were better value for libraries because they stood up to wear better. [83]

Auckland also reported recent slight improvement in supplies, partly the result of increased production both locally and in Australia, but supplies still lagged far behind demand and were largely a matter of chance. Still, the city librarian said that publishing houses had treated New Zealand very fairly and practically no important books published during the war, fiction or non-fiction, had failed to reach New Zealand. [84]

In some places where labour pressures were acute, staff shortages curtailed services. In July 1944 Wellington's Central and branch libraries decided to have shorter hours ‘for the duration of the war only’. From Monday to Friday they would close at 8 pm instead of 9.30 pm and on Saturday at noon instead of 9.30 pm. The Central Library would close on Sunday as it was not much used by people living in rooms, for whom this day's service had been expected to prove a great boon. [85] Despite the reduction in service hours, Wellington reports in 1944 and 1945 told of increased use, notably in suburban libraries.

It must be remembered that the war years preceded the era of free public libraries and highly trained librarians with their sophisticated catalogues and indexes. In 1934 Ralph Munn [86] of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, and John Barr [87] of Auckland Public Library had probed libraries in the main towns, reporting very many weaknesses. Their report, said the president of the Library Association in 1943, was the ‘forcing-bed out of which has grown modern library development in New Zealand.’ [88] They stressed the need for a central organisation to buy books and circulate them through public libraries, increasing supplies while reducing wasteful buying, and they condemned the subscription system. [89]

In New Zealand, unlike Britain and the United States, in general borrowers from public libraries paid subscriptions, while newspaper rooms and reference sections were open to all. These libraries were also supported by money from local authorities, the pro rata amount varying considerably from place to place; subscriptions, as the apostles of freedom urged, reduced the number of people using libraries and channelled the selection of books to ‘what our subscribers like’. [90] Local authorities were not permitted to levy rates of more than 1 d in the £ for library purposes until 1939, when 2 d was permitted. [91]

Movement towards freedom was helped by the Country Library Service, a government service established in 1938 under the Minister of Education, which began its work with the smallest rural libraries. Originally towns with fewer than 2500 people could have free loans of books, 15 per 100 of population, changed periodically by travelling vans, on condition that the local authority made its library free and gave a reasonably efficient service. [92] Its range was gradually extended: in 1943, in 43 towns with populations of less than 10 000 there were free libraries; by December 1945 62 towns of fewer than 15 000 people had them. [93]

The Country Library Service also helped small independent subscription libraries. For £3 a year 100 books were lent and changed. In 1942–3, amid the tyre and petrol shortage, 368 of these libraries had 26 410 books circulating. In addition, to isolated groups of readers hampers of books were sent and remote individuals could get books by post from headquarters. In 1943 there were 70 groups on hampers and 250 individual readers. The Country Library Service then had 118 204 books, including 42 857 in the children's section, 43 295 non-fiction, 32 049 fiction. In 1945, 491 subscription libraries, 66 groups and 567 individuals were linked to the Service, which also acted as an interloan agency for scarce and wanted books. [94] In 1942 the School Library Service, financed by the Education Department and administered by the Country Library Service, was inaugurated as one of its most important services. By December 1945 some 1019 schools, representing 58 152 children, were receiving books. [95] The Country Library Service had other functions. From 1942 it supplied books to the AEWS which circulated them to the forces. Its Central Bureau for Library Book Imports has been noted. [96] Cards from the Bureau were filed and helped to begin the union catalogue of book holdings of the major libraries; other bibliographical projects were cherished as far as means allowed. Its work in many areas was greatly helped by the five-year appointment, beginning in 1940, of a liaison officer between itself and the New Zealand Library Association. Miss E. J. Varnell, with distinguished experience in England behind her, was a vigorous and skilful apostle of free public libraries and of librarian training. [97]

Amid all the shortcomings imposed by tradition, the Depression and the war the New Zealand Library Association, an enlightened nucleus, heartened since 1939 by a Carnegie Corporation grant, strove for improvement. In March 1943 its president said that in the past year the democracies' preoccupation with winning the war had behind it the no less important aim of re-adjusting society afterwards. The problems of rehabilitation and of other increased demands for library information services were kept in view. Spadework was being done towards ensuring that all necessary books should come into the country and be readily available where wanted. [98] In 1941 a Book Resources Committee had been set up to strengthen, co-ordinate and exploit the book resources of New Zealand. Its work concerned book purchases by libraries, inter-library loans, accessibility of books to readers and the compilation of union catalogues. Plans for a union catalogue of books, based on microfilm copies of catalogues of major libraries, very hopeful in 1941 when a Carnegie grant promised a microfilm camera, were deferred because that camera could not be obtained until after the war, but from 1944 many libraries began sending copies of their new catalogue cards for inclusion in the union catalogue. [99] In 1939 a union list of serials was begun in Dunedin and its first mimeographed Check List appeared at the end of 1942. An index to New Zealand periodicals was begun in 1940, again in Dunedin, with 12 selected periodicals, and in 1941 the work moved to Wellington. Several quarterly issues appeared before war preoccupation made indexers very scarce in 1943, but the ground was ready for more intensive work after the war. [100]

Training for librarians was a crucial factor. A Training Committee of the Association worked out a syllabus which was discussed and approved in 1941. [101] It was a correspondence course, with notes, reading lists and monthly assignments. A year's work gained a General Certificate; a further year would earn a Diploma. School Certificate or University Entrance were the basic qualifications for librarians already on the job, and 42 embarked on the course in August 1942. A difficulty soon apparent was that of finding enough tutors, especially for the Diploma course, among the few senior and qualified librarians in the country. In October 1944 the Association asked the government, in consultation with its Training Committee, to establish intensive training facilities in Wellington under the guidance of Miss Mary Parsons, [102] who was then the Director of the United States Information Service Library, opened in Wellington early that year. In 1946 the Library School began training 30 graduate students in a year-long course. Its director, until the end of 1947, was Mary Parsons whose talents and drive were backed by teaching experience in library schools in Paris, Canada and the United States. ‘It is hard,’ wrote the historian of the Association some 15 years later, ‘to estimate the benefit that librarianship in New Zealand derived from her fortunate presence here at a critical time.’ [103]

The Library Association's Diploma was abandoned in 1945, superseded by the Library School diplomas, but this did not remove the Certificate course for training library assistants who came to their posts from secondary school. The two training courses have co-existed helpfully ever since, with some distinguished librarians qualified only through the Association and experience.

A National Library was to remain a long-standing dream, but some of its functions were assumed in 1945 by the National Library Service. This had three divisions: one took on and developed the bibliographical projects already nurtured by the Country Library Service; that Service's lending work was extended through regional depots; the library school opened in 1946. [104]

Libraries, despite diminished book supplies, did not stand still during the war. They were favoured by a number of informed, devoted workers, by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and by a Prime Minister who had profound belief in books and in their being accessible to people.

When the war began, New Zealand's musicians had just worked through a lean decade. Teaching was the mainstay of the profession. The advent of sound films had meant that by 1930 a large number of theatre musicians faced a bleak future. [105] Some obtained work in the newly formed YA broadcasting stations orchestras, some turned to teaching, some were driven to other jobs. Concentration on private chamber music, with occasional broadcasts to quicken zeal, gave valuable experience to a few, and some dedicated persons embarked on intensive training in order to be ready for professional playing when it came. [106] It was believed that broadcasting would employ more musicians in the future. [107]

At levels varying from place to place and with many limitations, musical activity struggled on in a hard climate. Many towns, large and small, had choirs and the main centres each had several. There were some chamber music groups; the British Music Society, formed in 1932 and dedicated to the promotion of good music, not exclusively British, had many branches; [108] there were symphony orchestras in the main centres and a few elsewhere: Hawera, under the inspiration and tutelage of an enthusiast, mustered 50 players and a local paper spoke with pride of their range of instruments, including those rarities, the bassoon and the oboe. ‘Mr H. C. A. Fox, who has played professionally every wind instrument’, had taught all the brass and woodwind section and, working through school groups, had given orchestral training to all the cello and viola players, to the leader, Mr Louis Fox, and 60 per cent of the violin players. A concert in August 1940 included ‘From the Country Side’ by Eric Coates and ‘Serenade sous les Étoiles’ by Rarini; the intermezzo from ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’, for woodwind and strings only, which called for ‘delicate treatment and close timing’; selections from ‘La Boheme’, with popular arias represented by violin, oboe, cello, clarinet and trumpet solos. It finished with Ketèlbey's ‘In a Persian Market’ with percussion prominent and market cries sung by male voices. [109]

Limitations were imposed both by the instrumentalists available and by the abilities of players. In a 1940 review, F. J. Page [110] remarked that Christchurch was lucky to hear a quartet by Haydn once in five years. [111] Sometimes the need to reduce large-scale music to small-scale means exercised the national habit of improvisation. Thus, regularly, on Good Friday in Christchurch Cathedral, Bach's ‘St Matthew Passion’ was performed. Properly, this would take several hours, a large chorus and orchestra, 10 solo singers and an organ; the Christchurch effort was achieved in one and a half hours with a choir, soloists, an organ and a piano. ‘This is all we can afford ourselves in New Zealand, but it is surprising how a competent presentation with these means can give us a sense of the immense wealth of the music; a less competent performance would bring us instead to a realisation of our musical poverty.’ [112] Not that the whole ‘Passion’ was unknown. Wellington had its first entire performance in April 1941, by the Schola Cantorum, under Stanley Oliver. [113] The Schola Cantorum had started in 1936 and was known as a ‘carefully tutored mixed choir… which has opened the door on a great deal that is beautiful in music, apart from that most commonly known.’ [114] ‘St Matthew Passion’ was performed with an orchestra and 30 voices, only one soloist being an outsider, packed into the Dominion Museum Hall. It began at 5.30 pm and finished about 10 o'clock, audience and performers sharing tea on the premises during an hour's break; it cost £70 to put on and the net profit was £2 13 s 5 d. [115] A few months later, in December 1941, the choir gave the first performance of another Bach work, the ‘Christmas Oratorio’. It was sung in a church, then an unusual event, cost £93 and made £24 profit. [116]

At the war's start, there was widespread stimulation from the music festival which was part of the centennial celebrations. During 1939, as a beginning, a National Broadcasting Service string orchestra was selected by Maurice Clare, [117] an experienced English violinist then living in New Zealand, with 12 players, 10 of whom had previously worked in theatre and radio orchestras. This was the nucleus around which in April 1940 the Centennial Orchestra of about 30 players was established, the process revealing how limited were New Zealand's musical resources. [118] Anderson Tyrer, [119] an English pianist and conductor, visiting as an examiner for the Trinity College of Music, became first adviser, then director, of the festival, and conductor of the orchestra. Tyrer's musicality was to be questioned later, but his enthusiasm and energy were undeniable. [120]

As the war in Europe quickened to the 1940 crisis, the Centennial Orchestra toured New Zealand, its own performances buttressed in the four main centres by local musical activities. Four overseas musicians, Isobel Baillie, [121] Gladys Ripley, [122] Raymond Beattie [123] and

Heddle Nash, [124] and the English-trained New Zealand bass Oscar Natzke, [125] sang arias and various other songs. They also joined with local choirs in presenting Gounod's Faust, in gorgeous raiment and very popular, Elgar's King Olaf and The Dream of Gerontius, Mendelssohn's ‘Elijah’ and Brahms's ‘Alto Rhapsody’. [126] At Auckland an unexpected highlight was the brief appearance of Sir Thomas Beecham [127] who was passing through on his way to England. He attended Faust and consented to conduct the second act, in which only solo singers were involved, producing an ‘electrifying performance’. [128]

In the whole festival the contributions of local groups were substantial. For Auckland's nine-day season, besides the Centennial Orchestra those involved included the Royal Auckland Choir, the Auckland Choral Society, the Dorian Choir, the Chamber Music Society, the Auckland Symphony Orchestra, the Operatic Society and the 1YA Orchestra. There were four presentations of Faust, choral and symphony concerts and a chamber music concert. [129] The programme of the Auckland Symphony Orchestra, included Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, ‘Finlandia’ by Sibelius and Mozart's ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’. [130] At Christchurch a concert version of Bizet's

Carmen was presented by the Royal Christchurch Musical Society along with Charles Wood's cantata ‘Eden Spirits’, sung by the Christchurch Liederkranzchen. [131] The larger provincial centres such as Nelson, Greymouth, Timaru, Masterton, Rotorua and Whangarei were not forgotten. The visiting vocalists toured them, assisted by an accompanist and a string quartet. [132]

The musical celebrations included competitions for string quartets and choirs and for compositions of orchestral overtures and choral works. The Orpheus Choir of Christchurch and a quartet drawn from the Laurian Club, a string orchestra also of Christchurch, were the winning performers. Douglas Lilburn, [133] then studying in England but soon to return, scooped the composition pool, taking a first and second place with his overtures ‘Drysdale’ and ‘Festival’ and a first with a choral work ‘Prodigal Country’. [134]

There was widespread enthusiasm for the Centennial Orchestra and among those who thought that it should be the harbinger of a permanent national orchestra were such influential persons as

James Shelley, [135] Director of Broadcasting, J. W. Heenan, [136] Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs, and Peter Fraser. [137] Meanwhile many of its players remained active as the National Broadcasting String Orchestra under Anderson Tyrer. The music critic of the Listener in June 1942 reported that the Orchestra had lately visited the four main centres, ‘virtually the same combination that toured New Zealand during the Centennial celebrations’. [138]

After the centennial singers had departed, for several years there were very few visits by overseas musicians. In 1941 the J. C. Williamson Opera Company from Sydney presented Gilbert and Sullivan shows to audiences that did not expect to enjoy them again for some time. [139] Harold Williams, [140] an Australian baritone, toured late in 1941, joining in Wellington's annual ‘Messiah’, the Schola Cantorum's ‘Christmas Oratorio’ by Bach, and a concert with Ignaz Friedman [141] and the symphony orchestra under Anderson Tyrer. [142] Early in 1942 the fortunes of war, including the Pearl Harbour raid, sent Thomas Matthews, [143] lately leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and his pianist wife Eileen Ralph, [144] from Hawaii to New Zealand and for a time he was guest conductor of the 1YA orchestra at Auckland. [145] The veteran singer Peter Dawson [146] toured through enthusiastic patriotic concerts in mid-1942. [147] Ignaz Friedman, an eminent Polish pianist who during the war settled in Australia, toured New Zealand several times exciting large audiences and contributing to patriotic funds. [148]

An informed observer of the musical scene, F. L. W. Wood, [149] wrote in 1943:

An overseas artist, well advertised, can fill the biggest hall in any New Zealand town; and amid the general approval of anything he may do, he may well overlook the keen criticism of an alert minority. A New Zealander, returning from overseas, will get a flying start over equally accomplished artists without handles to their names, though even then familiarity will soon breed, if not contempt, comparative disregard. This substitution of overseas recognition for local achievement is one factor helping to produce a general slackness in standards. There is no focus for local talent, for the conservatorium planned by the National Broadcasting Service must await happier days after the war. Meanwhile the Service is tempted to give the public what it imagines the public wants rather than to head a discriminating drive in the interests of New Zealand music. [150] Three of the four university centres teach for a musical degree; but their work is mainly academic, and they have not in the past effectively drawn together the threads of musical activity in the community. Yet there are many competent and energetic music teachers in all the main towns; and numerous private organisations—like the Music Teachers' Association and the various branches of the British Music Society— do something to bring together those who are interested and to bridge the gap between professional and layman.

Meanwhile there is intense, though uneven, musical activity among the people. Connoisseurs, deprived of first-rate orchestras and full of intolerance for anything New Zealand could possibly do, turn into gramophone fans. The highbrow collects records as a philatelist collects stamps. He sharpens his thorn needles to the finest point, waxes his discs, puts his loudspeaker in the ceiling, and knows the date of every recording. And alongside the classicist is the swing fan who scents new records with the same clairvoyance. There are many young men and women who listen to the performance of the best American swing orchestras with a critical ability based on real knowledge both of composition and performance. [151]

Of a Wellington Town Hall concert in February 1943 which combined the talents of pianist Friedman and a symphony orchestra under Tyrer, the Listener's reviewer wrote:

In a country where concert-going is a rare experience, it is not surprising that we arrive late, stamp down the aisle, and sometimes applaud in the wrong places… but we surrendered to the music when it was not too profound. We frankly liked the fireworks, too, so we didn't forget to applaud (at least twice) the Tchaikovski Concerto…. But most of us are sensationalists at heart. We ask for rhythm and speed before subtlety, for ‘The Bartered Bride’ Overture in preference to ‘A Walk to the Paradise Garden.’ [152]

Throughout the war years the orchestras at the radio centres continued to work and local musicians, including singers, broadcast their recitals, solo, in pairs and in small groups. Occasionally they sang or played music by New Zealanders, with Lilburn's looming high in merit over the rest. [153] In the Listener from early 1942 a critic, ‘Marsyas’ (Antony Alpers [154]), wrote freshly and candidly about recordings and local broadcasts and concerts, irritating some readers and generally stimulating musical awareness. [155] The many choral groups continued valiantly, though after mid-1941 soprano sections overwhelmed the tenors. [156] Whatever else faltered, Handel's ‘Messiah’ was faithfully performed in the Christmas season.

The war years saw increased learning of music, then as now directed towards English examinations. More children than ever before learned to play the piano and some turned to stringed instruments such as the violin and the guitar. [157] Parents, earning more, could give their children this cultural opportunity and there was feeling that musical interests would counter the disturbance of the times, would provide a steadying and enriching influence. Some adults, previously more or less skilled, took up playing and singing again as relief from tensions and for home entertainment. Music teachers were very busy, some unable to fit in all would-be pupils. [158] There were heavy demands for second-hand pianos—imports had ceased early in the war—and other instruments were very scarce. Those most in demand were piano accordions, guitars, ukeleles, and all band instruments such as clarinets, trumpets and saxophones. There was great shortage of accessories such as steel strings and reeds, though for saxophones plastic reeds had been introduced. Some instruments, such as guitars, drums and bagpipes, were made locally. For records and for sheet music demand exceeded supply, though some music, by arrangement with English publishers, was printed in New Zealand. [159]

In primary schools the place of music was enlarged. Broadcast lessons gave more children training in singing and appreciation than was possible when classes and schools were limited by the musical skills of their own teachers. Annual music festivals drew hundreds of children together, singing the songs learnt during the year. [160] In secondary schools, strongly directed towards academic examinations, music was largely regarded as relaxation and each depended on its own teachers, with, in consequence, wide variations in activity. Encouragement of young players took various forms. In the main centres there were annual music competitions and these did not slacken in the war years. Dunedin had the first junior orchestra, with players for most instruments, and was followed by Christchurch. The

Christchurch group, which began at Linwood school, by 1941 had gathered 50 string players and was about to add a woodwind section. [161] At Auckland in 1944 the Society of Music Teachers proposed a series of concerts to introduce talented young singers and players to the public. [162]

In February 1943 inquiries in the four centres by the Listener found variations in the effect of the war on amateur music societies. In choirs, successive ballots might weaken tenor sections and leave the basses untouched, or essential work might remove the only contralto capable of the solo part in a projected concert. Orchestral societies had suffered more noticeably than had choral groups. Women preferred string instruments, so woodwind players were scarce and brass players even more so, brass instruments not being played by women— ‘No, not so much too spitty as too heavy. The physical strain is too great on a woman,’ said Colin Muston, [163] the Auckland conductor. The Auckland and Wellington symphony orchestras and the Christchurch Laurian Club had gone into recess, though the

Auckland string players kept in training, waiting for the war's end. Male choirs here and there had submerged their identity temporarily in larger and therefore more stable groups. In the Royal Wellington Choral Society older members had returned to fill gaps; it had more tenors and drew fuller audiences than had attended during the previous war when heavier casualties had kept people away from entertainment. In Christchurch two male choirs were still functioning at the end of 1942, while the Royal Christchurch Musical Society and the Harmonic Society showed no signs of going under; 40 men had taken part in ‘The Messiah’ of Christmas 1942. Dunedin's Choral Society had gone into recess as far as subscriptions and major works were concerned, but its singers still worked together. Membership of the British Music Society had not declined. [164] The Schola Cantorum went into recess in 1942 though monthly practices kept the choir alive until it regained its full voice in 1945. [165]

Chamber music, with only a few players in each group, was the form that prospered best under war conditions. In Britain, amid the bomb raids of 1940, the pianist Myra Hess [166] and Kenneth Clark, [167] director of the National Art Gallery, had replaced the treasures of the Gallery, removed to safe keeping, with the treasures of chamber music in hour-long lunchtime concerts. These had proved a brilliant success. In the winter of 1941 the idea was echoed in Wellington: a series of Sunday afternoon concerts in the Art Gallery had the triple object of attracting visitors to the Gallery, promoting good music and raising patriotic funds. These concerts, begun in mid- June under vice-regal patronage, drew audiences of more than 500. [168] Later, at concerts by many of the same musicians, organised as the Chamber Music Club, smaller city halls were packed to hear trios, quartets and quintets by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven. Occasionally an oboe or clarinet player borrowed from the Air Force Band widened the range. [169] Among the refugees from

Hitler's Europe were some very talented musicians with distinguished training and experience who as performers and teachers enriched the music field. Wellington in particular was blessed with the cellists Marie Vandewart and Greta Ostova [170] and the violinist

Erika Schorss, who played often with local musicians and usually in support of patriotic funds.

From early 1943 the British lunch hour concerts were directly imitated. A year before, in February 1942, Stanley Oliver had wondered how many Wellington people would welcome half-hours of string music or song once or twice a week, saying that these would calm frayed nerves, strengthen determination and increase efficiency. [171] Lunchtime concerts started in Auckland in January 1943, with Owen Jensen [172] prominent in their organisation and with hope that they would encourage the talents and appreciation of young people. They were, said Craccum, the student journal of Auckland University, the sort of pioneer work that deserved the OBE, or knighthood. [173] Auckland's lead was followed by Christchurch, then by Dunedin, and in October 1944 Wellington launched six Friday noon-time concerts in the Central Library lecture hall. Admission was one shilling, profits went towards buying a piano for the hall, and the series was highly successful. [174] These concerts were resumed in February 1945 with hopes of permanence. [175]

In one way and another, music's flags were kept flying. In small halls, to enthusiastic audiences, musicians such as Maurice Clare,

Vincent Aspey, [176] Frederick Page, Dorothy Davies, Marie Vandewart, Erika Schorss, Greta Ostova, May Hyams, Frank Hoffey, Vivien Dixon, Owen Jensen and many others, singly or in pairs, ably presented good music, often including works not yet familiar to local concertgoers. Paul Schramm, [177] a distinguished Austrian who had lived in New Zealand since 1938, returned to concert-giving late in 1944, displaying ‘pianistic pyrotechnics’ in works well removed from the deep groove worn year after year by other celebrated concert pianists in their periodical visits, including those of Ravel, Bartok and Prokofiev, Debussy and Poulenc. [178]

In the last days of the war the virtuoso pianist Isador Goodman, [179] trained in London and lately emerged from Australia's Army education service, toured New Zealand, drawing enthusiastic thousands, hungry for overseas talent, to hear old favourites played with bravura. [180] Nearly 3000 people heard Goodman's second Auckland concert, while to hear him Wellington advanced like an army on its town hall. [181]

A firm framework for chamber music began in Wellington with a decision, late in 1944, to co-ordinate and organise musicians and their supporters in a society able to hire a large hall. Formed in March 1945, [182] it made vigorous growth. Other centres started similar societies and together in 1950 they formed the Chamber Music Federation that, with broadcasting support, ensured the visits of overseas groups which increasingly sophisticated audiences accepted as normal. In 1961 John Beaglehole recalled that after a concert by a group in Wellington in 1944
someone remarked that there were other musicians in Wellington and New Zealand, and would it not be a good idea to co-ordinate and organise—in short, start a chamber music society and hire the concert chamber of the Town Hall which held not seventy-five people but six hundred? So it was done; the Wellington Chamber Music Society brought Maurice Clare and Frederick Page From Christchurch for the first concert, in 1945; the amazing career Had begun. Amazing because the Society's membership rapidly rose to the maximum the hall could take, and did not thereafter fall off—there has always indeed been a waiting list; after pre liminary hesitations other places started societies; in 1950 the societies formed a Federation… [which] provided a regular circuit of engagements for visiting groups of players who now with the assistance of NZBS… could be brought from afar; and in increasing numbers, for good and ill, they were brought…. The

Wellington Chamber Music Society was formed to co-ordinate and organise players and teams of players already in existence in New Zealand… to cultivate, as it were, a native growth; which is precisely what it has not done…. Before very long the performance by the home-grown group was the exception. [183]

In 1945 the thrust towards a national orchestra gained strength. Abroad, it was firmly stated that during this most destructive of wars there had been in England, America and the Commonwealth countries a great surge forward in music; it was no flash in the pan but a real musical renaissance. New Zealand's full-time orchestra aspirations, suspended since 1940, were renewed and were endorsed by overseas visitors. Sir Malcolm Sargent, [184] in Auckland on his way to Australia, believed that New Zealand could and should have a first-class permanent orchestra. He saw the lack of a competent woodwind section as the greatest difficulty and thought that English professionals might be brought out to fill that place while they trained local players. He added that he would be happy to conduct the first performances of such an orchestra. [185] Isador Goodman pointed to Australia's state-subsidised school of music, which was the basis of a good orchestra, and thought that directional heads for New Zealand's orchestra should be imported from overseas to bring new ideas in music. [186]

Stanley Oliver spoke of orchestral matters as they stood in August 1945. The lack of players for several instruments made it virtually impossible anywhere in New Zealand to present any major choral work with its proper orchestral accompaniment. Even for ‘The Messiah’ in Wellington in 1944 it had been necessary to ‘doctor’ the accompaniment because instruments were missing; in Dunedin there was no oboe player and one of the two cellists had also to play the second bassoon to avoid ‘holes’ in the harmony. He spoke also of the almost unprecedented wave of desire among the people as a whole for artistic expression or appreciation, shown, for instance, by the largest halls being packed for an eminent solo pianist and the over-subscribed list of patrons for Wellington's new chamber music society. ‘Let not those who have been conditioned to think of nothing but their own material interests, and who pride themselves on being “practical”, sniff at the word “art.”’ The rank and file were fed up with the muddlement of material existence; for nine-tenths of the people, modern machinery had taken all artistic expression out of their functional lives and human personality must be rediscovered in the use of spare time, which was bound to increase. It was time for plain speaking and for concentration on the orchestra. [187]

The New Zealand Air Force Band, the essential and inspiring centre-piece of so many wartime occasions, was to make up for some orchestral shortcomings. For some years it had provided several of the country's most promising young wind players with instruments and full-time work under the direction of H. Gladstone Hill; [188] they emerged as competent players of clarinets, horns, oboes and bassoons. [189] Calls to seek a conductor overseas were disregarded. Anderson Tyrer was on the spot, the Prime Minister had full belief in him, and Sir Thomas Beecham, consulted, cabled back the two-edged phrase, ‘Just the man for the job’. [190] The orchestra, ‘bred by enthusiasm out of democracy, with no background of tradition or experience’, gathered together, 65 strong, in October 1946. [191] On 6 March 1947 it gave its first concert and, wrote John Beaglehole, ‘a tremendous, an intoxicating, and if one could hear it now, one would no doubt say pretty rough, experience it was.’ [192] It was, however, an orchestra in being with long, rich growth before it.

The end of the war saw music starting in a new field. In April 1943 the Listener had reported that BBC experiments over three years of ‘music while you work’ programmes had shown that production, especially in monotonous work, was increased by up to 15 per cent when music was played for about two and a half hours, part at the beginning, part near the end, of the day. Loudspeakers should be small and well placed about the factory, tone level should be constant and the melody should be clearly defined, riding over factory noises. Dance music, Viennese waltzes, light opera selections, musical comedy and brass bands were the most popular. [193]

By April 1945 the Industrial Psychology Division of the DSIR, using a gramophone in a small munitions factory, had decided that New Zealand girls liked music while they worked; their output increased by up to 10 per cent when music was played for two and a half hours in a normal day or three and three-quarter hours when overtime was worked. Their choice, in order, was for current hits by singers like Bing Crosby, Kate Smith and Vera Lynn; light music such as waltzes, musical comedy and dance music; Schubert songs and popular classical pieces; swing music of the Duke Ellington and

Archie Shaw type. Different groups of workers had various preferences: young girls usually wanted popular tunes, older women favoured light music; only Strauss waltzes had universal appeal. [194] It was the beginning of a new era in work-place sound.

New Zealand's real national music is the music of brass bands and the pipes of the many Highland associations. A centennial contest was held in 1980 by when some then world-renowned bands could trace their existence back, through name changes and reorganisations, to the beginning of the century or even earlier. [195] The 1908 Cyclopaedia of New Zealand recorded that very many small centres had their bands, often already mature in years. Besides municipal and suburban area bands, there were work-group players such as the Wellington Tramways Band (forerunner of Onslow), the Wellington Waterside Band, the Roslyn Mills Band. Their steady existence drew and was maintained by a steady flow of keen recruits. Traditionally, at all civic occasions the band was a welcome feature. In many public gardens in centres large and small the band rotunda was a centre of Sunday entertainment, and during the national centennial celebrations at Wellington in the summer of 1939–40 open air music was provided by eight brass bands and six pipe bands from Wellington and the Hutt Valley. [196] A gauge of their place in public enjoyment was the part that hard-working bands played in the victory celebrations. [197]

In 1953, the year when New Zealand's first National Band came together and won honours in Britain, Warwick Braithwaite, [198] conductor of the seven-year-old National Orchestra, said:

Let me talk about brass bands—an excellent part of New Zealand musical life. Just consider for a moment the amazing standard achieved by brass band players. All these players are amateurs in the true sense of the word, but how much more advanced they are than the amateur string orchestra in the country…. The excellence of the brass section of the National Orchestra is the result of the good work done by brass bands in this country. [199]

During the war, when their fit young men were drawn into the forces, some bands became inactive but many carried on: older players came back, young ones could join earlier. Pre-war, New Zealand bands were a male preserve and women were not recruited to fill the ranks, but a few women's bands were formed. During 1940–1 in Dunedin, favoured then by the presence of Arthur Hodgkins who had already achieved success with women's bands in Canada, England and Australia, 40 girls, all of them (except the conductor's daughter) beginners on brass, worked with such enthusiasm that within nine months they surprised their first audience, prepared to be tolerant and sure that tolerance would be needed, with what the

Listener called a ‘full-bodied, mature performance’. [200] The Wellington Ladies Highland Pipe Band had its beginnings, in military style uniform, in 1944.

Often bandsmen entering the forces did not lay aside their music. Provision of instruments was an early and prominent target of patriotic funds and 25 brass bands were equipped for service in the

Middle East and the Pacific. [201] Some military bands included woodwind instruments and some reached high standards, with the RNZAF Band under the baton of Flight-Lieutenant Gladstone Hill conspicuously in the lead. Its players thrived on the war-given opportunity of working together and the Band gained high reputation overseas. [202] When the National Orchestra was created in 1946 its brass, clarinet and timpani sections were greatly strengthened by musicians from the Band. [203] Frank Gurr, a foundation member of the Orchestra, recalled in 1977:

when I turned 18 in 1943, I was lucky enough to get into the Air Force Band. I'd been playing the clarinet for a very short time but going into the band put me in contact with the leading players in the country, clarinet players like Jack McCaw and Ken Wilson and a lot of other very fine musicians and I was able to learn a great deal from them. [204]

One way and another, music grew in New Zealand despite the war. At grass-roots, there was money about to pay for children's music lessons. Radio provided bread-and-butter and audiences for a considerable number of musicians. Enough people believed that the lights of civilisation should not be dimmed but cherished in dark days for small groups to play good music and for concerts to be given. Hitler's exiles, both as performers and teachers, brought in a new wave of knowledge, skill and standards. The bands played on. By 1945 the chamber music movement was growing and would soon form the federation that has enriched the post-war decades. The National Orchestra began in 1946; so did the Cambridge music schools, the summer gatherings where young musicians were quickened by experienced teaching and all were enlivened by being together. Brass bands, beginning with St Kilda's success in Australia in 1949, were to win multiple honours overseas in years ahead. The economist J. B. Condliffe [205] has written that New Zealand emerged from the war taut with suppressed inflation. [206] It could almost be said that it emerged taut with musical energy.

By 1940 painters, like writers, were identifying more and more with New Zealand and this, indirectly, was enhanced by the war. Previously, besides their formal training at Auckland's Elam School, the Canterbury School of Art and at Dunedin's Technical College, most had sought further study in Europe. The war, cutting off Europe, reinforced the conscious exploration of New Zealand landscape and made painters like Rita Angus, [207] Toss Woollaston [208] and Colin McCahon [209] find ways to abstract rather than report. These three, who exhibited with The Group, Christchurch, were to find the most symbolic and telling images, but their idiom was not readily grasped by the public. Eric Lee-Johnson [210] in 1938, returning to his King Country homeland, was startled into realisation of its distinctive forms; by 1942 he was exhibiting water-colours of ravaged landscapes, burnt trees and seedy rural buildings. These were more immediately understandable. Together all these paintings caused many viewers to look about them with sharpened vision.

In Auckland a group working around John Weeks [211] explored urban subjects with richer colour and cubist-influenced forms. This Rutland group included John and Charles Tole, [212] Ida Eise, [213] and

Elise Mourant. [214] The most original of them was Lois White, [215] the only New Zealand painter to make explicit anti-war and social comment, in pictures such as ‘The War Mongers’, ‘Collapse’ and ‘Controversy’, which did not find favour with reviewers or the public.

Most painters continued more traditional work in landscapes, still-life and portraits, exhibiting through local art societies and the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington, a main venue of sales and reputations. Oils and water-colours were by far the main part of these shows; there were only a few etchings, woodcuts and linocuts, a very few pieces of sculpture, wood carving, pottery and craftwork.

Veterans dominated: in reports of sales leading names included

Sydney Thompson, [216] T. A. McCormack, [217] John Weeks, H. Linley Richardson, [218] Cedric Savage, [219] A. F. Nicoll, [220] Cecil and Elizabeth Kelly, [221] Sidney Higgs, [222] Marcus King, [223] R. J. Waghorn. [224] In a private exhibition Nugent Welch [225] could sell 40 out of 44 water colours. [226] There were other painters, some with fresh eyes and vigorous futures, apart from the innovators already mentioned. Among those listed in sales of pictures were Evelyn Page, [227] S. B. McLennan, [228] W. A. Sutton, [229] Mervyn Taylor, [230] Louise Henderson, [231] Olivia Spencer Bower, [232] Helen Brown, [233] Bessie Christie. [234]

Two soldiers, Peter McIntyre in the Second Division and Russel Clark [235] in the Pacific, became official war artists. Others such as

Robin Kay, [236] Austin Deans, [237] W. A. Sutton (in New Zealand), A. B. Barnes-Graham [238] and James Coe [239] painted from the ranks. Some of their work appeared in special displays and among collections of pictures by British war artists which toured the country. Otherwise the war was a theme that concerned painters very little. Occasionally men in uniform appeared in portraits, such as Edith Collier's [240] ‘Sergeant Pilot Carey Collier’ [241] and W. A. Sutton's ‘On Furlough in Central Otago’ showing two motor cyclists in khaki, [242] and in drawings by R. Stenberg [243] and U. Moller. [244] A pen-and wash drawing by Barc ( Helen Crabb [245]), ‘The People at War’, showed sad faces, some uplifted, some bowed; [246] others made minor references, such as a map of Europe behind a portrait. [247]

Most painters who came within Manpower range were part-time artists, with occupations which satisfied National Service requirements. Rita Angus was probably alone in appealing as a pacifist against Manpower direction to a rubber mill or any other essential employment. Her appeal was dismissed, [248] but she was not actually obliged to perform any work.

The public showed more interest in its painters. Possibly this may have been stimulated to some extent by the centennial art exhibition, showing a century of New Zealand painting, which toured during 1940 and was reshown later. In mid-1942 when the National Art Gallery in Wellington was taken over for war purposes the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts moved to smaller but more central quarters in the disused tearoom of a large city shop, the DIG. It still managed to display 236 paintings at a time; [249] it had more viewers and more sales. At its annual exhibition in 1942, 85 pictures netted artists more than £1,000, a record; pre-war a total of £300 had been considered quite good. [250] The next two years saw sales reaching £1,200. [251] Behind the boom there was, besides increased interest in New Zealand painting, the lack of imported goods; further, as Lady Newall pointed out, pictures did not need coupons. [252]

[1] But all proceeds from John Beaglehole's slim volume of poetry, Words for Music (1938), went to Spanish medical aid, and John Mulgan's important novel, Man Alone (1939), ended with Johnston headed for Spain.

[2] Holcroft, Montague Harry, OBE('70): b 1902: writer, journalist; Ed NZ Listener 19490–67, Acting Ed 1972–3; with UNESCO 1948–54; member NZ Literary Fund advisory cmte 1950; Pres PEN (NZ) 1957–61.

[3] Finlayson, Roderick David: b 1904

[4] Brasch, Charles Orwell (1909–73), Ed Landfall 1947–66

[5] Harris, William John: b 1903; librarian & bibliographer; Librarian OU 1935–8; Pres

NZLA 1946–7; Librarian University of Ibadan 1948–68, Pres West African Library Assn 1954–8; Prof Lib Studies, University of Ghana 1968–70; Librarian University of Technology, Benin, Nigeria 1970–3, Vice-Chancellor 1973–4

[6] NZ Listener, 19 Apr 40, p. 5

[7] McCormick, Eric Hall: b 1906; writer and critic; editor Centennial Publications 1930–40; war service in Middle East & Italy; war archivist 1945–7; senior university research fellow 1963–4, 1973–5

[8] NZ Libraries, vol 6, no 3, Oct 42, pp. 42–3

[9] Maning, Frederick Edward (1811–83): b Ireland, co NZ 1833; Judge Native Land Court 1865–76; first publication 1862

[10] Satchell, William (1860–1942): b England, to NZ 1886; novelist and poet; first publication 1902

[11] Mander, Mary Jane (1877–1949): b NZ; school teacher to 1902, journalist, to Colombia University USA 1912; to London 1922, returned NZ 1932; first publication 1920

[12] NZ Libraries, vol 8, no 3, Apr 45, pp. 37–42

[13] Lehmann, John Frederick, CBE('64): b 1907; Mnging Dir John Lehmann Ltd from foundation to 1952; Ed London Magazine from foundation to 1961, founder & Ed New

Writing, Orpheus, partner & Gen Mngr The Hogarth Press 1938–46, Advisory Ed The

Geographical Magazine 1940–5; first publication 1931

[14] Lehmann, John, The Whispering Gallery, p. 263. Allen Curnow, quoting this passage ( Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1960), p. 55), pointed out Lehmann's pardonable error in lodging all the group in Christchurch; various places could claim them but Denis Glover's Caxton Press in Christchurch published them all.

[15] Plomer, William Charles Franklyn, CBE('68) (1903–73): writer; Pres The Poetry Society from 1968.

[16] Sargeson, Frank: b 1903; novelist; solicitor, civil servant, market gardener

[17] Lehmann, p. 264. Glover, Denis James Matthews, DSC (1912–80): poet, former journalist, university lecturer; founded Caxton Press 1936, to Pegasus Press 1953, Wingfield Press 1955; served in RN 1942–4; first publication 1936

[18] Anderson, Sherwood (1876–1941): American poet, novelist, short story writer, newspaper ed; publications from 1916–42

[19] Author notes in New Zealand New Writing, no 3, Jun 1944, p. 68

[20] Hyde, Robin (1906–39): nee Iris Guiver Wilkinson; b South Africa, educated NZ; novelist, poet, journalist; first verse published 1929, prose 1934; d in England from illness incurred during war in China

[21] Mulgan, John Alan Edward, MC (1911–45): poet and author; b NZ; to England 1935; first verse published 1938, Man Atone 1939, Report on Experience (posthumous, 1947)

[22] Duggan, Eileen May, OBE('37) (1900–72): Hon FRSL ( London); publications 1924–51

[23] Rawlinson, Gloria Jasmine: b Tonga 1916, to NZ 1924; poet, first verse published 1933

[24] Marris, Charles Allan (1876–1947): b Aust, journalist NZ 1907; ed three city newspapers, Art in New Zealand, New Zealand Best Poems

[25] Tombs, Harry Hugo, OBE('60) (1874–1966): printer & publisher; founded Art in NZ 1928, ed for 17 years; Arts Year Book for 7 years; member NZ Academy 31 years; on Cncl NZ Academy Fine Arts 2 years

[26] Gaskell, A. P. (Alexander Gaskell Pickard): b 1913; teacher 1937–73; first publication 1947

[27] Chateau, Leon Leopold du (1874(?)–1957): b England, educ Aust, actor 1894ff; to NZ c. 1900 as producer and teacher dramatic art.

[28] These appeared on 7 Nov 41, 13 Feb 42 and 18 Feb, 14 Jul 44 respectively

[29] A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–45 (1945), p. 42

[30] Bethel, Ursula Mary (1874–1945): b England, to NZ 1876; first publication 1924

[31] Hervey, Rev John Russell (1889–1958): Anglican, Chch, Canterbury till retirement 1934; two 1st prizes for verse Centennial Literary competition 1940; first publication 1940

[32] Vogt, Anton: b Norway1914, taught NZ; first publication 1940

[33] Gilbert, Gavin Robert: b 1917; first publication 1942

[34] Smith, Dr George McCall: b Scotland, d NZ aet 75; to NZ 1914, Superintendent Hokianga Hospital 35 years; first publication 1938

[35] Sinclaire, Frederick (1881–1954): Prof English CUC from 1932; author, ed, essayist; first publication 1920

[36] Burdon, Randal Mathews, MC (1896–1965): b UK, educ NZ; served France, Italy 1914–18, India 1918–22; sheepfarmer Sth Canty; first publication 1939

[37] Belshaw, Horace (1898–1962): Prof Economics AUC 1927–44; Internal Sec Institute Pacific Relations 1944; Prof Umv California 1946; Prof Economics VUW from 1951; UN positions 1947–53; first publication 1928

[38] Robb, Sir George, Kt('60), CMG('56) (1899–1974): surgeon, member Medical Council NZ, Pres BMA 1961; first publication 1940

[39] Hearnshaw, Leslie Spencer: b England 1907, lecturer Psychology VUC 1939–47; Dir Industrial Psychology Div DSIR; first publication 1942

[40] Sutch, William Ball (1907–75): economist: b England, educ NZ; member internal economics/trade organisations from 1935; first publication 1940

[41] Guy, Christina K.: first publication 1943

[42] Gardner, Roy: b 1898, first publication 1939

[43] Meek, Professor Ronald Linley: d 1978 aet 61; to Tyler Chair Economics Leicester Univ 1963; first publication 1943

[44] Morice, Stella Margery (1901–79): first publication 1944

[45] Andrews, Isobel: b England, educ NZ; dramatic producer, playwright, poet; first publication 1944

[46] Barker, Arthur John Davit: b 1908; first publication 1941

[47] Paul, David Blackwood (1908–1965): bookseller and publisher; chmn Hamilton Adult Educ Cmte 1953–4, member Auckland regional cncl Adult Education 1953–5

[48] NZ Listener, 24 Dec 42, p. 7

[49] Chapman, Robert McDonald: b 1922; Prof Political Studies AU; WWII service in NZ Army, Air Force

[50] Chapman, Robert, ‘Fiction and the Social Pattern’, in Landfall 7, 1953, re-appearing in

Essays on New Zealand Literature, (ed Wystan Curnow), pp. 72, 74

[51] He ignored Helen Wilson's Moonshine, a story of the Eighties to which Joan Stevens gave honourable mention ( The New Zealand Novel 1860–1960, pp. 64, 67). He also found place for R. M. Burdon's Outlaw's Progress (1944) while quoting his own later opinion that it was a ‘damn bad novel’. Ibid., p. 64

[52] Chapman, pp. 71–2, 75. The novels: Sargeson's That Summer and When the Wind Blows (both were published in Penguin New Writing, That Summer in 1943, nos 17–19, the other in 1946, nos 27–9) and Dan Davin's Cliffs of Fall (1945); the story collections: Finlayson's Sweet Beulah Land (1942), G. R. Gilbert's free to Laugh and Dance (1942) and Sargeson's Speaking for Ourselves (1945)

[53] Davin, For the Rest of Our Lines (1947) and Roads from Home (1949); James Courage,

The Fifth Child (1948) and Desire without Content (1950); D. W. Ballantyne, The Cunninghams (1948); Finlayson, Tidal Creek (1948); E. C. I., de Mauny, The Huntsman in his Career (1949); Wilson, Brave Company (1951); Ruth Park, The Witch's Thorn (1951); Sargeson, I Saw in my Dream (1949) with When the Wind Blows as its first part

[54] Davin, The Gorse Blooms Pale (1947), Gaskell, The Big Game (1947), John Cole, It was So Late (1949)

[55] Davin, Daniel Marcus, MBE('46): b 1913; publisher, Dep Sec OUP; Rhodes Scholar 1935; war service UK Army 1939–40, 2NZEF 1940–5; with Clarendon Press 1945; now resident UK; first publication 1945

[56] Cole, John Reece: b 1916; librarian NZ, Indonesia, Singapore; Sec PEN 1959–63, Pres 1963–4; service RNZAF 1941–4; first publication 1949

[57] Helm, Arthur Stanley, MBE(‘59): b 1914; government positions, Antarctic organisations, Sec Ross Sea Cmte, Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955–8; 2NZEF 1939–45; first publiccation 1945

[58] Martyn, Furneaux (cf Martin Uren): b 1918; 2NZEF 1939ff

[59] Henderson, James Herbert: b 1918; journalist in NZ and overseas; ed ‘Open Country’ radio session from 1961; 2NZEF 1939–43, prisoner of war; first publication 1945

[60] Hargest, Brigadier James, CBE, DSO & bar, MC, mid (1891–1944): farmer; MP 1931–44; 1NZEF 1914–20, 2NZEF 1940–4, prisoner of war 1941–3

[61] Jackson, Alan Francis: first publication 1943

[62] Mclntyre, Peter, OBE('70): b 1910; official war artist 2NZEF 1940; first private publication 1962

[63] Bagarag, Shible, ‘Boom in New Zealand Books’, NZ Magazine, Jan–Feb 44, vol 23, no 1, p. 39

[64] Mackay, Ian (1898–1952); first publication 1944

[65] Published in 1943

[66] NZ Listener, 14 Apr 44, p. 13

[67] Kippenberger, Sir Howard, KBE(‘48), CB('44), DSO & bar, ED, mid (3 times), LM (US) (1897–1957): barrister; Rangiora Borough Cncl 8 years; 1NZEF 1916–17; battalion, brigade cmdr 2NZEF, Greece, Crete, Middle East, Italy 1941–4, GOC 2NZ Div 1943; Editor-in-Chief, NZ War History from 1946; Dom Pres RSA from 1948; Trustee Nat Ait Gallery 1949

[68] Scanlan, Nelle Margaret, MBE(‘65) (1882–1968): ed, journalist; first publication 1931

[69] Bagarag, pp. 38–40; Hurst, Maurice, ‘Book Boom in New Zealand’, ibid., Sep–Oct 1945, vol 24, no 5, p. 11; Auckland Star, 8 Aug 44, p. 4

[70] See p. 997

[71] Southland Times, 7 Jun 40, p. 6

[72] Calder, p. 511

[73] NZ Libraries, vol 3, nos 7 and 9, Feb 40, p. 73, Apr 40, p. 97; NZ Herald, 4 Jun 40, p. 9; Wanganui Herald, 21 Aug 40, p. 6

[74] Göring, Reich Marshal Hermann W. (1893–1946): German Nazi leader; Pres Reichsrag 1932–45; Min for Air 1933–45, also C-in-C German Air Force; member Cabinet Cncl 1938–45; Pres Council for War Economy 1940–5; dismissed from all offices 1945; tried and condemned to death as war criminal at Nuremburg; committed suicide 15 Oct 1946

[75] Southland Times, 7 Jun 40, p. 6

[76] Press, 19 Sep 40, p. 6

[77] NZ Herald, 4 Jun 40, p. 9

[78] Press, 10 May, 11 Dec 40, pp. 10, 10

[79] Dominion, 3 Oct 41, p. 9

[80] NZ Listener, 9 Apr 43, pp. 4–5

[81] Evening Star, 15 Jun 43, p. 4

[82] Ibid., 14 Apr 43, p. 2; NZ Herald, 22 Aug 44, p. 5

[83] Evening Post, 30 Jun 44, p. 4

[84] NZ Herald, 22 Aug 44, p. 5

[85] Dominion, 13 Jul 44, p. 4

[86] Munn, Ralph: b 1894; Dir Carnegie Library 1928–64, surveyed libraries of Australia, NZ, for Carnegie Corporation 1934

[87] Barr, John, OBE('48) (1887–1971): b Glasgow; Chief Librarian, Dir Auck Public Library, Art Gallery & Old Colonists Museum 1913–52; Pres NZLA 1939–40, 1945–6

[88] NZ Libraries, vol 4, Mar 43, p. 102

[89] Yearbook1940, p. 201; McEldowney, W. J., The New Zealand Library Association, 1910– 1960, pp. 18–19

[90] NZ Libraries, vol 8, Oct 45, p. 176

[91] Introduction to New Zealand, p. 204

[92] Yearbook1940, p. 202

[93] Ibid., 1946, p. 146; NZ Libraries, vol 6, Aug 43, p. 184

[94] Yearbook1945, p. 126, 1946, p. 146; NZ Libraries, vol 6, Aug 43, pp. l84–5

[95] Yearbook1946, p. 146; see p. 1124, where the A to J figures are used

[96] See p. 1194

[97] NZ Libraries, vol 6, Aug; 43. pp. 33–5

[98] Ibid., vol 7, Mar 43, p. 101

[99] McEldowney, pp. 41–2

[100] Ibid., p. 39

[101] NZ Libraries, vol 5, Dec 41, pp. 101–18

[102] Parsons, Mary Prescort: b 1885; US Info Librarian NZ 1944–7; Dir NZLS 1946–7; NZLA Cncl 1946–7

[103] McEldowney, pp. 47–9

[104] Ibid., p. 51

[105] Walsh, David Baillie, ‘A Survey of orchestral activity in New Zealand’, unpublished thesis, pp. 67, 69

[106] Ibid., pp. 77, 68

[107] Dominion, 21 Oct 39, p. 10

[108] Its branches continued to spread even during the war. In April 1941 organisers asked

Wellington members to supply the names of friends at Timaru and Levin who might be interested in forming local branches. Ibid., 1 Apr 41, p. 12

[109] Taranaki Daily News, 7 Aug 40, p. 9

[110] Page, Frederick Joseph, Polish Order of Merit: b 1905; lecturer Music CUC 1941–2, senior lecturer VUC 1946, Prof 1957–70, Emeritus Prof VUW; Pres NZ br Internat Soc Contemporary Music 1954–65

[111] Press, 19 Sep 40, p. 2

[112] NZ Listener, 17 Apr 42, p. 12

[113] Oliver, Stanley (d 1964 aet 73): b UK, to NZ early 1930s; rounder, conductor for 18 years to 1964, of Royal Wgtn Choral Unions Choir

[114] Dominion, 1 Jul 41, p. 10

[115] Ibid., 7 Apr 41, p. 10; Howe, Clement, Schola Cantorum, Wellington, New Zealand 1936–1950: fifteen years of musical adventuring, pp. 22, 24

[116] Evening Post, 17 Dec 41, p. 9; Howe, p. 24

[117] Clare, Maurice: b 1914; violinist; Dir NZBS Orch 1940–2, leader renowned UK orchs 1947–52, 1962–4, 1967–70

[118] Walsh, p. 96

[119] Tyrer, Anderson (1893–1962): pianist, conductor, composer, music examiner; musical adviser, conductor NZ Centennial Music Celebration 1940; guest conductor, solo pianist, composer with Aust, Canadian, S African, NZ broadcasting; invited to form, organise, conduct first NZ Nat Symphony Orch 1946

[120] Jensen, Owen, The NZBC Symphony Orchestra, pp. 18–19, 22–3; Evening Post, 11 May 46, p. 9

[121] Baillie, Dame Isobel, DBE('78): b 1895; soprano

[122] Ripley, Gladys (1908–55): contralto

[123] Beattie, Raymond: b NSW1903; solo bass-baritone; toured NZ 1939, 1940

[124] Nash, Heddle (1896–1961): tenor

[125] Natzke, Oscar (1912–51): b NZ; to Trinity Coll London 1935, operatic basso from 1938; Canadian Navy WWII

[126] Evening Post, 27 Jun 40, p. 3

[127] Beecham, Sir Thomas, Kt('16), CH(‘57) (1879–1961): conductor, composer, operatic impressario, author

[128] Jensen, p. 19; NZ Listener, 21 Jun 40, p. 9

[129] NZ Herald, 29 May 40, p. 15

[130] Ibid., 16 Jun 40, p. 4

[131] NZ Listener, 24 May 40, p. 30

[132] Ibid, 12 Jul 40, p. 13; Star–Sun, 1 Jul 40, p. 9

[133] Lilburn, Douglas Gordon: b 1915; composer, lecturer Music VUC 1947, Assoc Prof 1963, personal chair Music, Dir Electronics Music Studio 1970–80

[134] Press, 5 Aug 40, p. 5

[135] Shelley, Sir James, KBF(‘49) (1884–1961): b UK; Prof Educ CUC 1920–36; Dir Broadcasting 1936–49

[136] Heenan, Sir Joseph, KBE('49) (d 1957 aet 63): Under-Sec. Internal Affairs Dept 1935–48; chmn exec nat centennial orgn, Dir Centennial Exhibition 1940

[137] Jensen, pp. 17–18

[138] NZ Listener, 19 Jun 42, p. 13

[139] Dominion, 1 Apr 41, p. 12

[140] Williams, Harold: b Aust 1893; Prof Singing Sydney Conservatorium from 1952

[141] Friedman, Ignaz (1882–1948): Polish pianist, gave 2800 concerts; settled Sydney 1941

[142] Dominion, 1 Oct, 8, 19 Dec 41, pp. 10, 9, 9; NZ Listener, 2 Jan 42, p. 9

[143] Matthews, Thomas Appleby: b UK 1884; conductor; dir, conductor City Birmingham Orch 1920–4, Birmingham Rep Theatre operatic productions

[144] Ralph, Eileen: b Aust 1913; pianist

[145] NZ Listener, 30 Jan, 2 Apr 42, pp. 7, 13

[146] Dawson, Peter (1882–1961): b Aust; baritone concert, recording singer

[147] Dominion, 20 May 42, p. 7; Evening Star, 2 Jun 42, p. 5

[148] Evening Post, 20 Nov 40, p. 9, 26 Nov 41, p. 10; Dominion, 27 Nov 42, p. 4, 8 Feb 43, p. 3; Evening Star, 23 Jan, 4 Feb 43, pp. 6, 8; NZ Listener, 13 Nov, 11 Dec 42, pp. 13, 13

[149] Wood, Professor Frederick Lloyd Whitfield, CMG('74): b Aust 1903; Prof History VUW 1935–69, Prof Emeritus 1969

[150] The Director of Broadcasting, Dr James Shelley, when asked to reconcile his spoken views on ‘Art and Life’ with the ‘rubbish’ that came over the air, declared that it was his job to cater for everybody and that he would not presume to judge what was good and bad in music. Letters of appreciation for classical concerts, he said, were the exception, but hundreds were received about popular and swing programmes. Dominion, 18 Jan 44, p. 4

[151] Wood, Understanding New Zealand, pp. 156–7

[152] NZ Listener, 19 Feb 43, p. 9

[153] Ibid., 3, 10, 17 Jul, 4 Dec 42, pp. 11, 11, 7. 10, 15 Oct 43, p. 13

[154] Alpers, Antony Francis George: b 1919; journalist 1936–47, 1952–8, School Publications Branch Dept Educ 1958–60; Ed Caxton Press 1963–6; Assoc Prof English Queens Univ, Kingston, Ontario from 1966

[155] NZ Listener, 11 Dec 43, p. 3, letter by J. C. Beaglehole

[156] Dominion, 4 Aug, 21 Nov 41, pp. 10, 10

[157] Otago Daily Times, 23 Dec 42, p. 2

[158] Dominion, 9 Nov 42, p. 4, 3, 4 Sep 43, pp. 3, 6, 18 Jan 44, p. 6; Auckland Star, 15 Apr 43, p. 4

[159] Dominion, 10 Nov 41, p. 10; Evening Post, 17 Sep 43, p. 4; NZ Herald, 29 Apr 43, p. 2; Auckland Star, 20 Oct 44, p. 4

[160] Wood, This New Zealand (Understanding New Zealand, revised), p. 153

[161] Press, 14 Jul 41, p. 9; Wood, Understanding New Zealand, p. 157

[162] NZ Herald, 11 Mar 44, p. 8

[163] Muston, Colin: to NZ 1907; conductor and violinist; conducted Auck Otphans Club Orch 1907–14, Bohemian Orch, Symphony Orch, Operatic Soc, Savage Club; with Auck Choral Soc 1917–46

[164] NZ Listener, 12 Feb 43, p. 10

[165] Howe, pp. 25–6

[166] Hess, Dame Myra, DBE('41) (1890–1965): pianist, concert debut 1907

[167] Clark, Kenneth Mackenzie, OM('76), Baron ('69): b 1903; Dir Nat Art Gall UK 1934–45; chmn Arts Cncl UK 1953–60; Slade Prof Fine Arts Oxford 1946–50, et al

[168] Dominion, 16, 23, 30 Jun, 21 Jul 41, pp. 10, 10, 10, 3, 2 Mar 42, p. 2

[169] Ibid., 2 Sep 41, p. 10; Evening Post, 6 Feb 42, p. 3

[170] Ostova, Greta: b Poland1916; cellist; toured NZ with Bolshoi Ballet 1959, univ teaching, concerts with String Trio, principal cellist Symphonia Auck

[171] Dominion, 25 Feb 42, p. 4

[172] Jensen, Owen: b 1907; music critic Wgtn Evening Post; specialist music tutor Adult Educ Centre AUC 1945–51, Dir Cambridge Symphony Orch; composer

[173] Craccum, 31 Mar 43; Auckland Star, 22 Jan 43, p. 2

[174] Evening Post, 20 Oct, 25 Nov 44, pp. 6, 9

[175] Ibid., 17 Feb 45, p. 9

[176] Aspey, Vincent, MBE(‘58): b UK 1909, to NZ aet 2 years; violinist; lead violinist Aust Broadcasting Orch from 1928; leader 1YA Studio Orch 1936, NBS String Orch 1940; principal NBS String Quartet; leader NZ Nat Orch 1948, NZBC Symphony Orch to 1967

[177] Schramm, Paul (1892–1953): b Vienna; pupil of Leschetizky; piano virtuoso in Europe until 1932; formed Batavian Symphony Orch 1933–7; in New Zealand from 1938, solo recitalist and, with wife Diny Schramm, duo pianist; died Australia

[178] Auckland Star, 29 Nov, 8 Dec 44, pp. 6, 3; Press, 6 Jun 45, p. 5

[179] Goodman, Isador: b S Africa1909, to Aust 1930; pianist, composer; o'seas appearances with London Symphony, Halle, Philharmonic orchs etc

[180] NZ Herald, 13 Jul 45, p. 9

[181] Ibid., 16 Jul 45, p. 7; Dominion, 18 Jul 45, p. 8

[182] Evening Post, 7 Mar 45, p. 7

[183] Landfall, Jun 61, p. 148

[184] Sargent, Sir Malcolm, Kt('47) (1895–1967): conductor orch classes, Prof Royal Coll Music from 1923

[185] Evening Post, 13 Jun 45, p. 8

[186] Dominion, 17 Jul 45, p. 6

[187] Ibid., 25 Aug 45, p. 8

[188] Hill, H. Gladstone, MBE('61) (1880–1977): b UK, to NZ 1886; Pres, chmn NZ Patriotic Soc WWI; Lieut-Bandmaster 16th Waikato Regimental Band, conductor

Hamilton choral, operatic socs, male voice choir; Bandmaster, Dir Music to RNZAF 1940–5

[189] Jensen, p. 21

[190] Ibid., p. 20

[191] Ibid., pp. 1, 31

[192] Landfall, Jun 61, p. 146

[193] NZ Listener, 30 Apr 43, p. 7

[194] Evening Post, 3 Apr 45, p. 7

[195] Wright, A. G., and Newcomb, S. P., Bands of the World, p. 51

[196] Hurst, M., Music and the Stage in New Zealand, p. 87

[197] See pp. 1250– 8, 1265– 70

[198] Braithwaite, Henry Warwick. FRAM (1898–1971): b NZ; conductor UK operatic, musical societies, orchestras from 1919 including Welsh Nat Orch, Sadler's Wells Opera Co. and ballet, Covent Garden; Conductor Nat Orch NZ 1953–4; conductor's posts

Europe, Australia, S Africa

[199] NZ Listener, 20 Aug 53, p. 18

[200] Ibid., 2 May 41, p. 43

[201] Evening Post, 8 May 46, p. 12

[202] NZ Listener, 27 Aug 43, p. 7, and cover picture of 5 clarinet players

[203] Jensen, pp. 15, 21

[204] Concord of Sweet Sounds: the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at 30, edited by Keith Hambleton, pp. 9–10

[205] Condliffe, John Bell: b 1891; b Aust, educ NZ, INZEF 1917–19; Prof Economics CUC 1920–6, o'seas positions Honolulu, LoN, London School Economics, New Delhi,

USA from 1927, consultant Stanford Research Inst, Menlo Park 1975, Prof Emeritus Univ California, Berkeley 1959

[206] Condliffe, The Welfare State in New Zealand, p. 99

[207] Angus, Rita (1908–70): trained Canty School Art, Elam; landscapes, portraits; based

Canterbury

[208] Woollaston, Sir Tosswill, Kt('79) (b 1910): trained Elam, Canty School Art, Dunedin School Art, overseas; landscapes etc; based Auckland

[209] McCahon, Colin John (b 1919): trained Canty School Art, Dunedin Technical College, lecturer Auckland School Fine Arts; abstracts; based Nelson, Central Otago, Auckland

[210] Lee-Johnson, Eric: b Suva1908, to NZ 1912; studied Elam, overseas; landscapes etc; based Auckland

[211] Weeks, John, OBE(58) (1888–1965): b UK, to NZ 1892; studied Elam, overseas, Canty School Art; landscapes; taught Elam

[212] Tole, John Charles (1890–1967): self-taught; landscapes; based Auckland

Tole, Charles: b 1903; trained by brother John; landscapes etc; based Auckland

[213] Eise, Ida Gertrude, MBE(‘76) (1894–1978): studied Elam; landscapes

[214] Mourant, Elise: b 1921; studied art school Wgtn, overseas; water-colour landscapes

[215] White, Lois: b 1903; studied Elam; figure composition in oils

[216] Thompson, Sydney Lough, OBE(‘37): studied Canty School Art under van der Velden, overseas, lecturer Canty School Art; landscapes

[217] McCormack, Thomas Arthur, OBE(′56) (1883–1973): self-taught; water-colourist; based Hawke's Bay, Wellington

[218] Richardson, Harry Linley (1878–1947): b UK, to NZ 1908; studied London, Paris; life drawings, portraits; based Manawatu

[219] Savage, Cedric Daniel (1901–69): studied Canty School Art, Aust; landscapes; based Takaka

[220] Nicoll, Archibald Frank (1886–1953): studied Canty School Art, overseas; oils, portraits, landscapes; based Canterbury; Dir Canty School Art 1920–8, involved gallery admin

[221] Kelly, Cecil Fletcher (1879–1954): studied Canty School Art, overseas; landscapes, oils; based Canterbury

[222] Higgs, Sidney Hamlet (1884–1978): b Tasmania; studied Aust; painter; based Wellington

[223] King Marcus; b 1891; landscapes

[224] Waghorn, Reginald James, OBE('75): b 1888; self-taught; based Wellington

[225] Welch, Nugent Herman, OBE('49) (1881–1970): studied Canty School Art, Wellington Technical College Art School; official war artist 1918–19; landscapes; based Wellington

[226] Dominion, 5 Aug 43, p. 6

[227] Page, Evelyn, nee Poison (b 1899): studied Canty School Art; landscapes, portraits, still life, etc; based Wellington

[228] McLennan, Stewart Bell, OBE('68) (1903–73): studied Dunedin School Art, overseas; water-colour landscapes; based Wellington; 20 years Dir Nat Art Gallery

[229] Sutton, William Alexander, CBE('SO): b 1917; studied Canty School Art, overseas; portraits, landscapes; based Canterbury; lecturer, senior lecturer Canty School Art 1949–79

[230] Taylor, Ernest Mervyn (1906–64): studied Elam, Wgtn Technical Coll; wood sculptor, engraver, water-colourist, murals; based Wellington

[231] Henderson, Louise: b 1912; b Paris, to NZ 1932; studied Canty School Art, Elam, overseas; painting, mosaics, sculpture, tapestry; based Auckland

[232] Spencer Bower, Catherine Elizabeth Orme (1905–82): b UK, to NZ 1920; studied Canty School Art, overseas, Elam; water-colour landscapes, portraits; based Canterbury

[233] Brown, Helen: b 1917; studied Elam; landscapes; based Auckland

[234] Christie, Bessie: b 1908; studied Elam; oil landscapes; based Auckland

[235] Clark, Cedric Russel Stuart (1905–66): studied Canty School Art; painter, sculptor, illustrator, murals, oils & water-colours; based Canterbury; lecturer Canty School Art

[236] Kay, Robin: b 1919; studied Canty School Art, Wgtn Technical Coll Art School; watercolour landscapes, compositions; based Wellington; 2NZEF; historian, author of several official NZ war histories

[237] Deans, Alister Austen: 2NZEF; landscapes; based Canterbury

[238] Barnes-Graham, A. B.: b 1906; studied overseas; portraits

[239] Coe, James Bowkett: 2NZEF; head school design Wgtn Polytech; landscapes, metal and wood works

[240] Collier, Edith Marion (1885–1964): studied overseas, pupil Frances Hodgkins; portraits; based Wanganui

[241] Art in New Zealand, no 68, Jun–Jul 45, pp. 22, 25

[242] Dominion, 15 May 43, p. 6

[243] Stenberg, Ron: b 1919; studied Elam; figure, porrrait painting; worked and exhibited overseas

[244] Moller, Uffa: b Denmark, to NZ aet 7; studied Elam; 2NZEF; portraits, murals; NZ Herald, 2 Dec 42, p. 4

[245] Crabb, Helen Priscilla (1891–1972), also known as ‘Barc’: studied overseas; ink drawings; based Auckland

[246] Reproduced in Art in New Zealand, no 51, Jun 41

[247] Press, 9, 10 Mar 42, pp. 3, 8

[248] Ibid., 31 Oct 44, p. 2

[249] Dominion, 15 Oct 43, p. 4

[250] Ibid., 15 Dec 42, p. 4; NZ Herald, 11 Jun 43, p. 2

[251] Dominion, 10 Nov 44, p. 6

[252] Ibid., 30 Nov 42, p. 4

The Home Front Volume II

CHAPTER 24 — Victory at Last

CHAPTER 24
Victory at Last

THROUGHOUT 1944 there was certainty of victory, even some hopes that it would come within the year. The Russians continued to thrust back the enemy: in authoritative phrases, sprinkled with difficult names, radio news and cables buttressed with arrowed maps described movements. There was the northern drive, which on 27 January ended the 30-month siege of Leningrad, an event saluted with massive salvoes in Moscow, and with editorials in New Zealand. It continued on to the Baltic, while Finland manoeuvred for peace. There was the January thrust out from the Kiev salient, south-west through the Ukraine to the Bug River, and on in March over the Dneister and Pruth to halt at Jassy in Romania. There was the drive west to the Polish borders, on to approach outer Warsaw east of the Vistula, by 1 August. There it halted, while the inadequate, independent and tragic uprising of the Polish underground began on 1 August and surrendered on 2 October; the Russians did not enter the city until 17 January 1945, by when most of it had been destroyed, along with thousands of Poles. [1] But even such confused, bitter episodes could not disturb the broad current, the sense that the war was working towards its end.

The air war over Germany was strengthening. At the end of January 1944 it was reported that the wiping out of Berlin was about half done. So far more than 23 000 tons of bombs had been dropped on that city, including 7000 before 18 November 1943, the date taken as beginning the battle of Berlin; it was established that 50 000 tons would destroy Berlin as an administrative and industrial centre. [2]

Progress up Italy, where Allied troops had landed in September 1943, was slow, but Cassino, which had held out for more than six months, finally crumpled in mid-May 1944. On 5 June the liberation of Rome was celebrated in New Zealand and with official rejoicings: there were speeches and flags, with bells and sirens sounding at noon, but there was little spontaneous excitement. Widespread references to the coming major invasion of Europe built up expectation months before D-Day on 6 June 1944. This happening for New Zealand was no surprise but brought a stir of excitement and satisfaction. At last the Allies were getting on with the land invasion that really counted. Papers were waited for, the radio news was keenly tuned. Stories of massive air cover and the roll-out of men and material soon gave confidence; hard fighting was expected but the beach-heads were widening. This was no Gallipoli or Norway or Dieppe. In three weeks, Cherbourg, thorny tip of the Normandy peninsula, surrendered. There were more landings in the south and the tempo quickened, though not evenly.

In August and September there were hopes, heightened by the attempt on 20 July by some Wehrmacht officers to kill Hitler, of German collapse. Churchill's review on 2 August was, as the Auckland Star noted later on 1 November, the ‘most optimistic report he had ever given.’ Of the war in Europe, Churchill said: ‘I fear greatly to raise false hopes, but I no longer feel bound to deny that victory may come perhaps soon.’ He also said, I am increasingly led to believe that the interval between the defeat of Hitler and the defeat of Japan will be shorter—perhaps much shorter—than I at one time had supposed.' [3] Newspaper opinions in Britain and in New Zealand were not slow to share his beliefs. In Washington the Acting Secretary for War, returning from the battlefields at the end of August, was confident that the Germans could be defeated within four months. [4] A noted commentator, Max Werner, [5] in mid-August held that the German army could be broken in eight weeks, after which the political, social and economic disintegration of the German state would begin [6] — a view which the Press thought should be treated with reserve. [7] On 24 August Romania capitulated to the Russians and changed sides, while with joyful acclaim both Paris and Marseilles were freed. In New Zealand flags were flown, bells, sirens and whistles made their noise at noon, and there were speeches. In the House the Prime Minister prudently reminded that not victory, but a milestone on the way to it, was being celebrated. [8] In

Europe Eisenhower said that by normal standards the German people ‘should be ready to roll over now, but any prospective leader of a revolt automatically finds a revolver put to his head. The German army is still competent, effective and able, when it chooses, to put up a bitter, sustained resistance.’ [9] The Auckland Star on 14 September believed that the European war would be over within six months and on 21 September a member of Parliament asked as an urgent question that the Oil Fuel Controller should so plan that on the day of victory country people could go to town to celebrate. [10]

But the Germans, facing unconditional surrender, fought back, with increasing stubbornness as they neared their own soil. At Arnhem on 18 September a British airborne attack miscarried with heavy loss, and everywhere German lines hardened. The V-l rocket bombardment, which from mid-June had savagely plagued London, was waning early in September, but thereafter the V–2, larger, faster and more destructive though less numerous, harassed that much-enduring city. The last was to fall on Kent on 27 March 1945. [11]

In the Pacific, patterns of success were evolving. In New Guinea's jungles Australians and Americans laboured steadily, the Americans showing their strength in mechanised warfare—building wharves, airfields, roads, sawmills and hospitals, pouring in the means to move forward while cutting the enemy off from supplies and from escape. Newspaper editorials [12] and commentaries expounded on these skills and the new style of warfare. In February, the easy capture of the Green Islands, northernmost of the Solomons, where New Zealand troops made their third and last combat appearance in the

Pacific, completed the out-flanking strategy in that group. On its large islands, Bougainville and Choiseul, thousands of Japanese remained, with damaged airfields, cut off from supplies and withdrawal, to be held down by air attack and land patrols till the end of the war. Already in February the by-passing of islands process was being repeated in the central Pacific with the seizure of Kwajalein and Eniwetok, westerly atolls in the Marshall groups. In March the Americans struck into the Admiralty Islands, encircling Rabaul, threatening Truk. Most of the islands on Japan's shrinking perimeter were small, though this did not make them easy: Tarawa in the Gilbert group, taken in November 1943, had been very costly, as

Iwo Jima and Okinawa were also to prove.

The part of the New Zealand Division in the Pacific in 1943 had been minor. The men who were originally intended to make it a three-brigade force had been diverted in August to replace the first

Middle East furlough draft. [13] The fighting allotted to it at Vella Lavella and the Treasury Islands in September and October was secondary, as was its task on Nissan in the Green Islands in February 1944. In the Canberra Pact of 21 January 1944, recognising that the post-war British position in the Pacific was being weakened by the overwhelming American presence, Australia and New Zealand together claimed, by virtue of ‘their resolute and long sustained war effort’, the right to a leading role in the post-war Pacific. [14] America, however, insured that only garrison and reconnaissance duties would be given to New Zealand land forces, and that their main enemies would be boredom and its accompanying demoralisation. Official correspondents in January 1944 wrote of the 3rd Divison being wearied with inactivity. [15]

For New Zealand in 1944 the question of where its manpower should be directed was of crucial importance. On 24 January Nash, who had been told by Fraser on 12 January that one or other division must be withdrawn, [16] asked Roosevelt where New Zealand could best serve: militarily, in the Mediterranean or Pacific zones, in the air and at sea, or in expanding food production? [17] Three weeks earlier, on 3 January, the New Zealand Herald had said that in many Allied opinions the food production front was equal in importance to the fighting front; the government and the country should squarely face the facts of New Zealand's depleted labour force, its declining farm output, and the hungry world. Again on 30 March the Herald urged the need to encourage farming, with labour, fertiliser and adequate prices.

Dairy farmers, impatient with their stabilised prices, demanded financial encouragement, pointing out that British dairying, with government help and good prices, had remarkably increased its production, while New Zealand's had fallen. In the 1940 crisis, farmers had slogged in to produce more without worrying openly about increased payment. Since then the chops and changes in Britain's demands had clouded their zeal, they were tired, and they were disillusioned about the guaranteed price system. [18] Further, in June 1943, the government had arranged stabilisation accounts for both meat and dairy produce to receive any increase in overseas prices above the level ruling at 15 December 1942. From these accounts were paid, in part, the subsidies used to keep farm costs down to those of December 1942. [19] Payout prices for butterfat remained at 1939–40 rates through 1941–2: 16.087 d per lb used in butter-making, 18.060 d per lb used in cheese-making. In 1942–3 these rates rose only to 16.569 d for butter, 18.577 d for cheese. [20] Meanwhile the overseas price of wool, increased by 15 per cent in May 1942, was about 50 per cent above pre-war prices, and almost its full earnings, untrammelled by stabilisation accounts, went direct to the farmers. [21] It was hardly surprising that the popularity of sheep, generally less laborious than cows, increased.

From late 1943 dairy farmers spoke often of having to reduce their herds and of needing the real encouragement of better prices. The report of a Morrinsville meeting stated: Farmers are restive and there is an underlying feeling that unless they become a more militant group they will not get the treatment that is needed to keep their industry on a sound basis. It is said that this season the Government will receive much more than will be paid out to the producers…. It takes 15 cows to pay a man, so instead the farmer reduces his herd from 80 to 65 cows, runs a few sheep and achieves the same results. But the result is not the same for the country. [22]

Early in April a comprehensive meeting, representing the Federation of Labour, Chambers of Commerce, the Farmers' Union and employers' and manufacturers' association, recommended that all suitable manpower should be available for farms, along with prefabricated houses or military huts, more fertiliser and better prices. There should be tax exemptions on the amounts that would normally be spent on manure and maintenance, the money being used meanwhile as war finance and repaid to farmers after the war to recondition their farms. [23]

On 10 March 1944 the Prime Minister had told Halsey, in command of Pacific forces, that New Zealand required 17 500 men for farming and its ancillary occupations, for sawmilling, mining, hydroelectric works, railways and housing; 7000 were needed by July. [24] On 7 April Fraser announced various measures to encourage farming: more labour, fertiliser and rural housing, and tax exemption on deferred maintenance, as proposed by the conference a few days earlier. A wage cost allowance of 1.21 d per lb of butterfat would lift the wage reckoning for owners in the guaranteed price structure to £5 7 s 6 d a week and enable £4 17 s 6 d a week (including £1 for board) to be paid to dairy farm workers. There were modest subsidies for rearing heifer calves and growing pig food, and ½ d a lb increase in pork and bacon prices. [25]

Various leaders appealed to farmers for renewed effort to relieve

Britain. They included Benjamin Roberts, [26] the Minister of Agriculture, W. S. Hale, [27] the chairman of the Dairy Board, [28] and the

New Zealand Herald's editorial on 17 April. Holland, describing near-bare British tables, said that increased production was more important than local feelings or political opinions, ‘was even more important at the moment than organising for the National party’. [29] When told that at present prices production was not attractive, he replied: ‘it is not a question of whether it is attractive, it is a question of whether we can save Britain from sheer and utter starvation.’ [30]

Farmers were not swept off their feet; in particular they thought the butterfat price increase too small. [31] At a conference in May, Mulholland, president of the Farmers' Union, said that their attitude was the result of the government's unsympathetic treatment; several recent measures seemed hostile to farmers: the Land Sales Act was a ‘Venomous attack’; paid annual holidays had been unloaded on the country; the Local Elections and Polls Amendment Act violated

‘all the unwritten laws of our constitution’. [32] Despite Britain's great need, said Mulholland, he had never known such hostility to a government announcement as had greeted the recent proposals for increasing dairy production. He criticised Stabilisation for failing to control farming costs and standing in the way of production, and he claimed that increased prices being paid by Britain for meat were not reaching farmers. Other speakers said that the government was more anxious to prevent a rise in the cost of living than to produce the quantities of food needed by Britain; farmers were working for 1939 prices while paying 1944 costs. [33] Some 50 delegates, meeting outside conference hours, stated that appeals to sentiment were not sufficient inducement. [34]

While the farmers grumbled, the British government moved towards a price solution, proposing, on 3 March, new long-term contracts. Ensuing increases were announced on 3 August 1944. Retrospectively, from 1 April 1943 to 31 July 1944 Britain paid 143 s 1½ d per hundredweight for top grade butter, an increase of 26 s 1½ d; 85 s 6¼ d per hundredweight for top grade cheese, an increase of 12 s 6¼ d per hundredweight. New four-year contracts provided that for the next two seasons the price for such butter would be 150 s6 d, and cheese 89 s; thereafter prices would be reviewed. Increases for meat were still being discussed. Further, the British government recognised that New Zealand, over the war years, had paid higher prices for British goods while New Zealand costs had been held much lower than would have been possible without its Stabilisation scheme and the subsidies, on which the New Zealand government had paid out about £25 million. Britain, therefore, in compensation for the disparity in prices would pay a lump sum of £ 12 million and further lump sums of £4 million a year over the next four years. Payment of up to £18 million would be suspended until the end of the war. These arrangements, said the Prime Minister, would help pay for abnormal imports after the war, but he was concerned that they should not overturn Stabilisation. [35]

Farmers' claims that the lump sums should go to them as compensation for inadequate payments were overuled by the view that these sums were made to the government as trustee for the people of New Zealand. [36] In due course payouts to dairy farmers increased from the 17.597 d per lb for butterfat used in buttermaking in 1943–4 to 20.568 d in 1945–6 and 23.691 d in 1946–7; in cheese-making these rates were 19–655 d, 22.884 d and 25.355 d. [37]

Creamery butter graded for export in 1943–4 totalled 101 992 tons, cheese 85 473. In 1944–5 these figures rose to 122 352 and 95 548 tons, though in 1945–6 they fell again to 103 977 tons of butter, 88 185 of cheese. [38] It must be remembered that supplying the armed forces in the Pacific absorbed much butter and cheese which might otherwise have gone to Britain: in 1944–5 while rationing reduced civilian consumption of butter by approximately 11 million lb, sales to those forces increased by approximately 4 million Ib. [39]

Purchase prices for meat, which had risen only slightly between 1939–40 and 1943–4, rose by about 1 d per lb on most lines in 1944–5, with payment to producers increasing by about half that amount. [40] Farm stabilisation accounts, which kept money out of circulation and checked inflation, grew steadily, totalling £24 million by July 1946; subsidy payments of nearly £7 million were drawn from these accounts, leaving a balance of £17 million. [41] Over the 1942–6 period subsidies in all totalled £23,361,000, more than half being related to farming. [42] These were some of the facts and contrivings behind the war's farming saga and its 1944 stresses.

Meanwhile in mid-1944, with 7000 3rd Division men available, farms absorbed fewer men more slowly than expected. Many farmers were waiting for their sons or they wanted to choose their own men and doubted the value of those supplied by the government. By the end of November 1944, out of 9100 men released from the Division 4286 were working on farms. [43]

Estimates of labour needs had been based on farm workers having increased by about 2000 a year since 1926, to 148 000 in the 1936 census. But the census of 1951 was to find only 117 000 men working on farms, with 29 000 fewer on dairy farms. Over the war years, methods changed with marked increase in the use of machinery. The number of tractors rose by 97 per cent, from about 9600 in 1939 to more than 18 900 by 1946, including more than 7000 from the

United States under Lend-Lease. Electric motors, which needed less attention than internal combustion engines, increased by 51 per cent from 51 000 to nearly 77 000 in 1946. Shearing machine plants increased from 10000 to 14000, milking machine plants more modestly, from nearly 29000 in 1939 to 31 800 in 1946. Before the war it was generally believed that after machine milking hand stripping was necessary for continued top production. By 1943–4, Dairy Board tests had shown that stripping made very little difference to yield, and farmers progressively abandoned it, notably reduceing labour needs. [44]

Away from the battle fronts and the farms, the year 1944 saw two far–reaching innovations: the approach of the five-day shopping week, which was to persist from 1945 until the end of 1980 and the civilian advent of penicillin. There was pressure for and against a five-day shopping week throughout the year. By their awards, retail shops worked a 44-hour week, which included one late night and Saturday mornings. Shop assistants' awards were due to expire, that for Northern Industrial District on 1 July 1944, that for the rest of the country on 7 September. About the middle of the year there were meetings, resolutions and ballots, workers and unionists wanting closed shops on Saturday mornings, retailers, manufacturers, farmers' unions and housewives wanting them open. The old awards continued although there were wage rate amendments from April 1945. [45]

In December 1945 the Shops and Offices Amendment Act established a 40-hour week for retail shops. Already by agreement between some firms and their staffs many shops were closed on Saturdays. Certain trades in some towns had for years been closed on Saturdays, notably butchers in Rotorua and Te Kuiti (five years), Whangarei (three years) and Otorohanga (six years). In Wellington, shoe shops, ironmongers and some drapers had not opened on Saturday mornings for six or eight months, and the big drapers advertised that from 1 November they would not either. By November at Auckland out of 276 general stores in Queen Street, 270 closed all Saturday and only 13 of Karangahape Road's 121 shops were open. [46] Thus retailers were moving into a five-day shopping week slightly ahead of the legislation that made inviolate the weekends of as many workers as possible. That many goods were still limited in range or quantity and were eagerly bought was a factor reconciling shopkeepers to shorter hours; another factor was that with all shops closed none could, through longer hours, drain off an undue share of trade.

The revolutionary drug penicillin made its first appearance among New Zealand civilians in 1944. In March 18-year-old Roger Kingsford, who had won a Boy Scout award for bravery and who later for five years had suffered from osteomyelitis and staphylococcus septicaemia, was the first to receive it, through an appeal by the Prime Minister to Australian authorities. [47] By June limited weekly supplies began to arrive and were distributed by air to the four main centres; a gazette order ensured that until supplies increased it would be used only for most urgent cases. [48]

In mid-October 1944 Fraser did not think that the war would be over within a year. [49] By the start of November, Churchill had no hope of victory in Europe before the end of the northern spring or even later and said that it would not be prudent to assume that less than 18 months more would be needed to destroy Japan. [50] Papers such as the Auckland Star said that the Allies had been over-ready to believe that Germany would crack and they had underestimated the fighting quality of the German army. [51] Some gloomy prophets spoke of the Japanese war lasting three or four years more unless Russia took part. [52] In mid-December, von Rundstedt's [53] surprise thrust from the Ardennes towards Antwerp stirred reluctant admiration and memories of Dunkirk; a month of heavy fighting was needed to squeeze back ‘Rundstedt's bulge’. At New Year Hitler told his people that never had their enemies thought victory so near as they had in August 1944, ‘but again we contrived to bend fate to our will’; there would be German victory within six months. Their enemies used barbarous methods never known before in civilised society but from the ruins of Aachen and other cities rose, phoenix-like, the determined spirit of the German people. [54] On 6 January New Zealand papers quoted from The Times that the western front called for austere thinking and all faith in the Allies' ultimate success.

The fifth and last Christmas of the war was fairly frugal for New Zealand, though plenteous by world standards. With far fewer Americans about, supplies of poultry, wine and beer were more plentiful than in 1943. [55] No tinned fruit was issued, dried fruits were limited, [56] sweets were hunted and queued for. Gifts were much as for the previous year, with books prominent, some printed in New Zealand by arrangement with overseas publishers. [57] For children there were many rag dolls, cardboard games, soft and wooden toys, some well made, some rapidly falling to bits. [58] Some manufacturers, in between heavier contracts and from left-overs of metal or plastic, had contrived items such as tea sets and cooking sets, soldiers and animals; furriers made rabbit-skin koala bears and one Auckland factory produced a sleeping doll. [59] There was keen interest in secondhand toys such as sleeping dolls, dolls' houses and prams, rocking horses and Hornby trains. [60]

Christmas and New Year street scenes were quiet. Wellington, for instance, reported no serious accidents, no fires, not even one drunk on Christmas Eve. [61] At Auckland a crowd much smaller than usual gathered after 11 o'clock on the Sunday evening, to usher in the New Year briefly with squeakers, rattles and musical instruments. [62] In Christchurch few people were in the streets and only the sounding of sirens, whistles and motorcar horns marked the end of 1944. [63]

There were more travellers than trains, on which seats were booked two weeks ahead, some people queuing for hours or even overnight before ticket offices opened [64] As in the previous summer, a little extra petrol was available: two coupons at full value, giving private motorists 4–8 gallons according to car size, over December and January. [65] Though camping grounds near cities were well filled, [66] it was another stay-at-home Christmas; there were unseemly scrambles for buses to some beaches [67] and totalisator records continued to rise. [68] These were for on-course betting. The off-course TAB (Totalisator Agency Board) did not exist until 1951. Coal supplies were still inadequate, with recurrent acute shortages reducing gas supplies and railway services. Normally two passenger trains left both Auckland and Wellington daily: on 12 February 1945 some were cut out, by the 17th the service was halved and it remained so till the end of the month. [69]

At New Year Eraser warned against slackening effort in the certainty of victory, where dogged determination, as after Dunkirk or

Singapore, would shorten the conflict. The Auckland Star, remarking that the Germans went on fighting because this still seemed preferable to acknowledging defeat, warned that to finish Germany decisively and finally would be harder, more bloody and more exhausting than was generally realised. [70] The Press reminded that New Zealand was still experiencing all the benefits and few of the hardships of a wartime economy. All labour and capital were fully employed, with a ready market for everything produced, at prices from good to very good, while shortages and price inflation had made comparatively little trouble. Despite substantial demobilisation there were more jobs than workers, and for consumers 1945 promised to be the best year since 1941; as most shoppers were aware, goods from the United States and Britain were coming more quickly, while reduced military needs were enabling local factories to tackle the most serious shortage—clothing. The divided aims and loyalties of peacetime economy were re-appearing, pressing against Stabilisation which was ‘losing both its original prestige and its original compelling logic’. Indefinite freezing of wages and costs would be possible only in a totalitarian economy, but there was danger that, in the absence of any rule save that of expediency, large pressure groups would break through Stabilisation restrictions while these continued to hold down smaller and weaker groups, which in equity had stronger claims to relief. The Press recalled the boom and depression years following the last war and warned that 1945 would be a testing time; it would be disastrously easy, by relaxing controls on both wages and farm incomes, to gain the short-term prosperity of inflation. [71]

The New Zealand Herald wondered whether Germany would fall in the coming summer, wondered when and with what effect the full power of the Allies would be turned on Japan. For New Zealand the course ahead was steady: commitments to the fighting Services had been reduced in proportion to resources, with long-serving men being replaced and returning to help in the humdrum but necessary and honourable production of food and wool. People were behaving very much like a car driver after many miles at the wheel, driving silently with eyes steady on the road.

The ordinary New Zealander has ceased to argue or speculate much about the war, although he takes keen account of its events as they unfold. He regards it in total with not much of either hope or apprehension, and American attempts to dramatise the deeds of fighting men leave him almost completely cold. Even if no burden of sorrow or anxiety rests on his own home, he knows what the people in the next house or the next street have to bear. The suffering of millions beyond the seas are always at the back of his mind; he feels that he and his are luckier than their deserts. And so he carries on with the job in hand. [72]

The job in hand was twofold: carrying on with the war and getting ready for peace. In the latter aspect, pressure for higher wages was notable. This was increased by expectation that demobilisation would end the overtime which had kept many lower paid workers abreast or even slightly ahead of prices, which despite Stabilisation measures gradually rose. Butterfat returns had been increased in July 1944 and union patience was not improved by members of Parliament, in December 1944, granting themselves substantial rises in pay and allowances. [73] In mid-January 1945 Waikato dairy factory workers struck against their new two-year award to obtain better rates in case of less overtime, A week later railway workers struck because the Tribunal investigating their pay and conditions seemed unduly long in making its decisions; some coal miners struck in sympathy and it was promised that the Tribunal would produce results by mid- February. As the 1945 report of the Federation of Labour said, ‘It was obvious that a new higher general level of wages would have to be brought into being.’ [74] In response to Federation pressure, on 13 February an amendment to Stabilisation regulations permitted the Court of Arbitration to amend wages in order to preserve a proper relationship between the rates payable to various classes of workers.

On 14 February the railwaymen's wages were increased by 3½ d an hour, and on 17 March the Court of Arbitration answered the application of the Federation of Labour by a similar rise in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled rates. [75] This was not a general order, but would be obtained through the application of each trade union.

The Public Service Association, with temporary employees multiplied by the war, was vigorously pressing pay and other claims. The government agreed on 16 February to set up a consultative committee including PSA representation to overhaul the Service; meanwhile there would be a general adjustment to pay rates in line with the Railway Tribunal's findings, backdated to 30 June 1944. For most lower paid State servants, including those in the armed forces, this meant a rise of about £30 a year, while among the higher paid professionals increases ranged up to £75 a year. [76] Public Service women, while welcoming their £30 interim rise, were keen for the consultative committee to consider the claims of particular groups, and they reaffirmed their belief in equal pay for equal work, combined with family allowances. [77] By May the committee reported ‘considerable progress’ towards new salary scales. [78]

Dr Hare in April warned that the end of the war might see a period of industrial strife like that which followed the First World War. Wages, he said, were the main cause of disputes, because both sides concentrated on this issue without realising that it was on account of discontents raised by other questions—such as insecurity, poor conditions, lack of incentive and relations with management— that the wages problem seemed insoluble. Where, as so often, there was nothing in a job to hold a worker except the money, there was little wonder that it seemed to be all he cared about. Hare advised employers to do all in their power to improve work conditions, adding that in many factories which he had seen these were definitely very bad. Employers should try to give security by seeking the right man for a job and assuming that he would stay in it. Security could also be improved by paying wages during sickness, Social Security benefits not being enough to relieve worry and privation if illness lasted more than a few weeks. If an employer paid full wages in sickness, however, he should be able to recover from the State any benefit which the State would otherwise have paid. Hare also urged employers to work out some system which would automatically give workers a share in the proceeds proportionate to their efforts. Unions should not be merely levy-receiving organisations enforcing the wages and conditions imposed by awards; they should reach out towards active participation in industrial life, stabilising employment, improving relationships with employers, and improving democracy in their own ranks. For each industry or group thereof, an industrial council, drawn equally from both sides, should be the recognised mouthpiece to the State. [79] This was forward thinking in 1945 and much of it would remain forward thinking for more than thirty years.

In the consumer field some goods which had been scarce were becoming more plentiful or could be obtained here and there at shorter intervals, goods such as towels, enamel ware, watches and alarm clocks. Indian carpets had been advertised during 1944. [80] Tools, such as hammers and saws, garden and agricultural imple ments, were returning. [81] In advertisements many firms making goods such as silk stockings, camera film, blankets, men's suits or chocolates, promised that soon they would be able to sell their customers all or at least more of what they wanted. There were demands that shops should resume the wrapping of bread since supplies of paper had become adequate, but retailers resisted, claiming that paper was double its former price and that they got only ½ d on each 5½ d loaf. [82] Newsprint was more plentiful: for instance, the Auckland Star and the Ckristchurch Star-Sun, which ad been limited to 42 pages weekly had by May increased to 58 and 56 respectively. [83] In 1945, unlike the previous four years, there was enough paper for the monthly School Journal to be supplied to every pupil in primary classes, as of old. [84]

There were still many shortages. As more households were set up there were not enough blankets, mattresses, pots and pans, tele phones, china, cutlery. There was great scarcity of men's clothing, from overcoats to underwear. Men in thousands were laying aside uniforms to search for civvies while their wives were forsaking factory machines to set up house. Other factors, such as stabilisation of prices and wages, made the production of utility clothing unattractive. An Auckland shopkeeper in March reported about 10 inquiries per hour for sports trousers while he did not know when his orders would arrive. [85]

Shortage of electricity worsened as domestic demands increased and low coal stocks meant that delays in deliveries could cut off coal–produced electricity. All supply authorities had to complete the metering of water heaters by 31 March 1945, which enabled them to impose substantial reductions in heating hours, productive of doubtfully warm baths and washing. There were direct cuts of power at listed hours. Thus in May Auckland, to save 10 per cent of its daily Monday–to–Friday load, published lists of half–hour periods when power would be cut off in various suburbs. [86] The ban on the sale of radiators where there were other means of heating, by oil, wood, coal or gas, was rigidly enforced. [87] The summer half–hour of daylight saving was again continued through the winter. [88] Streets remained dimly lit. In April the Auckland Star remarked that Auck land was a gloomy city, the result of wartime's less powerful lamps and the refusal to install lights where they had become necessary, as in newly developed streets. It was increasingly difficult to maintain safety while keeping within the government–imposed limit of 20 per cent below the 1941 level of power for street lighting. Only by eliminating an existing light or reducing several could a new light be installed. People, the Star recalled, had been so relieved when the blackout ended that for a time deficiencies were unnoticed and accepted without complaint, but realisation was growing that for public safety more light was needed in residential areas, at corners and on undulating thoroughfares. [89]

In many areas things continued as they were. Although some manufacturers advocated the repeal of essential industry declarations, saying that industrial relations were deteriorating, [90] Manpower regulations continued, enforced by penalties in the courts: for instance, in Wellington on 10 March 1945 six persons who had breached directions were fined. [91] There were special calls for girls to work in hospitals handed over by the Americans at Auckland and Wellington. All unmarried women of 2 1 and 22 years were called in for questioning, whether or not they were already in essential industries or government departments. [92] There was a renewed campaign for mental hospital staff, particularly women, with more explanation and persuasion than formerly, including broadcasts by nurses and by 2ZB's redoubtable Aunt Daisy, leading to better results. The wages, however, were nor impressive: beginners under 21 received

£160 a year plus cost of living bonuses (still only 10 per cent), less £25 for board; for adult beginners the basic pay was £175. [93]

The government's intention, publicly adumbrated in November 1944, of taking over the privately owned shares in the Bank of New Zealand increasingly concerned financial circles, the National party and Labour devotees during 1945 producing heated feelings and demonstrations before legislation was passed in November. Tradi tionally, the Labour party feared the power of the banks. Nash in a 1925 pamphlet, Financial Power in New Zealand: the case for a State Bank, which he quoted in 1945, had written:

The Associated Banks in conference determine what credit shall be issued, to whom it shall be issued, for what it shall be issued, and the rate of interest which shall be paid. They may restrict overdrafts, which reduces prices. They have more power over pri mary production, importation and prices than either Parliament, farmer, industrial worker, or merchant. The dominant member of the association is the Bank of New Zealand. This bank is controlled by six directors, four of whom are appointed by the

New Zealand Government. These men determine the banking policy for the Dominion. This policy is always determined in the interests of the shareholders and financial corporations of the Dominion. [94]

The government, late in 1939, had purchased the private share holdings of the Reserve Bank. Far back in 1894 the government had saved the Bank of New Zealand from failure with a State guarantee, and had subsequently provided that a majority of the Bank's directors, including the chairman, be appointed by the government. Since 1937 the chairman had been A. T. Donnelly, who was also prominent in the Stabilisation Commission and who could claim that the Bank and its fellows had acted co–operatively with the government for the war effort. But the government, to strengthen its control in a possible boom–and–bust phase following the war's end and to facilitate rehabilitation and post–war reconstruction, decided to acquire the Bank's private shares.

A resolution urging this, seconded by Nash, was adopted fervently at the Labour Party Conference on 8 November 1944, though Nash at the same time stressed that ownership of the Bank was no panacea, no substitute for productive work. [95] The Bank protested, pointing to its helpful record in the war, which the government acknowledged. [96] Donnelly told Nash on 21 November that he saw no national need for or benefit from the proposed change and that he would resign from the directorate if the take–over were effected. [97] Nash firmly stated on 31 March that necessary legislation would proceed in the next session, but gave ‘unqualified assurance’ that all existing rights and immunities of customers would continue unchanged, that their accounts and records would remain inviolable and secret. Management and day-to-day banking practice would not be altered, and while general policy would be determined by the Minister of Finance on behalf of the government the existing direc tors, as in the Reserve Bank and the State Advances Corporation, would be responsible for general administration. [98]

The government's opponents believed that it had used wartime controls cunningly to get a tighter stranglehold on private business, all steps along the road to complete State socialism and trade union dictatorship. Faced with the need soon to loosen these controls, the government was taking a giant leap towards the socialist goal, aim ing to manipulate people's money for political purposes, giving the trades hall dictators power over the lives, business and jobs of the people. [99] There were demonstrations on both sides. [100] In due course the enacting Bill was passed with strong debate in November 1945. Opposition then concentrated on transferring accounts to rival banks, but in the next 12 months the Bank of New Zealand's share in the trading bank's business dropped only from 39 to 37 per cent for deposits and from 40 to 39 per cent for advances. [101]

There was, in some quarters, concern that New Zealand's popu lation, then about 1 700 000, was inadequate either for national security or for prosperity and full employment. This was expressed trenchantly by the Dominion Settlement and Population Association, with its slogan ‘populate or perish’, also by other bodies. Women's groups said that to improve the birthrate houses and domestic help should be more plentiful, labour-saving devices should be available at cost price to mothers and there should be no means test with the family allowance. [102] The Federation of New Zealand Justices and others urged elevation of the status of women entering domestic service and improvement of maternity hospitals. [103] There were more people wanting to adopt babies than there were babies to adopt. [104] It was thought that British and European orphans would be among the most admirable immigrants and, wrongly, that there were plenty of them. [105] Belgium would-be homes outnumbered orphans, [106] but when Hol land was about to visit the United Kingdom the Dominion Settle ment and Population Association asked him to make inquiries for future immigrants. [107] Of Population: New Zealand's Problem, by H. I. Sinclair, [108] a reviewer, A. H. McLintock, [109] said that it was a ‘thoughtful and arresting book…. That New Zealand must pro duce or procure more population in order to ensure its national security and stave off national suicide is perhaps dimly appreciated by most people today. Mr Sinclair, however, puts the matter beyond question, and in a judicial manner weighs up the various schemes for remedying the situation.’ [110]

The Otago Daily Times, dismissing chances of obtaining emigrants from war-riven Europe, said that New Zealanders must rely on natu ral increase to develop resources and defend their title to the land. Present population trends were not only disturbing but positively alarming, there was not enough reproduction for growth or even to hold existing levels. The public might not have much faith in royal commissions, but there was room for an exhaustive inquiry into the causes of the decline in fertility and for advice whereby an'exceedingly dangerous tendency may be checked. [111] The birthrate, which from 19.57 per 1000 population in 1928 had dropped to 16.17 in 1935, had climbed to 18.73 in 1939. For the next three years it was 21.19, 22.81 and 21.73 respectively. In 1943 it dropped again to 19.70, rose to 21.59 in 1944, was 23.22 in 1945, 25.26 in 1946, 26.47 in 1947, 25.59 in 1948, 24.98 in 1949, 24.67 in 1950. [112] Dissatisfaction with New Zealand's licensing laws, heightened by war conditions, had produced a royal commission to inquire into the law relating to the manufacture, importation and sale of liquor, and the social and economic conditions surrounding it. It was to consider proposals for reform and itself to suggest amendments. Its terms of reference were very wide but it was barred from inquiring into contributions made by the licensed trade to the funds of politi cal parties. At Wellington on 6 March 1945, the Commission, chaired by David Smith, a Supreme Court judge, began to examine the ‘patchwork monster’ produced by a hundred years of pressure and legislation. [113] At the start a report was read from W. H. Wood ward, [114] a distinguished magistrate and chairman of New Plymouth, Stratford and Egmont licensing committees. He wrote that the pres ent laws were the ‘result of a battle between greed and fanaticism, in which the interests of ordinary sensible citizens have been ignored.’ These citizens ‘drink cheek by jowl, like pigs at a trough, what they are given instead of what they may want and, like pigs, gulp down more than they need of it while they can get it, and for the privilege of doing so pay many times the value of the hogwash they swallow …. men returning from overseas who have had their eyes opened, will not be patient under a law which threatens to make guzzling a national habit and furtive drinking a fashionable pastime of youth.’ Drinking, instead of being a pleasant and respectable aid to social intercourse, had become a matter for idiotic mirth or censorious reproach. Mere tinkering was not enough. He advocated State pur chase of the industry during the war when, in default of other ave nues for investment, purchase money would have to go into government securities, interest on which would be provided many times over by the profits of the trade under government control. He also wanted the provision in hotels of seats and small tables, non alcoholic drinks and eatables, and the admission of women without stigma or embarrassment. [115]

The Commission heard a great deal of evidence and finally published its 457-page report in August 1946. It recommended that the breweries should be acquired by a public corporation, its profits after compensation being devoted to cultural, philanthropic and recreational purposes; that liquor trusts might, by local vote, become licensees, with profits similarly directed. It also proposed that bars should provide seats, snacks of food, use standard measures and throw away dregs, and that hours should be broken: 10 am to 2 pm, 4 to 6 and 8 to 10 pm. Other suggestions included the licensing of restaurants and dancehalls, and relaxing restrictions on the purchase of liquor by Maoris in the case of Maori returned servicemen. The King Country should, like other areas, vote on whether it should be wet or dry, a Commission should be established to redistribute licences and a Board to inspect premises and advise local licensing committees. [116] Later legislation incorporated some of these proposals, but that is another story.

By 1945 Auckland was beginning to think that it had a Maori problem. In the labour shortage of the war the drift of Maori people from the country into towns increased markedly; between 1936 and 1945 the number living in urban areas more than doubled. [117] The root causes were the increase in Maori population, combined with the lack of employment and opportunity in the country, and lack of land. In some areas the land possessed might nominally be suf ficient, but almost everywhere its development was heavily reduced by lack of capital, facilities and enterprise, and complicated by multiple-ownership tenure that numbed individual effort. Against familiar narrow living rose the lure of paid jobs and social pleasures in the city. Between 1921 and 1926 the total Maori population rose by 11.73 per cent to 63 670, while the European increase rate was 10.69 per cent. Between 1926 and 1936 Maori population rose to 82 326, an increase of 29 30 per cent, while Europeans increased by only 10.93 per cent to 1 491 484.118. [118] By June 1943, stated the 1944

Yearbook, Maoris numbered 96 939, 93 461 of them in the North Island, their increase rate for the past year having been 29.18 per cent, while that of Europeans was 9.84 per cent. [119]

Land development schemes, begun in 1929 and increasingly pushed by the Labour government, had established a number of Maoris on their own farms, mainly dairy and notably on the East Coast under the paternal influence of Sir Apirana Ngata, prophet of Maoritanga. Others, about 2000, were settlers under various land development schemes and more were employed by the government in developing land not yet sub-divided. The majority lived by subsistence cultivation and seasonal work, including road maintenance, and were assisted by Social Security benefits. War widened and increased job openings: a number became truckers in the mines, others worked in timber milling, forestry, lorry-driving and as shear ers. [120] Market gardens, particularly those near Pukekohe, engaged numbers of women; some found places in factories and a good many did domestic work in hotels and cafes. Men were wanted in the freezing works and for general unskilled labour.

In the cities Maoris encountered massive difficulties, many centred on housing. Traditionally it was held that Maoris belonged in rural living, which was ‘good’ for them, whereas urban life was ‘bad’. [121] With a few exceptions Maori housing in the country, in the main, ranged from poor to shocking, despite often amazing cleanliness, and very small pre–war steps had been taken to improve it. In the towns there was no machinery to help Maoris to acquire adequate housing, while there was strong reluctance to let rooms or houses to them. They could obtain only the most run down houses which over-crowding made worse.

This was not a war–born difficulty. In May 1939 a Young Maori Conference discussed appalling conditions in Auckland. Some speakers, sharing the view that city life was bad for the Maori, had suggested that letting agents should undertake not to let houses to them unless they had come on legitimate business or were permanently employed. These speakers saw return to the country as necessary, but recognised also that many Maoris were deeply rooted in the city and had nothing to return to. The drift to cities could be checked only if the government provided more inducement to stay in the country. [122] A 1944 survey of Maoris living in shanty-town fashion at Panmure [123] found that though any were recent arrivals some had been in the locality for 8 to 24 years. Most were landless and did not want to return to the country where housing was just as bad and there was no work.

The Auckland City Council, reluctant to touch a costly problem, had later in 1941 suggested to H. R. G. Mason, member for Auckland Suburbs, that Social Security benefits should be withheld from Maoris until they returned to the country, a proposal which Mason dismissed, saying that houses in the city were ‘probably palatial’ compared to what they had left behind in the country. [124] A ‘back to the land’ policy was strongly supported, even in the war years, by Sir Apirana Ngata. In July 1943 he complained that Maoris, by Sir Apirana Ngata. In July 1943 he complained that Maoris, attracted to industry by Manpower officers, were drawn to Auckland and Wellington under the noses of tribal committees. ‘The Maori … is trying to get on his feet, and he does not want to be pulled down again by being drawn into the towns, and being brought into touch with the vile things there.’ The Prime Minister, he said, should look at Maoris in city industry, see the wages they were getting and how they were accommodated when they should be working on their own farms. Since the war's start, elders had tried to dissuade young women from going to the cities, even to enter the Services, ‘but what girl does not want to appear in uniform and strut down the street in uniform? That has its attraction for the Maori girl, just as for the pakeha.’ At air stations, the service required of them was largely housemaids' work. ‘Are there not plenty of pakehas to scrub the dining-halls of these places, make the beds, and so on, without drawing on our women-power?’ [125]

On the other hand an official Maori body brought Maoris to work in urban areas. The Maori War Effort Organisation, approved by

War Cabinet in June 1942, worked through numerous tribal committees and originally was concerned mainly with recruiting for the

Maori Battalion and the Home Guard. Also, in liaison with government departments, it organised fund-raising and crop-growing and, notably, found volunteers to fill specific labour vacancies, mainly in freezing works and dairy factories. [126] After six months the Minister in charge, P. K. Paikea, [127] said that it had caused a wave of war effort enthusiasm, roused and directed by 356 tribal and executive committees. There were 10 825 men in essential industries; for service in New Zealand or overseas 4104 had joined up and a further 740 had lately been enlisted by recruiting officers and tribal committees; for home service only 1587 were recorded as having joined up, with 453 more enlisted; in the Home Guard 7397 were recorded as enrolled, 2478 more brought forward by the recruiting agencies. In additional crops, beyond their own needs, Maoris had grown hundreds of acres of maize and vegetables; their gathering of agar seaweed was estimated at 17 0001b. [128]

As an instance of the Organisation's work, in December 1944 a telegraph appeal on a Saturday had by Monday found 193 men for the freezing works, with 186 more available when needed. [129] Maori labour was also keenly sought by the vegetable growers of Pukekohe, especially when a quick-freeze plant opened there early in 1945; the Helvetia camp (west of Pukekohe) was then accommodating 110 girls from the Gisborne district and more were wanted. [130]

Some Social Security benefits—sickness, unemployment, invalid and family—were paid to Maoris at the same rate as to pakehas. [131] Family benefit, originally 4 s a child per week for the third and subsequent children in families whose income, including benefits, did not exceed £5 a week, was gradually extended and increased until by 1944 it was 10 s a week for every child in families whose income did not exceed £5 10 s a week increased by 10 s for each child. In October 1945 allowable income rose to £6 10 s plus 10 s for each child and from April 1946 the means test was abolished. [132] Throughout, the benefit had been payable for children not actually of the family but maintained as if they were. In the low incomes of most Maori families, this benefit was a considerable factor and drew a good deal of criticism from pakehas for encouraging carelessness and indolence.

A few small military camps around Auckland, vacated by troops, were taken over for workers in essential industry, and some Maoris lived there in communal satisfaction. A few city entrants were helped to suitable lodging by welfare officers and Auckland had a few hostels for Maori girls but never enough. [133] The majority, men and women, single and families, made their own arrangements, following relatives or friends, moving in with them and by sheer numbers making the crowded inner city areas still worse.

Deprived of community and tribal leadership, often unaccustomed to continuous work, ready to ease off when they had some money in hand and with wants multiplied by city living, Maoris had obvious problems. Repeatedly it was deplored that Maoris were failing to adjust to city conditions but, apart from a very few church workers and welfare officers, there was no one to guide them in adjustment: local bodies looked to the government, and the government was preoccupied. There were many special problems. As early as August 1942 the Women's Franchise Association in Auckland noted that while young Maori women would readily get work, older women had no occupation, were supported only by Social Security benefits and had great difficulty in finding accommodation. [134] Adolescent boys and girls, without guidance, gained no training in trades or such habits as newspaper reading and useful discussion; they wandered about aimlessly, their interest centring on the pictures, ice-cream and dance halls. [135] Young women, especially during the American invasion and especially those who worked in cafes and hotels, were much exposed to drink and to sex with servicemen, causing some to drift into charges of being idle and disorderly. [136] Petty stealing brought young men before the courts in numbers upon which magistrates did not fail to comment. ‘These Maoris work here for a time, then leave their jobs and kick about the town, eventually getting into trouble,’ said a probation officer. [137] The usual legal response was prison, borstal, or probation on condition that the offender returned to the country.

Thus, while the population increase, plus other factors such as hopes of a good time, made the urban drift inevitable, much public opinion and many Maori elders believed that Maoris should keep away from cities where they were lost to tribal influence, lived, perforce, in conditions that were an open reproach, obtained liquor despite the law which made supplying it to a Maori illegal, and where the risks of slipping into crime were high. The elders wanted land development, housing and work to keep their young people at home, but the government advanced very little money for these purposes and avenues of development were limited. For many Maoris in the country, without jobs, pleasures or decent housing, the cities appeared dangerous eldorados. Some, despite poor conditions, made good at their unskilled jobs, others drifted into idleness or crime. In the shortage of houses and materials it was hardly surprising, though deplorable, that Maori needs went to the wall.

There was awareness of these problems, an awareness that, for instance, produced a Young Maori Conference at Auckland in May 1939. It produced some publications, notably The Maori People Today, [138] a substantial book in which well-informed persons such as Apirana Ngata and Horace Belshaw explained what was happening. Occasionally newspapers surveyed the situation. [139] Generally it was suggested that the government must cope with the large interlocking problems.

Ranged besides such academic approaches, the views of a responsible official, J. H. Luxford, senior magistrate, talking to the Auckland City Mission, may be cited. The Maori, he said, was becoming race conscious, and a race question for which there was no justification or need might arise in New Zealand. It behoved all to see what was going wrong and to take remedial measures before too late. The native race had been growing steadily for some time but only in recent years, since they moved into the cities, had a ‘serious Maori problem’ arisen.

We have tried to preserve in the Maori his language and customs [140] and also tried to make him stand up and take the impact of ordinary life with all its implications and complexities. We have maintained many restrictions for the native race and yet given it many privileges. We have now come to the parting of the ways, where we have to decide whether the Maori is to be kept in his pa or be allowed to work side by side with the European for the common good…. There has been an influx of thousands of Maoris into Auckland of recent years. Many have gone to live in the poorest of the buildings of the city. Whatever the cause, the result has been that the Maori is fast becoming the major branch of the criminal class as unfortunately figures show and prove.

Luxford concluded by saying that the Maori was a good chap but he was getting out of step. [141]

War memorials were being considered early in 1945. Already town planners, adult education organisers and some RSA groups had decided that there should be ‘no more eyesores’ like the memorials put up after the last war, and community centres were favoured as useful and living memorials for those who had sacrificed for the community. [142] An early plan adopted at Papatoetoe provided for Plunket rooms, a women's rest room, an RSA hall with accommodation for scouts, guides, kindergartens and other community interests; for the first year the financial target was £5,000, to be raised by the familiar queen carnival process. [143] Similar projects were soon to appear all over the country.

Meanwhile the war in Europe had entered its last phase. In mid- January 1945 the Russians struck westward all along their front from Lithuania to Hungary. Warsaw was overrun in a few days, Budapest finally fell on 13 February, just after the Big Three had sketched in their post-war plans at Yalta, and on 17 February the

Auckland Star wondered which Russian general would get to Berlin first. [144] The destruction of Dresden on 14–15 February, Bomber Command's attempt to shorten the war by shaking German morale, was explained as support for the Russian offensive. At the same time there were reports of Goebbels's promise to von Rundstedt's troops that the Allies would soon be thrown from Germany by ‘new methods so terrible that Hitler must ask the pardon of Almighty God for using them.’ [145] Eisenhower said at the end of February that if the Germans' fighting spirit continued there could be no short cuts; they would be defeated only when the Western and Russian armies met in the middle of Germany. [146]

The British navy was moving into the Pacific, presaging post-

Europe concentration: HMS Howe, Sir Bruce Fraser's [147] flagship, impressed Auckland on 5 February. On the same day MacArthur entered Manila, sealing the Philippines campaign begun at Leyte Island during October 1944. A fortnight later, in the Bonin Islands 750 miles from Tokyo, Marines attacked heavily fortified Iwo Jima, meeting fanatical resistance that lasted until mid-March. Towards the end of March, British naval forces, including New Zealanders, attacked the Ryukyu Islands in support of the American invasion of Okinawa, begun on 1 April and finished on 22 June after a most costly campaign.

Russian successes held most of the European headlines till late February when the Western Allies struck against the Rhine defences. A month later they had crossed the river in several places and were driving east. Every day told of miles advanced, of prisoners taken in tens of thousands, of streaming refugees. The Russians, despite harder resistance, took Vienna in mid-April. On 28 April, under headings such as ‘Greatest Event of the War’, papers announced that Americans and Russians had met at Torgau on the Elbe river, 40 miles north-east of Dresden.

For one day, 13 April 1945, the armies were swept from the headlines by the death of Roosevelt. New Zealanders felt genuine, if remote, grief. Roosevelt was a strongly entrenched figure for many, identified with the benign, powerful ‘Uncle Sam’ aspect of America. His successor, Harry Truman, [148] was virtually unknown in New Zealand, but no leader could then affect the onward sweep of the war and sorrow could be disinterested.

About mid-April the papers began to publish photographs and eyewitness accounts exposing the full horrors of Nazi concentration camps. That these camps existed had been known for a long time, since well before the war. The details of the ill-treatment, starvation and death inflicted, the extent to which concentration camps had since 1942–3 become extermination camps, were not fully realised until these ugly revelations. During the preceding three or four years many reports of atrocities committed by Germans in occupied countries had appeared in newspapers. Often these were massive reprisals against resistance actions such as the killing of a few German soldiers or sabotage efforts, reprisals against students, Jews and local citizens in general, Poles, French, Czechs, Serbs, Croats and others. It was also well known that many thousands from occupied countries were forced to work in German war industry and that those countries suffered privation because their produce was carried off to feed the Reich. There were reports, often from Jewish or Zionist sources, of thousands, even millions, of Jewish people having been starved to death or slaughtered. Although these reports were not generally disbelieved, their impact was dulled by repetition, remoteness, and the impossibility of doing anything to help apart from promising retribution.

To appreciate the feelings with which New Zealanders viewed the revelations of April–May 1945, it is useful to look back briefly over their awareness of concentration camps. [149] Early in the war and before it the Standard and other papers had published factual accounts of concentration camps: their inmates, mainly Jews and opponents of the Nazi regime, the harsh routines and punishments, the heavy outdoor work imposed on men not physically fit for it, the system whereby chains of ‘senior’ prisoners were responsible for maintaining discipline and would lose privileges for any relaxation discovered. [150]

From mid-1942 reports of Jewish sufferings and slaughter and of mass reprisal killings in occupied countries increased. The Polish consul at Wellington, Dr K. A. Wodzicki, [151] in June told of growing outrages in Poland: of tens of thousands of Poles massacred in ghettos, mass starvation, the deportation of 1½ million sent to forced labour, of 70 000 forcibly enrolled in the German army. [152]

Accounts, often from Jewish sources, that Jews were special targets of Nazi ruthlessness were confirmed in December 1942 when the House of Commons was told that Hitler's declared intention of exterminating the Jews was being carried out. Allied governments condemned this ‘bestial policy’ and were determined on retribution for those responsible. This report was prominent in the cable news of many papers on 19 December and in some was supported by editorials with headings such as ‘The Darkest Stain’ ( New Zealand Herald) and ‘Murder of a People’ ( Otago Daily Times). The Prime Minister, and the Inter-Church Council of Public Affairs, expressed horror and sympathy. [153]

Two months later, in February 1943, from the British section of the World Jewish Congress came news of Nazi orders to speed up extermination by massacre and starvation. [154] In response, on 21 February in Wellington's Opera House, the City Council called a meeting of protest against oppression in Axis occupied countries. It was addressed by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Mayor, speakers for churches and by the Belgian consul [155] for the

United Nations. Rabbi Katz [156] told of well documented evidence that already 2 million Jews had perished and 5 million more were doomed under the decree of total extermination. There was profound condemnation, and the United Nations' resolve that the criminals responsible should be brought to justice was stressed by the meeting and by the Dominion. [157]

Local Zionists were quickened by the mid-1943 visit of an overseas leader, Dr Michael Traub, who pleaded Jewish suffering as an argument for return to the 1917 Balfour [158] promise of a Jewish national home in Palestine. This had been abrogated in 1939 when Jewish emigration was limited to 15 000 a year until 1944 only. [159] The first country-wide Zionist Conference was held in Wellington in July 1943 [160] and a non-Jewish Palestine Committee, to support Zionism, was established in Wellington in October. Its members were the local Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops, the Presbyterian Gladstone Hughes, Mayor Hislop, Thomas Hunter, principal of Wellington's university, C. H. Chapman, [161] Major Skinner,

Minister of Rehabilitation, and Oliver Duff, editor of the Listener. [162] The Auckland Star on 11 December said that as no nation was keen to have colonies of Jews, the alternative was a Jewish Palestine. Churchill would probably welcome Empire advocacy of it, and even far away New Zealand could help by expressing public opinion.

Some New Zealanders were reluctant to believe the accounts of human destruction, suspecting propaganda and exaggeration. Two letters in the Auckland Star in April 1943 express divergent views. One claimed that most New Zealanders were infected with anti- Semitism, a germ paralysing the heart and making them indifferent to the extermination of the Jewish people. [163] The other held that the average person has become somewhat grimly sceptical of these apparently extravagant stories of unprovoked massacres and torture of incredible numbers of Jews. We older generation will not have forgotten the officially sponsored ‘atrocity’ stories of the last war, later revealed as deliberate propaganda. Information as to the identity and nationality of the originators of this class of ‘propaganda’ might prove very enlightening …. what purpose helpful to his cause inspires Hitler to these alleged massacres…? [164] In outline, the facts of concentration camps and the Nazi policy of Jewish extermination were in circulation, believed by some, questioned by others.

The first extermination camp exposed was Maidanek near Lublin, captured by the Russians late in July 1944. On 16 August New Zealand newspapers carried a London article taken from Pravda which said that at this ‘camp of annihilation’ prisoners from all over

Europe were gassed and thrown into furnaces which could incinerate

1400 bodies daily. [165] There were several other articles on Maidanek before the end of the year. [166]

At the end of November 1944 it was reported that, as Holland's Jews came out of hiding, it seemed that only five or six per cent had survived and there were grave doubts whether appreciable numbers would return from the concentration camps in eastern Europe. [167] Small news items early in January 1945 referred to British army official reports on a Belgian concentration camp where 500 people had died, more than 300 being shot or hanged. [168] Early in February several papers printed stories about a ‘murder factory’ at Oswiecim, west of Crakow, captured by the Red Army. It had been opened in 1941 and there victims from all over Europe were murdered and burned when an 18-hour work day, hunger, exposure and torture had made them useless as labourers. Its gas chambers and furnaces were like those at Maidanek but more streamlined. [169] This was the camp later so infamous as Auschwitz.

Such news items presented, in outline, the extermination function which had swamped and swollen the concentration camps of the early war era, and they linked up with the Jewish death figures. New weight of presentation came on 17 April 1945 from a Columbia Broadcasting System reporter from the American forces who spoke through the BBC on the great camp Buchenwald, concluding: ‘God alone knows how many men and boys from all over Europe have died there during the past 12 years. I beg you to believe what I have said. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words.’ [170]

In the succeeding days facts and figures presented by other reputable correspondents and backed by visiting British members of Parliament, whose report was issued as a White Paper, were published on the massive suffering, death and squalor at Buchenwald and at Belsen, near Bremen, exposed by the British at about the same time. The gas chambers, furnaces, camp records and the survivors told of killings by hundreds of thousands, and it was said that at Auschwitz, the outstanding place of extermination, the lives of 4 million Jewish, Polish and Russian people had ended. [171] In the camps were mass graves, piles of dead bodies and thousands of emaciated men, women and children, sick with tuberculosis, dysentery, typhus and starvation, who continued to die by hundreds even after help came to them. In the first days of May Dachau near Munich, liberated by the Americans, added a new name to horrors that were becoming familiar. Photographs of stick-thin bodies sprawled and heaped added reality. [172] There were other names: Nordhausen, where thousands of political prisoners were worked to death tunnelling for a V-weapon factory, [173] a camp at Ohrdruf near Gotha [174] and Flossenburg near

Weiden, [175] but Buchenwald, Belsen and Dachau remained the big sinister names. On Auschwitz in the Russian zone there was comparative silence. [176] In mid-May there were reports of three New Zealanders, W. J. Jordan, High Commissioner in London, Sidney

Holland and F. W. Doidge, spending an afternoon at Belsen and declaring that previous reports were not exaggerated. After this, concentration camp reports were less frequent but still appeared from time to time. [177]

This was in the future, beyond the fighting. In the last week of April, the Russians fought their way into Berlin. On 26 April it was announced that Allied forces, including New Zealanders, had crossed the Po almost unopposed, other Italian rivers having cost much bitter fighting. On the same day, at San Francisco, the United Nations Conference met to plan the post-war world. On 1 May, New Zealand heard that Mussolini had been executed by partisans; on 2 May, that Hitler was dead. [178] Evening headlines on 3 May told that the war in Italy was over and that Berlin had fallen. Victory, said the Listener, tarried long then came in a clap of thunder, crushing, complete and spectacular victory. [179]

On Monday 7 May 1945, at 2.41 am GMT Germany surrendered. The impact of this was almost slurred. Official announcements were delayed in order to be uttered simultaneously in London,

Washington and Moscow. Churchill's announcement, at 3 pm on 8 May, Greenwich time, was heard in New Zealand at 1 am on Wednesday 9 May. Inevitably, both in Britain and in New Zealand, the news itself was released well ahead of Churchill's speech, reaching New Zealand in time for the morning papers of 8 May. It was far from unexpected. Victory celebrations had been planned for weeks: newspapers had their special issues ready, there were to be thanksgiving services, civic speeches, bells and bands, parades and bonfires, and two days' holiday. Following Churchill's lead and national inclinations, a suggestion that pubs should be closed was brushed aside.

Early in the morning of Tuesday 8 May there were confused impulses. While newspaper delivery vans ran through suburbs with their horns blaring the victory news, Nash as Acting Prime Minister broadcast that this was not VE Day and people should go to work as usual. Further, as the Wanganui Herald explained, Nash telegraphed civic leaders on that morning, explaining that immediately following Churchill's broadcast, arranged for 1 am on Wednesday 9 May, he himself would announce that the national VE Day ceremony, at which the Governor-General would speak, would be held at noon that day. Local ceremonies therefore should not be held before this time, should not, in fact, be held until one hour later. Bells and sirens, however, would sound at 7 o'clock in the morning. [180] This paper openly complained about ‘jubilation by regulation’. [181] Except for ceremony, most people ignored the postponement; its real effect was three days' holiday instead of two. Public response varied from town to town but generally flags and bunting immediately appeared on buildings on Tuesday and victory displays in shop windows. There was an early rush to food shops, especially for bread, and a steepening rush to the pubs.

Throughout the celebrations music, mostly from bands, was eagerly relished by the crowds. People trooped alongside bands playing patriotic and popular tunes, sang with them, danced to them. Single players of any instruments, pipes, accordian, trumpet, cornet, banjo or whatever, gathered their circles. Otherwise there was little to do but drink beer and roam about looking for happenings among thousands doing the same thing. Many, of course, were not on the streets or were there only briefly. The occasion called for parties at home, for people, beer (there was almost nothing else), food, talk. Returned men were the focus of gatherings, there was much reminiscing, drunken and otherwise, and singing. Many stayed up to hear Churchill announce victory at 1 am.

In the main cities the tempo varied markedly and was milder in the south. Christchurch, reported the Press, received the news with remarkable restraint; but there was obvious elation in the Tuesday going-to-work crowd; many did not arrive and most left early, generally with official blessing. Flags, bunting and window displays appeared, and in the afternoon the city was as full as on Christmas Eve, with rattles, crackers, singing, and thousands of packets of confetti. During the evening, in gaily lit Cathedral Square, Air Force men on a lorry held an impromptu concert, with community singing, individual items and toasts. The Cathedral Square party lasted till the early hours of the morning, with some hundreds of people marching up Colombo Street behind a pipe band to join in another impromptu concert, fireworks, whistles and rattles competing with the pipes, and people waiting for taxis joining in the fun. [182]

Independent Dunedin made Tuesday an official holiday. Accord ing to the Otago Daily Times, the coincidence of the news with the start of student capping gambols was too much even for southern restraint. ‘The tiny spark of academic grotesquerie and absurd frolic set fire to the tinder of public ebullience, and the vice-Prime Ministerial exhortation to “work today and play tomorrow” went quickly by the board.’ Just as the bars were opening, the entire staff of a woollen mill walked out, appearing on the street in a body with their flags, and the ‘grape-vine’ sent this news to a score of other factories whose staff ‘girding up their loins and grasping their flags, took corroborative action’. Before mid-day the seldom-heard bells in the Town Hall pealed out, drawing thousands there to hear–or at least see—the Mayor make a short speech from the balcony. [183] With this sanction Dunedin shops, businesses and the rest, not unwillingly, set aside the edict of Wellington. The Otago Daily Times, commenting on the Allied capitals' ‘extraordinarily leisured, almost reluctant’ formal announcement of the end of the war in Europe, congratulated the Mayor on recognising reality and the spirit of the city in his brief ceremony. The city's reaction was a ‘spontaneous and gay celebration… the proper human response to the wonderful news which has lifted off all shoulders—even those of the youngest and least aware member of the family—part at least of a black burden that has, for five or more years, been with us all, sleeping or waking.’ In contrast, ‘the Government, which has followed with a precise formality the advice from the Allied capitals and recognised no celebration even when it was in progress, has been lacking in adaptability.’ [184]

In Wellington on Tuesday people began the day calmly, though besieging food shops and ‘complaining with unusual mildness about the enforced deferment of their celebrations.’ Flags and bunting appeared on buildings, [185] on trams, cars and bicycles. ‘A few groups of youths rattled a few rattles, blew a few whistles and threw a few packets of confetti.’ Soon older people, usually staid, joined in. [186] As the morning wore on, thousands poured into the streets, with paper flags, confetti and streamers. ‘Where did all that prepared throwing paper come from?’ wondered the Evening Post's, reporter. From some tall buildings showers of paper were thrown, imitating

New York's famous flutteration on Armistice Day 1918. ‘Armfuls, basketfuls, cartloads, were tossed out, too much for nice selection, and when the Victory holidays are over there is likely to be much searching for correspondence and records. It may—mostly at any rate—have been old, junked stuff, but if it was, the waste reclamation people have not had a fair run for a long time past.’ [187] In some Service departments girl clerks allegedly ‘went mad’, throwing out all sorts of documents including such confidential matters as duplicate allotment forms and even cheques. [188]

Apart from such defenestrations, there was little real exuberance, indeed there was the familiar complaint that a lead was lacking. ‘Had Wellington had just one lead, one band, one anything, to give willing afternoon crowds a start in some direction yesterday the lid would have been taken off properly, but as it was the streets were just very crowded and busy with people going anywhere—and throwing streamers, confetti, and more streamers.’ Much beer was drunk and as the day wore on the crowds became more vocal and good natured. [189] ‘Early evening found the streets full of noisy adolescents,’ reported the Dominion. ‘Most people who came to town stood around waiting for something to happen or walked up and down the streets in similar expectancy.’ Impromptu incidents provided interest, and solos, duets and choruses were sung in trains and buses, many being popular refrains of the last war, though ‘Roll out the Barrel’ was by far the most popular song. [190]

At Auckland the unofficial Tuesday celebrations lacked spontaneity and were a marked anti-climax to five and a half years of the bitterest fighting, reported the New Zealand Herald. In contrast to expectation, the city's mood was almost sedate, said the Auckland Star. Though joyful, it was not a Mafeking or Armistice 1918 mood.

Few danced in the streets, no one climbed telegraph poles or on to bus or train roofs, many drank but there was only one arrest. The crowd paraded for hours, mainly to see what others were doing. People clacked clackers, blew toy trumpets, but they ‘didn't let their hair down.’ Some, discussing their feelings, said that they wanted to let themselves go but could not find an outlet. There were moments of excited release as young people linked arms to charge singing down the streets, or circle in ring-a-rosie dances. In some of these bursts an impulse to possess flags sent hundreds grabbing at shop decoration, bringing down strings of paper flags from verandas, while larger flags became swathes of colour around some joyful boy or girl. ‘This morning those episodes are described as vandalism and theft, but at the moment of happening it was just “the thing to do”.’ [191] Such incidents were isolated moments in a fairly bright but never hectic exposition of civic happiness. Authorities who had been concerned lest the jubilations get out of hand should on any future occasion seek to encourage the massed expression of joy rather than the reverse, said the Star's reporter. In the suburbs lights were off in about 50 per cent of the houses by 10 pm, though in many, especially those blessed with returned men, there were gatherings and veterans' talk.

And, though thoughts would be only half-formed, like disjointed, unfinished sentences, the least imaginative paid tribute thus to the common knowledge that Jim, who was caught in the flak over Happy Valley in the Ruhr bombing two or three years ago, Frank who ‘collected it’ off the Dutch coast, young Tommy who never came out of Crete, Harold, whose grave is in the poor thin sand of Sidi Rezeg [ sic], old Mac, who died of wounds on Hangman's Hill, in the smoke and noise of Cassino, and Fred, whose body floated down the Sangro, made this night possible. [192]

The official VE Day, Wednesday 9 May, began at 7 am with bells and sirens of all descriptions. Later, thousands gathered at civic thanksgiving services, with speeches, bands and massed choirs. Everywhere, in centres large or small, bands were focal points. Frequently, organised parades—returned soldiers, Home Guard, Red Cross, WWSA, scouts, cubs, guides, marching girls, land girls and, of course, a band—led to or from civic ceremonies. In many smaller centres, sports programmes for children followed, with bonfires, community singing and victory balls in the evening. [193] There were also, in some centres, parades of decorated lorries, floats and bicycles. Fancy dress of various sorts, from period costumes to funny hats and, worn by the lorry-riders, helped the carnival feeling. For instance, in the evening Wanganui's joy was expressed by bands, gay floats and period costumes—the bands arriving a little late after playing at smaller towns nearby; Maoris from Ratana with their own band gave traditional hakas; a group of returned Maori soldiers drew swelling choruses with songs ranging from the haunting ‘Lili Marlene’, common to the Germans and the Eighth Army, to ‘Roll out the Barrel’; four bands played and marched together with powerful effect and ‘for three hours the spirit of carnival reigned’. Festivities ended with dancing in the roadway, after which the young and enthusiastic went on to various dance halls. [194]

Again in the main centres there were varying responses. At Dunedin the mood was quieter than the previous day's. Under cold grey weather, at one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, 7000 attended a thanksgiving service in the Octagon, after which the streets and bars gathered mildly carnival crowds, with bands and impromptu orchestras providing music and a good deal of singing. Despite many outbursts of youthful exuberance, the crowd was generally good-natured and orderly. [195] On Thursday again many thousands in the Octagon listened to speeches and to eight bands and 1000 choir members who sang ‘All People that on Earth do Dwell’, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, ‘Oh God, our Help in Ages Past’ and ‘Abide with Me’, [196] as well as ‘God defend New Zealand’ and the National Anthem (then ‘God Save the King’). The bands, plus marching girls, then paraded through well-lined streets. Thereafter, ‘the carnival spirit again took control, with impromptu bands, concert bands and crowds of happy school children all taking part’, while at the Stock Exchange several hundred danced ‘to music by a “scratch” but quite competent orchestra.’ [197]

In Christchurch where, at the request of the Mayor and the local RSA, bars were closed from 2 to 4 pm on Wednesday during the thanksgiving service, a ‘vast happy orderly crowd’ rejoiced, unperturbed by the noisy cavorting of young men whose natural happiness had been well reinforced and by such antics as a few climbing on to cars for short rides. Again bands focused enthusiasm, marching many miles through the city, followed by informal processions; in the evening they played from the balcony of the United Services Hotel in Cathedral Square till 8.30 when they gave ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and retired. The crowd was not ready to drop its musical torch and a few instrumentalists under the balcony continued to lead community singing till the last trams left. Even then two large groups remained in the Square, attending a cornet player and a lone piper. [198] For Thursday 10 May, a ‘people's march’ was organised by the Canterbury Trades Council. Under their trade banners, attended by the faithful bands, unionists marched with their families, thousands joining en route, some soberly dressed, some in ‘the most bizarre attire’, singing, shouting, waving flags, the smallest incident saluted with wild cheering from the by-standers. The RSA joined in spontaneously, a flag-bearing Chinese contingent was notable, and some school children bore toetoe plumes as well as the ubiquitous flags. The hour-long procession, 25 000 strong, with many more as spectators, jammed the streets round Cathedral Square where short speeches concluded with 700 choristers singing Handel's ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ as well as hymns. Afterwards, bands continued to march while ‘instrumentalists without any band affiliations had a day and night out. They had only to blow a note to assemble a procession.’ Those with voices only, however rasping after three continuous days of celebration, also had their large followings. During the three days, no incident called for police intervention, [199] but as in other centres there was damage from broken bottles; ambulances attended many injuries and their own tyres suffered. [200]

In both Auckland and Wellington, Wednesday's crowds were exuberant, there were no citizen parades, and on Thursday, still an official holiday, a ‘morning after’ feeling prevailed. Wellington's bands began playing in the streets at 10 am on Wednesday. At noon crowds gathered for the national ceremony in front of Government Buildings, where the Governor-General read the official proclamation, there were speeches from Church and State, and a large choir accompanied by military bands sang ‘All People that on Earth do Dwell’ and the Allies' national anthems. In the afternoon an RSA parade marched to the Basin Reserve where huge crowds had gathered to hear more bands, more speeches and anthems, with a choir of 600 also singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Then, as the crowd surged back to town the rather Sunday-like restraint was relaxed. ‘People seemed to realise that after all, it was VE-Day’, said the Dominion. Young people surged to the surface, shouting, cheering, singing. Practical joking, such as rocking or pushing cars that crawled through the crowd, was taken in good part, the police were benevolent and till a late hour did not find it necessary to take anyone in charge. There were packed streets, packed pubs, ‘crocodiles’ squirming through the crowd, small impromptu concerts, and dancers circling here and there, even around traffic officers. In several areas bands provided a satisfying focus, notably the Police Pipe Band which, with short breaks, played for more than 12 hours, finishing at 11.30 pm. Again street cleaners had a heavy job with broken glass and paper. [201]

In Auckland there was less organisation but more noise. Bands were notably absent. The Papakura Camp Band, after taking part in the 2 pm Town Hall ceremony on Wednesday, played its way down Queen Street, then departed by bus, leaving the Salvation Army Band to fill the void with its hymns. In bars and on the streets a few single players led the singing of songs from two wars such as Tipperary', ‘There's a Long Long Trail’, ‘ Maori Battalion’, ‘Roll out the Barrel’, ‘Till the Lights come on Again’, and ‘Pistol Packin’ Momma'.

The crowd took a long time to work up but from about one o'clock in the afternoon onwards let go with a will, the youthful element lifting the repressed mood with bedecked cars and bicycles, with clackers, yelling, singing. With no direction or purpose, people surged up and down Queen Street, few doing anything but everyone watching. At its centre the rejoicing crowd was very like a ‘thoroughly excited, roaring herd of cattle’, reported the Auckland Star, its noise from a hundred yards away up the hill streets sounded like a ‘first-class riot’. All, including the overworked police and traffic officers, were good-natured. ‘Milling unceasingly, singing and shouting with vigour if not tunefulness, drinking and sometimes kissing promiscuously, dancing whenever occasion offered, and doing a dozen and one other things that staid citizens would never do was the order of the day.’ It was, said the reporter, ‘the triumph of natural exuberance over traditional restraint.’ Throughout, the general noise was punctuated by the plop and tinkle of bottles, and seven one-ton truck loads of broken glass, apart from other rubbish, were shovelled up by street cleaners. [202]

More critical comment came from a columnist in the Auckland Star. He wrote that some had expected that public figures would lead the celebrations, instead of leaving it all to the overworked publicans; that there would be bands, parades of servicemen and women, community singing, organised dancing. But in this big city teeming with potential talent there had been no option but to ‘get a skin full of booze and join in’. New Zealanders, he continued, were not demonstrative, only when at least ‘half-snickered’ could they thaw out enough to raise a cheer, stage a parade, howl, wave flags, and publicly recognise the war efforts of their own men. The first bottle brought to mind how ‘we’ had suffered, sacrificed and starved, standing by Britain in her darkest hour, just like the BBC said. Over the third and later bottles it was clear what magnificent heroes the Kiwis were. ‘After that we let ourselves go, spent our overtime rates freely, shouting like the publican and the strangers alongside of us, ripping the flags of the big firms down and wrapping them round our weary, worn, emaciated bodies, cheering lustily the while and remembering that Britons—like us—never would be slaves or something. We had won the war….’ [203]

Later, on the eve of VJ Day, the New Zealand Herald was to hope for better things:

It cannot be said that the celebrations on VE Day added to the reputation of the city. The brief service of thanksgiving over, the

Auckland crowds were left to their own devices. After their habit they flowed down the city's main street, a trifle bewildered and with little aim or purpose. The attempts of more sanguine spirits to rouse community singing broke on Auckland's traditional self-consciousness. Processions, begun by youthful enthusiasts, lost cohesion in passive crowds. A little ashamed of the carpet of brown glass, Auckland drifted home, and the celebration was over.

Even loudspeakers on the streets might have worked wonders, giving out appropriate music or relaying the BBC's moving sound-pictures from British cities and villages.

New Zealanders are not a singing people like the Welsh, nor a cheering people like the Londoners. They tried hard to be merry without cheer and song, and failed. True eloquence, Church or lay, should be found to grace the platform and to speak words of passion and exhortation. We should not be afraid of tears. Thankfulness can be directed by wise counsel, happiness can find a public voice. It must not be inarticulate again. Somehow the mayor and his councillors must see to it that the final celebrations of victory do not again resolve themselves into a brief and formal religious service and an aimless secular wandering in a grey and forbidding street. [204]

Many people of all ages, either by inclination or circumstance, did not go to town at all. Many gathered with only families and friends. There were parties like other parties except for the awareness, slowly sinking in, that most of the war was over, the war that both in the foreground of events and the background of the mind had dominated and darkened consciousness for nearly six years.

As every VE Day speaker had said, the war was not over. Not till mid-July would the atomic bomb be tested in the Mexican desert and only the most secret upper circles of command knew of Russia's promise to begin war against Japan in August. Even during the celebrations some war commentators predicted that it might take another 18 months to defeat Japan, though many speculators were much more optimistic.

It was agreed that New Zealand must continue to pull its weight in the Allied cause but argument continued as to where this weight could best be applied. Apart from British needs, devastated Europe cried out for food and woollen goods. There was a strong case, strongly advanced amongst others by the National party, J. A. Lee and Labour dissidents, for concentrating on production rather than further military contributions. [205] In particular there were protests against Category A men hitherto held on farms being combed out in the search for long-service replacements. [206]

There was, as Nash reported to Fraser in San Francisco on 12 May, clear public desire for a definite statement on the military future, though newspaper editors had been quietened by Nash's explanation that advice was wanted from United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff. [207] Meanwhile the 2nd Division remained at Trieste as a curb to Tito's [208] (and Russia's) territorial ambitions, a task from which it would not be relieved until 22 July, though this was hidden in the future. [209] New Zealand naval vessels were still active, now working with the British fleet in the Pacific, and New Zealand airmen were still bombing Bougainville. [210] Obviously it would be some time before the 2nd Division could be redirected. [211] Meanwhile

Burma was being retaken by the British, and the Americans, while battling on Okinawa until 22 June, were making powerful air raids on Tokyo and other cities. It could be hoped that it would all be over before New Zealanders were required to storm Japanese-held beaches.

Already 16 000 men of three and a half year's service, all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Echelons plus the 4th and 5th Reinforcements, had returned under the replacement scheme [212] and 11 655 more (6th– 9th Reinforcements) were due to return forthwith. [213] The British government on 10 May informed the New Zealand government that it was planning to ship more than 20 000 New Zealanders home within the next six months. [214] Nash gave this news in a speech on 25 May, saying that all up to the 10th Reinforcements [215] would be returned, plus between 6000 and 7000 prisoners-of-war from Europe. This should step up production at home while leaving enough men in the field to meet New Zealand's military obligations: [216] details were given on 2 August.

Relaxation of Manpower control began on 30 June, when 184 assorted firms were removed from the list of essential undertakings. From that date Manpower consent was automatically given to applications to leave work by married women of 40 years and by wives of servicemen setting up house. Consent was also automatic for young persons of under 18 years wishing to take up other work, a privilege shared by the widows of servicemen. [217] Various other controls were relaxed, such as those on furniture making, on the use of machine tools, iron, steel and non-ferrous metals, drawing and mathematical instruments, and on some paper. [218]

To help feed and clothe devastated Europe, New Zealand reduced its own meat and butter rations and gave used clothing. From 11 June 1945, the 8oz of butter per week became 6o z, and the 1 s 9 d worth of meat was reduced by 3 d. [219] The needs of Europe were championed by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. A Listener editorial in late July said that 44 nations were rushing to the relief of Europe with much of the speed, energy and planned thoroughness of a military assault. In a few months winter would beset Europe and the immediate anxiety of UNRRA is to get enough serviceable clothing into Europe to give its millions of “statistically naked” people a chance to survive the cold.' For this reason, appeals were going out continuously on the air, as well as through other channels. CORSO (Council of Organisations for Relief Service Overseas), UNRRA's New Zealand auxiliary, was reiterating appeals to search wardrobes and give again. [220] Although the Lady Galway Guild had combed out much used clothing, and despite clothes rationing, there was abundant response to a nation-wide drive held from 26 July to 2 August.

New Zealand pushed into the last phase of the war uncertain how long this would last, hopeful that the air blows raining on

Japan would finish it within the year but aware that a large and suicidally determined army could for much longer fight back invasion from the wreckage. Leaders everywhere, zealous to sustain effort, did not encourage the view that all was over bar the shouting. Desire for a quick finish was paramount but there were still some scruples about means. From New York early in June the military commentator, Major Fielding Eliot, [221] urged that the use of gas should be considered.

The Japanese have lost the war and it is just a question of making them admit it. Doing this may cost tens of thousands of American lives and infinite suffering if, like Iwo Jima, Japan has to be reduced yard by yard. The Japanese have two factors in their defensive armour—foot soldiers and terrain. Under these conditions we must once more ask ourselves whether the time has not come to consider the use of chemical agents to end the war—in a word, shall we use gas? For some incomprehensible reason gas seems to shock the average mind, yet we read with delight of the use of incendiary agents against Japanese cities, we applaud the use of high explosives, we cheer pictures of flame throwers attacking Japanese positions, but we shudder when anyone says ‘gas’. There is little doubt the use of gas would immeasurably reduce our casualties. There is no military good reason against it. [222]

Although the public was not yet to know, these same arguments were being used at the higher level in considering the atomic bomb.

As Berlin fell, British forces took Rangoon and pressed out to recover all Burma. Late in June, Australian troops, landing on Northern Borneo, soon held the whole island, a wedge driving towards Java. From mid-April, increasingly heavy attacks by Superfortress aircraft based on the Marianas had blasted major Japanese cities, incendiaries laying waste large areas of relatively flimsy buildings: for instance, on 26 May 1945 it was reported that 700 000 fire bombs had fallen on Tokyo in its greatest raid so far, equalling any attack on a German city. The 485 square miles of Okinawa, attacked at the start of April, were finally taken by 22 June after a most costly campaign. Then, with this island transformed into an American springboard, pressure crescendoed in July. With the Japanese navy and air force impotent, save for occasional suicide crashes on targets, American and British ships shared in pounding ports.

On 26 July, from the Potsdam Conference, America, Britain and

China called on the Japanese to surrender or see their homeland utterly destroyed. The terms, published in New Zealand on 28 July, did not seem unduly harsh, but two days later it was known that

Tokyo, seeking a way to retain the Emperor, had rejected the ultimatum.

As this stage, on 2 August, the government finally brought forward, and Parliament accepted, its plans for future military manpower arrangements. New Zealand, said Fraser, would keep its pledge to fight to the finish. He thought that Allied commanders were both too pessimistic and too optimistic in their views on the probable length of the war, but the latest figures showed that Japan still had about 4 579 000 troops to make a last suicidal effort. New Zealand's three Services overseas would be cut from 57 800 to 29 000 and those at home from 42 000 to 26 000: in all by 45 per cent, from 100 000 to 55 000. A two-brigade division of 16 000 would be New Zealand's contribution to the British Commonwealth Force that would attack Japan by land. [223] This would consist of some 12 000 men of the 11th to 15th Reinforcements still in Europe, plus more than 4000 still in New Zealand. The government was concerned to maintain military commitment to the finish, against pressure towards devotion to production. It was also concerned to justify keeping in reserved occupations 21 000 men (9827 of them single and 5929 of these on farms) eligible for overseas service who could not be mobilised without production falling. [224]

On Tuesday, 7 August, came news that on the previous day an atomic bomb, equal to 20 000 tons of TNT, had been dropped by an American aircraft on an unfamiliar Japanese city, Hiroshima, population 318 000, totally destroying it. President Truman said that the ultimatum from Potsdam was intended to spare the Japanese from such destruction but it had been rejected and this bomb was the answer. Germany had failed in the search for atomic energy; British and American scientists, working in great secrecy, had ‘spent $2,000,000,000 on the greatest scientific gamble in history and won’. The Japanese could expect a rain of ruin the like of which the world had never seen. America's Secretary for War, H. L. Stimson, explained that Roosevelt, late in 1939, had drawn attention to the possibility of using atomic energy and appointed a committee to investigate it. By June 1942 enough progress had been made to warrant a big expansion. A group of British scientists had moved to America in 1943 and a brilliant Dane, Dr Niels Bohr, [225] was snatched from the Nazis to join in the bomb's development at a large, strictly sequestered station.

A statement, prepared by Churchill before 26 July when he ceased to be Prime Minister, said that in 1939 many nations realised the possibility of releasing energy by atomic fission. In Britain, in five universities, research towards a weapon was co-ordinated by the Ministry of Aircraft Production (under Beaverbrook), with Sir George Thomson [226] as principal adviser, ideas being fully exchanged with American scientists. In October 1941 Roosevelt proposed that extended efforts should be jointly made, and by mid-1942 it was held that large production plants were justified. These were built in

America, safe from German reconnaissance and bombs. ‘The main practical effort and virtually the whole of the prodigious cost fell on the United States authorities, assisted by a number of British scientists’, with Canada providing essential raw material. ‘By God's mercy’, British and American science had outpaced all German efforts. These were anxiously watched by Allied intelligence services and from the air, and there had been costly commando raids in 1942–3 on ‘heavy water’ factories in Norway. It was now for Japan to realise the consequences of indefinite continuance of this terrible means of maintaining the rule of law in the world. [227]

The world and New Zealand had grown used to the acceleration of destruction but the latest news left no doubt that the bomb was beyond all preceding scales of annihilation. Along with immediate relief that the war would be shortened there was apprehension for the future. The pioneer work of New Zealand's own Lord Rutherford [228] in the atomic field was frequently mentioned and the contributions of Jews exiled by the Nazis were seen as proper retribution. The bomb ‘has not only wrought local destruction on a scale never before known; it has stirred all mankind, and the world can never be quite the same place again’, said the New Zealand Herald.

Reports that German scientists had been hard on the track gave awareness of past danger and comforted conscience over Hiroshima. There was relief that the fateful knowledge was held only by peace-loving America and Britain, but while the Washington correspondent of the New York Times said that the secret would not be shared with Russia, [229] other cables stated that permanent monopoly by these powers was not possible. [230] This view was voiced by some local papers. ‘Only temporarily can collective suicide weapons be retained in the category of proprietary medicines belonging to one or two Governments,’ said the Evening Post on 9 August. The Auckland Star, usually critical of Russia, made the same assumption.

The editor of the Listener on 17 August gathered some threads together. ‘The atomic bomb revelations will have sickened many people and given others a faint gleam of hope. We join the band of hope. We join partly because there is now at length a chance that war has become too destructive to continue.’ A week later the

Listener published a short story which a little earlier it had rejected as too fantastic. This story by Sam Rix centred on a pilot, Karl, who flew a rocket aircraft which dropped a uranium bomb to destroy a whole city. [231]

On 10 August news of the second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki on the 9th, took second place in most headlines to Russia's long-awaited entry into the Pacific war, and its advance into Manchuria. In spite of all the statements it was hard to realise that the bomb had completely changed the military landscape. There had been fears that the Japanese, even if flattened on their mainland, might continue to fight from Manchuria supplied by war factories at Harbin and other centres inaccessible from the Pacific. Russia was close to

Japan, even closer to Manchuria; for so long it had seemed obvious that if only Russia would attack Japan the war would quickly be finished. Newspapers had assumed that the bomb would shorten the war; many of them now stated that the bomb, plus the Russian attack, would end the war within days. Statements from Truman appeared in the next day or two, that the Russians had decided to enter the war before they had been fully informed of the new weapon. [232]

For a few days there were reports of negotiations, then suddenly New Zealanders found themselves waiting for Japan's surrender. [233] This time there would be no confused start to the celebrations: if the news came before noon, two days' holiday would begin at once; if later, the holidays would start next morning. On Wednesday, 15 August at 11 am thousands waiting by radios heard Attlee say that the war was over. Immediately, in raucous sound, the news flew to others—sirens of all sorts, fire, factory and ships'; bells, railway engines, motor horns, whistles, tin cans. People, gay with paper hats, flags, streamers, confetti and every noise-making device, filled the streets, even as Fraser broadcast to the nation. [234]

Nearly six years of war, Fraser said ‘six long, anxious, worrying, dangerous, tragic years’, were ended; the last member of the terrible triple tyranny which had aimed at world dictatorship, the nation which 14 years ago in Manchuria had begun the era of aggression, was crushed. He saluted American and Australian achievements, with special mention of the Coral Sea battle that had turned back the seemingly invincible host swarming like locusts over the islands of the Pacific. He had praise for China, which for eight years had fought alone; for the noble role of Britain, especially in Burma and the battle of Japan; for India's contributions of brave men and essential munitions; for the defiant Netherlands East Indies and the Free French of New Caledonia and Tahiti; he made no reported mention of Russia. In reviewing New Zealand's part, he stressed that it was a world-wide war, speaking of New Zealand's efforts not only in the Pacific but by air, sea and land elsewhere, in Greece and Crete, North Africa, with its nostalgic battle names, and Italy. From many homes the shadow of death and maiming could not be removed but everything possible would be done for the dependants. The Atlantic Charter's [235] freedom from want and fear could be attained only if all worked as hard as possible so that wealth and production, equitably distributed, could rid the world of want and aggression. ‘Let us prove ourselves by our industry worthy of winning the peace.’ [236]

Thoughts of future labours were not prominent that day. By pre-arrangement, many servicemen immediately went on 48 hours' leave. In some places extra police came on duty and, at the Prime Minister's request, hotels on Thursday the 16th did not open until 1.30 pm. In the swiftness of Japan's collapse many victory planners were caught short and, with some changes, the patterns of May were repeated. As before, these varied from place to place, with weather no small factor in public jollity: in general, there was rain in the North Island and it was fine in the South. An Evening Post report, comparing the celebrations with those of VE Day, commented:

Perhaps the most notable difference was the lack of the fervid adulation of men in uniform. The general note seemed to be among civilians and service personnel alike that at last the business was over and the fact that some were still in uniform meant only that they were later in the return to peacetime occupation than others. The realisation and appreciation of the services of all who had played their part in achieving the victory was not lacking but rather pushed into the background. [237]

Again, especially in small centres, there were, besides civic thanks givings, church services and rejoicing crowds, many widespread activities: bonfires, where effigies were sometimes burnt, torch processions, community singing, victory dances, and parades that were both grave and gay. Always the processions had bands and were usually headed by RSA veterans from three wars followed by home front organisations such as the WWSA and the Red Cross, school children, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and marching girls [238] and by decorated floats and vehicles ranging from scooters and bicycles to heavy trucks, sometimes including vintage cars and gigs. Most of these affairs took place on the second day, Wednesday being given over to ‘spontaneous’ celebrations, which in the main meant milling noisy crowds, drinking, sometimes in the streets, spasmodic singing and dancing, often to band music, and some kissing by strangers.

Again in the main centres the tempo varied markedly. Christchurch, where ambitious musical plans for a later victory had to be dropped, again accepted the news decorously. Sirens, whistles, bells and car horns made their din on Wednesday, paper was thrown from the Post Office and a few tall buildings, bunting and crowds appeared. In the afternoon at Lancaster Park about 6000 listened to a thanksgiving ceremony where a large choir sang ‘The Glory of the Lord’ and ‘Hallelujah’ from Handel's ‘Messiah’. About Cathedral Square thousands gathered, some danced, some sang, some performed hakas on a platform, several hundred followed bands, cars and bicycles were be-flagged, ‘victory champagne’ in familiar brown bottles circulated freely. In the evening there was dancing to loudspeakers near the Post Office and some revellers bounced a few slowly-moving cars rather ruggedly, but the crowd, departing after 11 pm, left far fewer bottles than on VE Day. There were no admissions to the cells or to hospital save a few outpatients for minor injuries. [239] The Canterbury Trades Council hastily called on trade unions to repeat the grand march of 9 May, but far fewer fell in behind the union banners. Nevertheless the Thursday procession was more varied and the large crowd watching was well entertained. There was special interest and sympathy shown to the Chinese display: young men, neat in white shirts and grey slacks, bore United Nations banners, Chinese girls in a tasteful tableau saluted victory, and other Chinese, young and old, marched after. [240]

Dunedin began its public rejoicings on Wednesday within minutes of hearing the news. The Mayor, questioned, said that there were no official arrangements for the morning, adding, ‘Do they need it? Just look at them. But what a blessing it's a fine day.’ Dunedin, reported the Otago Daily Times, seemed deeply conscious that this was really the end, whereas VE Day, with the Division waiting for re-assignment, had been only partial victory. In the afternoon, more than 15 000 thronged the Octagon and nearby streets for one of the most impressive ceremonies in the city's history. Some 300 bandsmen and 1500 choristers were heard in anthems and hymns; the National Anthem, ‘God Defend New Zealand’, the Chinese anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, ‘All People that on Earth Do Dwell’, ‘Oh God, our Help in Ages Past’, ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’, ‘Eternal Father’ and ‘Abide with Me’. The bands played other items such as ‘On the Quarterdeck’ and The Red, White and Blue'. In the evening, music from loudspeakers gathered some 2000 people outside the Catholic Youth Centre for modern and old-time dancing, ‘a form of diversion, common enough in other parts of the world, and not unknown in such parts of New Zealand as Napier and

Hamilton, but seldom exploited in Dunedin.’ [241]

On Thursday afternoon a procession inspired mainly by the Otago

Federation of Labour came alive with widespread activity, little pre-planning and conspicuous success. There were six bands, two fire engines, a carnival Chinese dragon, more than 70 decorated lorries and a marching throng, headed by the Otago Hunt Club with 30 horses and 16 hounds. Floats showing much ingenious construction commented on phases of the war, with trade exhibits stressing the efforts of the workers. Taxis which turned out to carry nearly 200 orphans in the parade were warmly applauded, as were cheerful Chinese on a large truck captioned ‘Peace at Last’, throwing apples to the crowd. Several hundred marching girls displayed their skill and later formed a living flag in the Octagon. The procession took 50 minutes to pass the saluting post, where stood the Minister of Defence, and was, claimed the Mayor, the finest ever held in Dunedin. [242]

Wellington's street celebrations started within seconds of the victory announcement, crowds rushing out amid falling paper and the din of sirens, with their paper hats, rattles, whistles and streamers. Despite fine steady rain in the afternoon, many remained in town. Bands played on the balcony of a Willis Street hotel and crowds massed below and sang from the heart. In the evening the main attraction was Victory Corner [243] where old and young sang and danced to bands until ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was played at 10 o'clock. There was little rowdyism and only five arrests (four for drunkenness, one for disorder); two shop windows were cracked by accident and one deliberately; nine heavy truckloads of broken glass and sodden paper were removed after rain had washed much down sumps. [244] On Thursday, rain drove the national ceremony, very like that of 9 May, into the Town Hall where in the afternoon a choral civic thanksgiving also took place. A choir of 300 led in anthems, including those of America, Russia and China, Blake's ‘Jerusalem’, ‘All People that on Earth Do Dwell’ and ‘Now Thank we all our God’, with ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as a solo. In the streets and pubs a subdued mood gradually quickened and before closing-time at

6 o'clock high spirited fun threatened to become horseplay. In the evening youth was much to the fore, with groups of boys encircling girls who submitted not too unwillingly to kisses, and by 10 o'clock it was all over. [245] In Auckland, despite the chiding of the New Zealand Herald [246] there were no major civic arrangements for Wednesday apart from a thanksgiving service, though this time bands were appointed to play; publicans again were the main minstrants to jubilation. Rain fell much of the time, though the sun came out briefly with the sirens. There was more boisterousness here than elsewhere; some kissing was not welcomed, the bands were told by the Mayor to disperse when ‘irresponsibles’ began throwing bottles, and 51 people were taken by ambulance to hospital. By late afternoon the quantity of broken glass induced the senior magistrate to ask publicans to close their bottle stores, four hotels where crowds were out of hand were closed by the police, and other proprietors chose to shut their doors before 6 o'clock. [247] There was still plenty of beer about in the evening, several broken windows and some hostility to the police.

On Thursday morning, with a steady drizzle, tattered decorations, slush-covered streets and a few boarded windows, Auckland showed its hangover. Much broken glass had been removed from Queen Street but its whole roadway was, reported the New Zealand Herald, on 17 August, ‘coated with sticky brown slime’ and side streets were still littered with glass—over the two days nearly 20 tons of glass were cleared away. In the morning one pipe band played, though more had been expected. Several hundred people came with umbrellas to the civic thanksgiving outside the Town Hall, and similar services were held in all the suburbs. During the afternoon the streets filled, largely with youngsters. Bands and singing created amiable interludes but, said the Herald, the irresponsibles were again to the fore. ‘Emboldened by the good humoured indulgence shown to them—perhaps mistakenly-the previous day, they threw good taste to the winds and regarded the occasion as one of mere licence for destruction and displays of hooliganism.’ Drunken youths, aged 15 to 20 roaming in groups of 10 to 30, threw bottles, shouted obscenities and molested young girls. By night time ‘all pretence that anything in particular was being celebrated was abandoned,’ and by 10 o'clock thinning crowds enabled the police to tighten control. [248] The Auckland Star, however, did not think that Thursday's girls were molested, ‘though so much public kissing would not have been tolerated under ordinary circumstances’. The Star also noted that the crowd responded to music, and skylarking youths lost their audience when bands or song leaders appeared. Over the two days there were 21 arrests, the majority first offenders. [249] On Friday, with very few absentees, Auckland was back at work. [250] The party was over, and it might be said that the country had celebrated victory with less ingenuity than it had displayed in achieving it.

In the recruiting days there had been promises that much would be done for the saviours of civilisation on their return. These promises sounded uneasily to many aware of those who had remained the flotsam and jetsam of the First World War, old soldiers for whom nothing had gone right, who through lost opportunities, lack of capital, wrong decisions, bad advice or sheer bad luck, let alone physical damage, drinking or fecklessness, had lived precariously in good times and worse in bad. For such men, their service in Egypt or Gallipoli or France, where life and death hazards and comradeship heightened living, seemed in recollection vital and heroic days, better than the anxieties and responsibilities that followed them. The initial object was to avoid post–1918 mistakes, when some men had found it hard to get work and others had invested savings in farms or businesses that could not survive the swings of commerce. Almost from the start, funds for the rehabilitation of returned men and the welfare of dependants were targets for patriotic collections, but there was strong feeling that such funds could provide only immediate relief; long-term, it was a government concern.

As a first step, a regulation (1939/213) in October 1939, revised in November 1940 (1940/291), decreed that the returned man must get his job back, plus any increment it had since acquired. This clearly was not enough: a succession of men might have occupied a position before entering the forces, but only one could return to it. Also each would need help to catch up on the civilian training and experience that he would have gained had he remained at home. There were many examples from the previous war of men who returned to pre-war posts to remain on practically the same pay, while those unfit or too young for war, with the benefit of training and responsibility, had climbed the ladder of advancement above them. The government urged that everyone should bring forward helpful ideas; rehabilitation was a task for all to share. In the minds of returned men, politicians, social workers, educationists, administrators and thoughtful people generally, the idea grew that the returning serviceman [251] should, as regards work, education and housing, be placed in the position he could have attained had he stayed at home. In time this purpose grew yet further: to realise the full potential of the ex-serviceman. This potential could be unrelated to the situation into which youth, inexperience or the Depression years might have placed him before entering the forces.

As men first began to trickle out of the Services various agencies, apart from the pensions department, assisted them. There were distress and rehabilitation branches of patriotic committees, the RSA gave temporary relief, the Disabled Servicemen's and the Civil Reestablishment leagues were revived. In 1941, when wartime industry was feeling the shortage of men with trade skills the Labour Department, working with technical colleges, organised crash courses of about four months' training in some lines of engineering, welding and bootmaking, the trainees being paid £4 13s 4d a week. [252] As there was little use in training those liable for future service, men emerging from the forces were among those most eligible for these courses. The first soldier-trainee began work for an engineering firm in June 1941. [253] Increasingly, civilians became fewer and returned men filled the benches. By 1945, with skilled men returning, the need for these trainees had diminished and the classes were tapered off. [254]

Training in carpentry began later in 1941. It started with men who had already done some practical work in this field, mainly as builders' labourers. Some of these, supervised by the Housing Department and guided by tradesmen, built the first carpentry school at Miramar, Wellington. In September 1941 the first batch of 24 began eight weeks' instruction and practice there, before working for six months on State houses nearby. [255] Other schools opened in the Hutt, Christchurch and elsewhere during the next two years, their courses reflecting experience and catering for increasing numbers of ex-servicemen. Gradually the character of training changed: instead of aiming to produce semi-skilled men quickly to meet an industrial crisis, it was designed to produce tradesmen able to hold their places permanently. When the Rehabilitation organisation developed from 1942 onward, its policy was to use existing machinery wherever possible. The emergency trade training schools, ready-made for its purpose, were taken over during 1943 and their courses extended. [256] Engineering and bootmaking proved to have fairly limited usefulness, but carpentry was to become a cornerstone of the Rehabilitation programme.

Rehabilitation needs began slowly. By November 1940 only 29 servicemen had returned home sick or wounded. This total reached 112 in the following month, 1220 in July 1941, when a post- Crete hospital ship arrived, and 2565 by the end of that year. [257] Military pay continued while men were under medical treatment. Some returned to military service and in the growing shortage of labour those demobilised, if not too disabled, readily obtained jobs. The number of those invalided out was steadily increasing. Breaks from civil employment were lengthening and rehabilitation could no longer be left to chance and generous intentions. There was clear need for a national organisation to survey the country's industrial needs and train discharged men to meet them, especially as the Depression had prevented many from acquiring a trade; in such areas as farming, housing and education men needed assistance to recover lost time and opportunities.

In October 1941, to comment that it was already a year overdue, [258] the Rehabilitation Act made broad beginnings. It set up a large, widely representative Council to advise the government on the policy by which discharged men were to be reinstated in work, trained, educated for trades and professions, financed and otherwise assisted into houses, farms and businesses. Widows of servicemen were to be appropriately assisted. Six leading members of the Council formed the Rehabilitation Board which handled practical details and met much more often than the Council. The Board was to acquire property for disposal to ex-servicemen, arrange employment, give financial assistance in certain channels such as housing, tools and furniture, and to recommend to the government any modifications needed to ensure their effective entry into any occupation. Members of both bodies were appointed by February 1942, with

Michael Moohan [259] as chairman of the Board and Robert Semple as Minister. Sub-committees of the Board, each to handle a particular area, were soon set up.

As a starting premise the government, rejecting rhe doctrine of inevitable post-war depression, took a buoyant attitude: industrial activity and thence economic prosperity were limited only by the physical resources of manpower and materials. Full potential ability would be developed, in both those emerging from the forces and those taking part in wartime industry; material resources were to be examined. The Board soon initiated surveys of employment needs in housing and in developmental work such as hydro-electric construction, roads, railways, in Post and Telegraph, forestry and local body works. It looked for the expansion of existing industries such as woollen textiles, leather, wood pulp and paper, tobacco, flax growing and spinning, fish and vegetable canning, the making of insulators and other clay products, asbestos, gelatine, glue, sheep-dip and moulded plastics. It also looked into other possible industries, such as sugar beet, industrial alcohol, lucerne dehydration, linseed oil, electric motors' batteries and rubber tyres. [260] Some were destined to flourish, others would not get started.

The government, feeling its way into new problems, did not create large new administrative machines. The Rehabilitation Division of the ubiquitous National Service Department used and co-ordinated skills in various fields of existing departments and organisations, such as the Disabled Servicemen's League, born out of 1914–18; the State Advances Corporation, for making loans; the Lands and Survey Department for farm settlement; Maori Affairs and the pensions branch of Social Security.

Rehabilitation centres were set up, originally in 23 main towns, while in outlying sub-centres district Social Security officers took on further duties, until replaced by fully-fledged Rehabilitation officers. During the first half of 1942, amid the calling-up of military and industrial manpower, Rehabilitation did not gain much impetus, although by 30 June 4536 servicemen had been demobilised from overseas. [261] The Press on 21 July 1942 complained that Rehabilitation was in the doldrums. The Council was the unwieldy representative of sectional interests; the Board members, who had special qualifications, were already under heavy demands from other jobs; ‘no one in the Ministry or the public service is able to give a whole mind to the problems of rehabilitation.’ The government's approach was too narrow, concentrating on finding work for men invalided out of the Services. The war was changing the whole structure of

New Zealand's economic life. To adjust industry to the needs of peace and to re-absorb returned men satisfactorily would require large-scale economic planning.

Demands for more activity led to the setting up by September 1942 of 23 local advisory committees, matching the Rehabilitation centres. These honorary committees of leading citizens appointed yearly by the government, included representatives of local authorities, the RSA, WWSA, business and farming interests. Their task was to keep in touch with every ex-serviceman and ex-servicewoman in their district, reporting to the authorities on the suitability of those applying for training or loans, and advising on needs and developments in all aspects of rehabilitation. Among other things, they could recommend grants of small sums for immediate assistance and they decided which of their clients' claims for State rental houses were most urgent, 50 per cent of all such houses being allotted to ex-servicemen. From the start, their public spirit and zealous co-operation did much to vitalise Rehabilitation measures. As months passed with increasing evidence of their ability and usefulness, their recommendations were adopted more readily, with less reference to head office, thus promoting decentralisation and easing the clamps of bureaucracy. By 31 March 1943 there were 60 such committees, 110 a year later, 112 in 1948 and 113 in 1951; by 1955, with the bulk of rehabilitation work accomplished, there were only nine left. [262]

The Board and its advisers worked out loans and training schemes, responding to pressures and advice (as from tradesmen's associations) and to changing conditions, and also worked out its own administrative methods. It was soon clear that decentralisation was a prime need to the soldier demobilised in Dargaville or Hastings or Kaitangata, who would waste time, lose both faith and opportunity, if his rehabilitation were filtered back and forth to head office. By 1943 the local committees had shown that they merited trust, as had district officers, their experience growing with every case handled. The system of reporting progress to head office was set aside and all but the most difficult individual cases were handled entirely at local level. [263] All through the organisation, from the Board itself down to local committees, there were executive sub-committees on various aspects, such as loans, job training or care of the disabled, to improve speed and specialisation.

Semple's reputation for ‘getting things done’ had made him

Minister of National Service and thereby initially of Rehabilitation, but Rehabilitation obviously needed a returned man. In August 1943 the portfolio went to Major C. F. Skinner, who combined a very respectable military background with administrative grasp, ability to learn in the job and solid understanding of ex-servicemen's problems both in the community and in themselves. From October 1943, Skinner was also chairman of the Rehabilitation Board, which was re-organised and strengthened in February 1944. Departmental heads of Treasury, State Advances, Lands and Survey, Maori Affairs and Public Works, each acted as an agent of the Board in a particular field. Executive committees, for loans, land, trade training, education and Maori finance, could, if unanimous and not in conflict with Board decisions, wield the executive authority of the Board itself. [264]

Meanwhile, in November 1943, the Rehabilitation Division of National Service had been elevated into a separate Department, with Lieutenant-Colonel F. Baker [265] as its Director. He combined a distinguished war record, including command of the Maori Battalion, with accountancy training, administrative experience in the State Advances Corporation, and Maori ancestry. Both he and Skinner gave vitalising leadership, having agile minds, prepared to listen and to learn, and being more concerned to discover real answers to problems as they evolved than to maintain that all was well with courses already taken.

It was not difficult for returning men, except those gravely disabled in mind or body, to find employment. At 31 March 1945, with 68 675 men and women demobilised from overseas and the home services, only 339 were awaiting placement and of these more than 300 were capable of light work only. The majority found jobs for themselves, with pre-service employers or with new ones, but for those with any difficulty, or wanting a change, the Servicemen's Division of National Service, staffed as far as possible with returned men and with detailed records of employment offering throughout New Zealand, was ready to help. [266]

Policy planners, concerned not only for the immediate full employment of ex-servicemen and women but also for their lasting contentment and the orderly progress of national development, strove to encourage them away from blind alley, short-term jobs, towards training and education in skills needed for the rehabilitation of the country. A first step was to make them aware, as early as possible, of what assistance was available. Towards the end of 1943 some

Army officers, after instruction, and working through the AEWS went to the Middle East and Pacific to give information on current New Zealand conditions and rehabilitation opportunities. Thus to some extent servicemen might decide in advance what they wanted to do and make as much use as possible of the trade, technical and academic tuition available meanwhile through AEWS. It was hoped that such preparation would reduce the surge of disorientated returning men, out of touch for several years with New Zealand and with civil life. Aboard hospital and troop ships there was information about rehabilitation. [267] Pamphlets presenting various aspects were freely sprinkled about and as men left the forces the organisation followed them, helping them where necessary to find jobs, or nudging them towards solid trades and professions rather than attractive short-term positions.

Rehabilitation was concerned to match manpower and training with national needs. The most crying need was for houses, the government aiming at the construction of 8000 in the first post-war year and 12 000 in the third. [268] From the start there was concentration on carpentry, growing out from the emergency training schools first established in 1941. For the course known as A-class training, these workshop centres gave four months' introductory tuition in use of tools, interpretation of drawings and specifications and making small pieces of joinery such as letter boxes, bathroom cabinets and window frames for State houses. This was followed by eight months' full-time training on State house construction, with frequent lectures on the job and instructors supervising groups of 12 men. They were concerned first with accuracy, but gradually acquired skill and pace. A trainee received £5 5 s a week for the first eight months, then £5 7 s 6 d, rates which rose by 10 s on 1 April 1945. At the start, this first year was followed by up to two years' improvership, with pay rising to £6, but by 1944 after the first year a trainee went to work with an approved contractor on State houses on full journey man's wages. These, with cost of living allowances, by 1945 amounted to £6 17 s 9 d a week plus travelling costs for more than a certain distance. [269]

Carpenters could not be mass-produced, although by trials and changes training was improved. The larger centres took in classes of 26 three times a year, smaller centres took classes of 14. It was not easy to find suitable instructors, for many skilled tradesmen, who could train an apprentice or two, could not teach classes or handle mature ex-soldiers. [270] Another retarding factor at the start was difficulty in getting basic tool-kits from overseas. [271] The number of State houses built by those in training rose from a modest 19 in 1942 to 285 in 1945, making the Rehabilitation Department one of the biggest contractors for State houses. [272] At the start of 1944 there were seven carpentry training centres: Auckland, Wellington,

Christchurch, Dunedin, Rotorua, Napier and Petone. By 1948, when the scheme was at its peak, there were 24 centres. [273]

The system of intensive instruction followed by field work was extended to other building trades—joinery, bricklaying, plastering, tiling and painting. This began early in 1945 when a large military store at Petone became a combined building trades centre. [274] By 1948, four centres gave training in bricklaying and plastering, eight in painting, one in joinery. [275]

By March 1945 in all the building trades concerned, there were 542 men taking A-class training, with 616 having already completed. [276] By 1948, the peak period, 2998 men were training; the majority, 2359, in carpentry, with 2450 in all having completed. In March 1951 those in training would drop to 912, with 7359 completed. The centres gradually closed down, the last, at Gisborne, in June 1953. [277]

Skill in building and other trades could also be acquired more conventionally under B-class training schemes, through subsidised contracts with private employers for up to three years. Pay rates were the same as for the ‘A’ scheme; the employer and the State each paid half at the start and the employer gradually took over the wages bill as his men became more competent. This method alone was adopted for plumbing, for which Rehabilitation workshops could not provide facilities, and proved increasingly popular in a wide range of other trades, from carpentry and its associates to motor and electrical trades, printing, textile and clothing trades, clerical and professional occupations. It was favoured by married men, who could thus train close to home, and by women. [278]

By 31 March 1946, 147 carpenters were training in the ‘B’ scheme, along with 329 others in various building trades and 934 over the rest of the range, while 133 had finished their courses. A year later, 3036 were training with 3747 having completed. [279]

Men who, when entering the forces, were part way through apprenticeships could return to them at higher pay under the ‘C’ scheme. Regulations in December 1944, that provided for some reduction in time and subsidised wages at journeyman's rates, were cheerfully accepted by most employers, some even rejecting the subsidy. [280] By March 1946, there were 950 such apprenticeships with 174 completed, and a year later 2151, with 1000 completed. [281] By 1951, only 9 men were still training under this scheme, 3388 had completed and 371 had dropped their courses. [282]

All this meant that in the five or six years after the war thousands of men with skills matched to demand joined the work force. At no time in the next 30 years would these skills prove unwanted, in Depression terms, though many men, for various reasons including inclination or further opportunity, later changed their callings. Post-war expansion meant that there were still insufficient men in many fields and housing construction, though blessed with so much Rehabilitation attention, was not an exception. Shortage of builders was, however, only one of many factors behind the unsatisfied demand for houses which plagued the post-war era.

There were Rehabilitation loans to ease the break into civil life, loans for tools and furniture, as well as for houses, businesses and farms. They were not lavish hand-outs, but aimed merely to supplement the receiver's own resources. Thus the maximum for tools was £50, interest free; for furniture, £100. As Skinner explained to the House in December 1944, it was never thought that £100 would furnish a home, but it was a ‘tremendous help’. [283]

For acquiring a business the maximum loan was £500, save where the venture was regarded as of national value; interest was at four per cent, but less for the first year or two, and repayment was flexible. By March 1946 such loans had helped 1640 ex-servicemen and women into business; [284] by March 1951, when loan issues were slackening, they totalled 9667. The range was wide, from groceries, butcheries, bakeries, dairies and milk rounds to fishing ventures, manufacturing, mechanical trades, taxis and transport services, building, hairdressing and various professions. Ex-servicemen and women also had preference in getting licences and stock and equipment that were scarce. A significant number made use of wartime skills as drivers and motor mechanics, plus favour in obtaining vehicles. Of those helped into business by 1951, 2025 had taxis or service cars and 1308 were in mail contracting and general transport, while stress on housing had brought 1068 into building and related trades. [285]

For most of those emerging from the forces, as for very many others, housing was the most pressing need. Rehabilitation helped in two ways. First there was the 50 per cent of all State rental houses or flats for allocation to ex-servicemen. These were compact, more or less standardised homes, in a variety of shapes and sizes, all less than 10 years old in 1945, their rents ranging from 24 s to 33 s 9 d a week, with a rebate of 2 s 6 d for prompt payment. [286] Then there were loans towards buying an existing house or building a new one that were intended to meet a substantial part or even the whole of the cost of a modest but adequate home. Interest was 2 per cent for the first year, 3 per cent thereafter and table repayment was long-term. House prices and building costs were rising, despite the braking effects of Stabilisation and the Land Sales Court. In 1944, to lessen the gap between current and pre-war values Rehabilitation provided for interest-free supplementary loans (up to £75 on an existing house or £100 on a new one) which did not have to be repaid while the ex-serviceman or his dependents lived in the house. But in no case did the two loans exceed £1,500. Later, from 1949, further interest-free, suspensory, seven-year loans could be obtained, for new houses only, of up to £200, while the maximum total loan rose to £2,000 for a new house. A year later the maximum for an existing house rose to £1,800. [287]

At the start, two groups had priority: those who had owned a house which they had sold on entering the forces whether they had served at home or overseas; those who had been in action or had served in a forward zone for at least six months or who had served in other overseas zones for not less than a year. Shorter overseas service also made a man eligible, but only after these classes had been disposed of. [288]

The State Advances Corporation, which handled all Rehabilitation loans, had numerous plans for houses, their cost not too far in advance of the loans available. These plans were designed for a variety of sections and some provided for extra rooms being built on later. They ranged from 750 square feet, with two bedrooms, to 1090 square feet which was supposed to serve a family of six. Some private architects, co-operating with the Department, specialised in houses for ex-soldiers, [289] but the latter were free to choose their own architects or builders.

By March 1945, 2936 State houses had been allocated to ex- servicemen, along with 2018 loans for buying houses and 782 for building. [290] By 1946, 5021 ex-servicemen had been allocated State houses (with 12 955 on the waiting list) while 5260 in all had loans for buying and 2635 had loans for building. [291] By 1948, 8242 servicemen were in State houses with 14 137 waiting, purchase loans totalled 11 873 and building loans totaled 8321: [292] by 1951 those satisfied totalled 14 096, 19 649 and 15 823 respectively to reach 17 905, 27 225 and 21 960 by March 1955. [293] Claims for housing assistance extended well into the 1950s. Although in 1945 thousands of married men desperately wanted decent living in their own households, at prices they could afford, many were prepared to wait several years for permanent homes, when their futures were more settled; many others were not married until later.

After 1918, many ex-soldiers had been placed, without further assistance, on farms in marginal country that was to break backs and hearts. There was no such move in the Forties, partly because prices and sales were checked by legislation, partly because both men and government were cautious, resolved not to embark enthusiastically upon the impossible. To avoid the cardinal error of placing inexperienced or otherwise unsuitable men on the land, the applications of would-be farmers first went to their local rehabilitation committees, then, if considered eligible, to one of the 33 farming sub-committees throughout the country. These carefully examined applicants, deciding who were ready for immediate assistance and who needed training. Most training was with approved farmers, on wages subsidised by the Rehabilitation Department, sometimes with supplementary courses at the university agricultural colleges and the few government farms. On farms that were going concerns, three per cent loans of up to £5,000 were available for dairy farmers, up to £6,250 for sheep farmers; for stock and plant only, at four per cent, the former could draw up to £1,500, the latter £2,500. [294]

Taking up of land by ex-servicemen started slowly. Very few were established before April 1943, 264 a year later. [295] By March 1945, 734 had farms and 1136, sufficiently experienced and eligible for assistance, were waiting for suitable properties and meanwhile working for wages. [296] Legislation provided preference for them in obtaining land coming on the market, but land was not to be had for the asking. At the outbreak of war, the Lands and Survey Department had 200 000 acres, mainly backward country, under development. [297] In 1943 the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Act gave the State power to acquire more, power which it was loath to use, preferring voluntary negotiation. By March 1948, some 640 788 acres had been acquired, 451 391 from volunteer sales and 189 397 under the Act, while 74 610 of the Crown's acres were marked for Rehabilitation settlement. Some of this land required development, such as access and buildings, and the Department was constantly hungry for ready-to-wear farms. By March 1948, 939 farms, comprising 304 478 State-held acres, were matched to ex-servicemen, and about 800 more, comprising 366 055 acres, were being prepared. Meanwhile, 4209 men assisted by loans had bought established farms on their own accord. [298] Three years later in 1951, 9502 ex-servicemen had settled on farms, 6242 assisted by ‘rehab’ loans in private purchase, 1102 without such loans, and the rest, including 178 Maoris, under various development schemes; 3736 men, eligible and experienced, were waiting for suitable land. By 1955, a total of 12 236 were settled and 1464 were waiting. [299]

Progressively, various forms of education, academic and technical, came into the Rehabilitation field, where assistance ranged from text book allowances and fees to full-time bursaries at university or other colleges. [300] Through liaison with AEWS and Vocational Guidance, there was concern to make the most of interests and abilities. All was firmly practical, for career purposes, not mere culture, and education sub-committees considered not only the abilities of applicants but also prospects of employment in the avenues selected. The majority of approvals were for the continuing of studies interrupted by service, but enlightened assessment of character and abilities meant that a considerable number of applicants with long service records were helped to embark on careers that in pre-war days they had hankered after but lacked the means to attempt. [301] Thus some who had been clerks or grocers' assistants gained bursaries that took them into the professions, as doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, while the careers based on accountancy were copiously supplied. Further, primarily to assist men taking university courses later in life than usual, with their study habits long broken, the Rehabilitation Department paid for tutorial classes, an innovation which cost it £10,000 a year for four years, tapering off after 1950 as the tide of ex-servicemen ebbed. (The tutorials had proved so successful that they were retained as part of the university system.)

Subjects for which assistance was given varied widely: agriculture, accountancy and commercial courses, both university and professional; arts and science degrees; architecture, law, medicine, engineering, dentistry, post-graduate nursing, veterinary and pharmacy studies, wool classing, trade training and general education. For some advanced and special students, with long service records behind them, there were overseas bursaries at £250 a year for single men, £328 for marrieds, plus sundry allowances. For a substantial number there were full-time bursaries in New Zealand at £3 8 s a week for single men, £5 15 s for married men, [302] during the academic year, plus fees and book allowances up to £5 a year. For the majority, study was part-time, with Rehabilitation providing fees and £5 for books.

By 1945, 434 full-time yearly bursaries had been granted in New Zealand and 23 for study overseas, while allowances for fees and books had been awarded to 863 others. [303] Educational activity and assistance increased steeply during 1946, and in the year ending March 1947 approved applications, both new ones and renewals, rose by 14 626 to total 23 537. [304] By 1947–8, renewals far exceeded new grants. In that year, 399 new full-time bursaries in New Zealand were approved while 984 were renewed; assistance for part-time study was received for the first time by 3061 while for 4996 it was renewed. [305] Thereafter new grants diminished and renewals also waned, as courses were completed. During 1949–50, 61 new bursaries to New Zealand institutions were granted and 396 renewed, while for part-time study 861 new grants were made and 2922 renewed.

By 1955, grants to ex-servicemen were rare but educational assistance to the children of dead or disabled servicemen was beginning to grow. [306] At March 1955, in all 290 children had been assisted in various fields.

Rehabilitation sought to put the serviceman where he would have been without the war. Its benefits were regarded on all sides as fully earned, as a repayment, not fibre-softening hand-outs. Shorn of all sentiment, it was sound national investment to set returned men on the way to full potential capacity. Skinner, in December 1944, said: ‘… the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen is just as much a part of our war effort as is the conduct of the war at the present time…. I do not think that we should even ask at this stage that taxation should be reduced to any great extent.’ [307] Everyone with friends or relatives coming out of the forces, and many others as well, realised some of the problems and wanted competent governmental handling of them.

Inevitably there were complaints and frustrated applicants. Rehabilitation processes, as they evolved, were shaped and tested by criticism. But the critics, whether they were builders, bootmakers, farmers or Opposition members, let alone servicemen, all wanted it to work. The Auckland Star on 1 December 1944, after a discussion in the House, wrote that despite the disposition of some members to score small points the debate had been useful and encouraging. It left the impression of a House unanimous and earnest in conviction that the fine aspirations expressed in the Rehabilitation Act must not be dimmed by the inevitable and complex practical difficulties of achieving them. Criticism of the administration arose in every case from wanting more done for the returning serviceman, smoothly and quickly. The Department, as Skinner had explained, was hampered by material shortages and by the time needed to assemble and train staff, whereas publicity had tended to induce belief that everything would be ready for returning men, that they would at once be helped into their desired occupations. ‘These ideal conditions cannot exist in the sixth year of war.’ The Star advocated openness: the Minister should frequently explain difficulties, inviting suggestions and help; there was a great fund of goodwill for the scheme which he should draw on at every opportunity.

It was recognised that personal difficulties existed for some men returning to civilian life and work. There was, for instance, the special problem of young men who as officers, especially in the Air Force, had developed special skills and who had been used to responsibility, command and relative affluence. They faced a future where these skills were irrelevant, pay and command much less. As Skinner said, such men were bound to come down with a bump; it was the business of Rehabilitation to help soften that bump. [308]

Medical authorities recognised that men, merely by being in the forces for years, under orders and free from making decisions, at once hedged and upheld by routines, group living and peer values, had been changed, disoriented from civilian life. Return, though fervently desired, was disturbing. [309] There was recoil from the tedious responsibilities of being a civilian, depression and anxiety about committal to a settled course. A. E. Armstrong [310] said in the House that apart from wounds and sickness men ‘are also faced with uncertainty and difficulties on the question of being happy in some particular job.’ [311]

Medical officers repeatedly stated that wives, friends and employers would need to give sympathy and understanding. Every returned man would have psychological problems and face a period of adjustment. Even apart from battle stress, the longer his training and service the longer the reverse process of becoming a civilian would take. Women must accept and wait; accept in head and heart that their men were changed by the war. If they could not do so, if they blamed and were impatient there would be broken hearts, broken homes, ill feeling and bitterness. They must show all the forbearance and fortitude they could muster, putting up with irrational behaviour and irritability. Employers likewise must be patient with shortcomings, must be open and friendly. Prisoners-of-war, after years behind bars and on low diet, had special problems. [312] The official medical historian, Duncan Stout, [313] dealing with the transition to civilian life of neurosis cases, wrote: ‘The most common symptoms were irritability, a feeling of tiredness after a day's work, difficulty in concentrating on any job where mental attention was required, lack of desire to meet people or go out to social engagements and pictures. These symptoms were present to a greater or lesser degree in practically all soldiers who had been overseas for any length of time.’ [314]

Obviously the Rehabilitation officer had an important place amid such difficulties, reconciling employers to what could seem merely unreliable or self-indulgent behaviour, persuading men to keep trying. Said Skinner, ‘one man needs all the sympathy you can give him, the next man may need a good kick in the pants.’ [315] It was no place for a narrow bureaucrat.

For most of the people concerned, Rehabilitation worked, enabling them to pull themselves out of and up from the war. Its best testimonials remained in the references to doing this or getting that on ‘rehab’ which studded the talk of returned men for a few years, then sank away under the tide of civilian life, remaining in recollection a short friendly word.

What, then, had this war now concluded meant to a small country that in two successive generations had so fervently espoused causes arising from the political and territorial ambitions of European powers? In proportional terms, in manpower New Zealand's contribution was not exceeded by any other Commonwealth country. This was made clear by a set of figures [316] compiled in 1946, listing Commonwealth populations, casualties and (in parenthesis) casualties per million of population:

| Population | Killed | Wounded
United Kingdom | 47 770 000 | 244 723(5123) | 277 090(5801)
Canada | 11 812 000 | 37 476(3173) | 53 174(4502)
Australia | 7 230 000 | 23 365(3232) | 39 803(5505)
South Africa | 9 600 000 | 6 840(713) | 14 363(1496)
India | 389 000 000 | 24 338(63) | 64 354(165)
New Zealand | 1 746 000 | 10 130(5802) | 19 345(11080)

The New Zealand figures were subsequently corrected to 11 617(6684) deaths and 15 749(9002) wounded. [317]

New Zealand put its money where its young men were. From 1939 to 1944 war expenditure in New Zealand was 31 per cent of the national income; in the United Kingdom it was 43 per cent, in

Australia and Canada 29 per cent, in the United States 24 per cent, in the USSR 37 per cent. During the three intense years 1942–4 these figures were: United Kingdom 53 per cent; New Zealand 51 per cent, Canada 48 per cent, USSR 46 per cent, Australia 45 per cent, United States 41 per cent. For 1943 war expenditures in Britain, Canada and New Zealand all reached 53 per cent, but only

Britain sustained this level for three years. [318] Angus Calder, writing on the proportion of Britain's annual income spent on the war, remarked: ‘the only allied nation to come near to equalling this was, rather oddly, New Zealand.’ [319]

In the name of the war effort and stabilisation some very low wages were paid both in government administration and in private enterprise. Unpaid voluntary effort covered many functions such as raising money to pay for servicemen's comforts both overseas and in local camps; providing comforts and recreation for the Services within New Zealand; packing prisoner-of-war parcels (contents paid for by the government after 1942); the Home Guard, the EPS, firewatching; the many WWSA activities; Rehabilitation committees.

In the cost of the war itself, New Zealanders at large were heavily committed; they paid cash, through taxation and through internal loans, some free, most at low rates of interest. To March 1946 the war expenses account received £681 million: £242 million came from internal loans, £225 million from special war taxation, £27 million from the Consolidated Fund; £ 111 million represented goods and services made available through Lend-Lease and Canadian Mutual Aid; £23 million came from various other sources. A further £53.4 million advanced by the United Kingdom, which by agreement paid the costs of 2NZEF as incurred and then reclaimed them from the New Zealand government, was repaid by 1946. There was no war debt outstanding overseas after that year. [320] Recorded total expenditure came to £670 million. [321]

To a later, inflation-accustomed era these figures for six years of war may challenge belief, but the public expenditure scale of the period must be remembered: total national output of goods and services was reckoned at £232 million in 1938–9, £375 million in 1943–4, £426 million in 1946–7. [322] Meanwhile general government expenditure in the years ending March 1939–46 respectively totalled £42,889,267, £46,600,152, £49,254,153, £52,880,239, £50,921,382, £55,328,829, £58,714,153, £62,659,499. [323] There was no unemployment and drastic curtailment of private imports, coupled with stabilisation controls, reduced inflation pressure and improved New Zealand's overseas exchange position. From a book-keeping economist's viewpoint, the war achievement was admirable, a bargain.

Besides the committal of men and money to the war, some other Commonwealth comparisons can be made. New Zealand was the first, apart from Britain, to have conscription for overseas service. It was the last to start rationing butter and meat. Its dealings with conscientious objectors were more severe and its press censorship was more anxious than elsewhere although it was the country most distant from the enemy. The government, identifying itself with ‘New Zealand’, felt that criticism of itself in the widespread war effort was destructive, almost subversive; to Fraser, skilful and dominant politician, this viewpoint was useful; he used it and came to believe in it.

Enthusiasm for Russia did not survive the atom bomb. It had been at its highest in mid-1942 when Russia was suffering most but fighting back, giving respite to Britain by absorbing the battering of the German war machine, and at the time of the crucial victory of Stalingrad in February 1943. When Russia, without the help of a second front in Europe, held the German summer offensive in 1943 and in 1944 made advances all along its front, circling deep into Romania but without liberating Warsaw, satisfaction at German retreat was mixed with stirrings of deep-rooted uneasiness.

Russia's smudgy record over Poland and complaints of Russian secretiveness matured suspicion. For New Zealand, Anglo-American possession of the atom bomb made the cultivation of good relations with the USSR unnecessary. The cold war roused few qualms save in the steadfast Left.

Japan and West Germany, their determination to emerge from disaster helped by American aid to defeated nations with acceptable governments, soon became strong and respectable, bulwarks against Communism and towers of commerce. Meanwhile European trade developments squeezed New Zealand out of Britain as its traditional market. Forty years later a New Zealander might wonder why all the suffering and loss had had to happen. Japanese cars and motor cycles flood the roads, Japanese transistors, musical instruments, china and a host of goods, better and cheaper than their rivals, fill the shops, Japanese names are on the office doors of tall buildings; the ‘greater co-prosperity sphere’ includes New Zealand. In the European Economic Community New Zealand hopes for West German support in its effort to sell butter and meat to Britain: Germans and Italians do not become over-stayers in countries where the passport system prevents many New Zealanders from living and working. That would be a simple view. The war grew out of certain international pressures; other pressures, implacable as earth movements, have replaced them and in turn are being replaced.

New Zealanders themselves were closer than they had ever been to seeing themselves as just that, New Zealanders. Three waves of elevation in spirit, independence and readiness for sacrifice can be identified: in September 1939, in mid-1940 and in the months following Japan's entry. The first subsided with little effect on civilian life. The second wrought some far-reaching changes, markedly expanding farm production and war-support industries, and began the move towards America's umbrella, began conscription, the Home Guard and the EPS. The third, channelled by the government, invaded most aspects of civilian living. Through all this, New Zealanders carried on, doing what was required of them, adjusting to shortages and changed work conditions, enjoying normal pleasures where they could, picking up good things where they could: improved job opportunities, especially for women, overtime, cost-plus contracts, war-quickened romances, the American bonanza, the brief happiness of leave.

The war was a study in gradualism. Although it intensified sharply in 1942, in the preceding years people had grown used to it: defence systems had been established, war duties had increased, civilian goods and services had lessened. The events of 1942 would have been far more disturbing had they occurred in 1940. From 1942 everyone was affected directly or indirectly, through work, defence duties, rationing, stabilisation. Unemployment, still present in 1940, was replaced by over-employment. Overtime was commonplace, sometimes exhausting, often welcomed for the increased pay, although in many awards this was reduced by the regulations of December

1941. [324] Overtime hours could be padded out and pay packets fattened, notably on the wharves, but many workers, genuinely wearied, came to want only regular hours at adequate pay. Below fatigue, boredom or personal anxieties was the buoyancy of being wanted in the work-force: to those who had known or feared the pains of rejection during the Depression the war years offered healing balm.

There was determination that the war effort should not be impeded by dissidents. Fear that those who rejected war on religious or social grounds might attract others to their stand or might cause the general drive to slacken was behind the strait and narrow sifting for sincerity which sent 600 defaulters to years of exile in labour camps, backed by prisons. In the effective community, zeal to punish ‘slackers’ outweighed readiness to see objectors as a minority deserving tolerance.

Only the hysterical could even briefly have imagined that the war would be won by sending every fit man of military age into the forces; nor would ‘farm or fight’ cover the situation. After volunteering ended in July 1940, ballots called up men by age groups; it was accepted that all military age men should serve in the capacity most valuable to the war effort as a whole. Military service appeal boards, besides peering into consciences, sorted out who should work and who should fight. Under government directions which weighed the claims of industry and the forces in the changing war scene, they heard and re-heard appeals of men to remain in their occupations, on grounds of hardship or public interest, of employers to retain workers for the public weal; they kept this man or that in civilian work sine die or for a few months, dismissed others to the Services.

Industrial conscription covered a wider field. It was the war's biggest social innovation, with no real precedent in 1914–18. It began in January 1942 with regulations decreeing that in certain essential industries or firms workers could not leave or be dismissed without the consent of a government official. The list of essential works lengthened steadily, while further regulations gradually extended controls, shifted men and women from civilian work to production for the war or maintenance of the community. Manpower direction sent many people to jobs which in normal circumstances they would not have done. This mixing of men and women from various backgrounds, and the consequent diminution of class prejudice was a feature of both Service and civilian life that was to have long-term effects.

In all conscription, both military and industrial, there was striving towards equality of service, of contributions to the war effort, but here too there was scope for some to be more equal than others.

Manpower direction left many untroubled under blanket retentions, as in the Public Service; many workers complied cheerfully, but there were some reluctant meatworkers, wardsmaids, waitresses, woollen mill and rubber factory workers, among others.

Even within the Services some sorted out advantageous courses, some enjoyed ‘perks’ through chinks in Service accounting or habit; stealing from the American cornucopia was common, both in New Zealand and in the Pacific; in Italy some soldiers were skilful in the black market. At home some workers made the most of overtime. In defence construction, shipbuilding and many jobs assigned to private enterprise, where speed was a prime factor and the volume of work clogged normal tendering along with contracting and cost checks, abuse of ‘cost plus’ contracts was all too easy, although the government and the public set their faces against the war profiteer as an evil not to be permitted.

The need for efficiency, smooth working and increased production called for co-operation between workers and management. Works councils and production committees, which had mushroom growth in Britain and the United States, were not prominent in New Zealand. With some exceptions, employers opposed them and though workers generally were in favour of them no real thrust developed, perhaps because most local industry was small-scale. Outside coalmines, meatworks and railway workshops few functioned seriously.

On government councils, however, both organised employers and organised labour were involved. The Federation of Labour was a young body, born in 1937 out of the Trades and Labour Councils' Federation and the wreckage of the old Alliance of Labour. Given a Labour government, it was bound to have influence—the Opposition regularly complained of government by Trades Hall—but the war increased its range. It had representatives, balanced by employers' representatives, on the Industrial Emergency Council, the National Council of Primary Production, the Industrial Development Committee and allied bodies. It had vital roles in the planning of rehabilitation and in the Stabilisation Commission. Fraser's belief in economic stabilisation was almost passionate; he saw that without it all efforts towards social security would be eroded, and in this he was not alone. With F. P. Walsh, éminence grise of the Federation, in particular, Fraser worked with close understanding, and Walsh's influence was a force of moderation against union wages-pressure.

Other Labour notables were in power. James Roberts, secretary of the Alliance of Labour from 1919–37 and of the Waterside Workers Federation from 1915–40, president of the Labour party from 1937 to 1950, was a major figure in the Waterfront Commission, with unprecedented access to information on the shipping industry. Angus McLagan, long-standing secretary of the Miners'

Federation and secretary of the Federation of Labour from 1937, was appointed to the Legislative Council and thence to the War Cabinet as Minister of Industrial Manpower. These were conspicuous instances of harnessing trade unionists of ability and influence to the government's war effort; they excited little hostility, despite automatic suspicion by union rank-and-file members of leaders who accept government office; they lessened union restiveness under Stabilisation and Manpower controls. Knowing that even a few workers' men were in government councils assuaged many Labour moderates who were basically reluctant to embarrass a Labour government with demands over wages and conditions. There was also prudent wariness lest public reaction against such demands might install a coalition or the National party as government, either of which would spell hard times: Holland armed with war emergency sanctions would be an enemy much closer than Hitler.

By easing pressure on goods, rationing supported Stabilisation. [325] It was not enough to have money in the hand and the goods in sight. Despite scarcity and high rises in import costs Stabilisation authorities fought a gallant and fairly successful battle against rising costs, wages and prices. To December 1942 they tried to curb and regulate price rises while prices and award wages both rose 14 per cent above those of 1939; thereafter they strove to prevent cost increases, or at least to prevent them from affecting prices. A scheme was launched in December 1942 to hold wages, rents, farm prices, transport costs and retail prices of essential goods and services at their current levels. Until an index of consumer prices covering 238 commodities and services, taken together, rose in the first instance by 2½ per cent, and thereafter by 5 per cent, the Court of Arbitration could not order compensating general wage increases; it could only adjust anomalies.

The index did not rise by 2½ per cent until 1947. It was held by a toolbox of techniques, including subsidies, standardisation and simplification of goods, zoning, government importation and selling below cost, absorption by traders of some cost increases, transference of others from essential to non-essential goods. Subsidies, besides spreading the burden more widely, checked secondary spirals: holding the price of coal, for instance, besides helping householders, prevented increased cost ripples spreading out from industries. Internal farm prices were divorced from export prices, but from rises in the latter stabilisation accounts were set up which subsidised local prices. With much contrivance and management the scheme worked tolerably for the next two years, then was eased gradually under changing social pressures.

Pressure for wages, beginning with the lowest pay rates, caused restriction on the Court of Arbitration to be relaxed little by little. Other authorities granted some rises in pay and allowances to workers on dairy, fruit and tobacco farms, to seamen, coalminers and members of Parliament. Awareness of these and a sense that the steadiness of the price index was more apparent than real, that farmers and business people were doing better than those on wages pegged at 1942 levels, caused discontent and some strikes early in 1945. The period of rigid stabilisation ended after February 1945 with wages rather than prices breaking through: the Court of Arbitration could again adjust general wage disparities, leading to award increases of up to 3¾ d an hour; tribunals gave railway workers and public servants 3½ d an hour, backdated to June 1944. But Stabilisation had suppressed inflation during crucial years, enabling people to concentrate on the war, without the distraction and nervousness that shifting consumer prices would have caused. From today's viewpoint its achievement looks amazing.

Industry developed, much of it lastingly. Promotion of local manufactures and reduction of imports, government policy long before 1939, was greatly strengthened. Wartime shrinking of overseas supplies, which persisted in many cases for some time afterwards, gave strong protection but some enterprises such as linen flax did not survive. By 1940 from new enterprises came a wide assortment of goods including rubber ware, building materials, household appliances, foodstuffs and clothing; [326] the shortages of succeeding years induced many more.

In some cases industry was helped by the knowledge and enterprise of Hitler's exiles, the refugees. The increase of aliens in the community had lasting effects. They were regulated and watched but only a few were interned. Fifth Column fears withered for lack of supporting incident. Hostility shifted its base to job-protection, which had existed to some degree from the start. Some critics saw refugees' proper role as that of hewers of wood and drawers of water but this view did not hold against the need for skills and know-how, ranging from the making of gloves to the re-cycling of sump-oil. The more enlightened urged that freedom for and tolerance of minorities was a declared Allied war aim and that only by supporting it in their own country could New Zealanders prove their sincerity, while enriching the community with special skills and talents. In music particularly some refugees made outstanding contributions; in architecture and in drama production there were a few lonely but influential foreign prophets. Many others, simply by living quietly and openly, without huddling into the comfort of enclaves, accustomed New Zealanders to people a little different from themselves, preparing the way for the easier adoption of larger influxes, as of Dutch immigrants, in post-war years.

Women moved into jobs which they had not or had rarely done before and many did not relinquish them afterwards. They established bridgeheads in male work-territories, and in the post-war labour shortage most of those who wanted to were able to consolidate their positions or they were replaced by other women; not surprisingly, of course, many in the late Forties and early Fifties took on traditional full-time home-and-children lives. The war let women show that they could do almost anything: in this widening range of work they established credibility and became ready to take, even to make, the winds of change. They prepared themselves, the next generation and the public for the revolutionary changes of equal pay for equal work and equal job opportunity which during the next 40 years ended the long era in which sex had basically determined who did what.

The life of the mind was not extinguished or even quite suspended. Despite disruption of building programmes, fewer teachers and less material, educationists tried to promote some of the improvements then current in their world: in physical education, broadcast programmes, the School Library Service and the raising of the school leaving age. Universities accelerated their casting-off of English examiners, exchanging papers with each other for assurance that standards were maintained and, despite shortage of books, buildings and staff, they managed the Rehabilitation influx well. Public libraries pushed on modestly towards their targets of independence from subscriptions, more and newer books for country readers and improvement of services through interloan arrangements and the compilation of indexes. Diminished book supplies led to some broadening of local publishing. As in Britain and America, feeling that good music had special value in war time upheld players, concert-goers and pupils. Artists, as did writers, increasingly portrayed their country as they saw it, with perception less clouded by the artistic conventions which, to a greater or lesser extent, had previously influenced their world. And they found improved markets while imported props to good living were scarce or rationed.

The war years found the Maori people, as observers were fond of saying, at a cross-roads. They were moving from subsistence farming to work and life in towns. This move was strongest at Auckland around which the bulk of the Maori population centred. Urbanisation of the Maori, which began before 1939, was accelerated by full employment: girls joined the Services, they worked in vegetable gardens and factories; men were wanted in meatworks, in mines, particularly as truckers, and in labouring jobs. Industrialisation was increased very positively by the job recruiting activities of the Maori War Effort Organisation, while the Organisation won recognition and consideration by the government and the community, and Maori self-regard was strengthened. As with women generally, the Maori pioneers proved their abilities and set trends which the post-war boom would firmly establish.

Many Maori communities gave money, grew crops, for the war effort and were active in the Home Guard. The high fighting qualities of the Maori Battalion, every man a volunteer, shone bright in the darkest places. It kindled appreciation in pakeha bosoms, gave élan and confidence to the Maori. An example of change in attitude is found in the liquor law: it had long been an offence to sell liquor to a Maori to take away from the premises. The 1945 Liquor Commission held that veterans of the Maori Battalion should obtain liquor on pakeha terms and in 1948 Parliament held that this equality should extend to all Maori people. Said Nash: ‘The Maori is good enough, strong enough and able enough to stand on his own feet and he will not reach the heights we would like to see him reach so long as he is placed in a protected position.’ [327] More than this, perhaps, was the confirmation of common aims and ‘New Zealandness’ brought back by returned soldiers from the shared experiences of the battlefield. There there had been mutual discovery by Maori and pakeha that for them colour was less important than a way of life. This attitude was to become the sheet anchor of their relations in the years to come.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the effects on New Zealand of the two world wars lay in the degree to which the country as a whole was involved. After the First World War the soldiers, whose horizons had broadened immeasurably, came back to a country that in essence had changed very little. After the Second World War returned men and women, certainly more experienced in a wide range of practical matters and more worldly wise, came to a land that was itself both radically changed and well poised for further change. Greatly improved communications, from which had flowed the technological bounty of the war, had dispersed New Zealand isolation for ever. The Labour government, which had remained in power throughout, using traditional and familiar forms by which to exert its authority, had abandoned socialism but had imposed a system that inflexibly clung to middle ground giving little offence other than to the extremes of left and right. It was a stance adopted by both of the parties which dominated politics in the next four decades, and because of it New Zealand was well able to cope with the innovations–economic and political–that came in the wake of the war.

New Zealand had entered the war with no thought of gain in territory, influence or trade; its only purpose in supporting Britain was to help to end a detestable political system that threatened the civilised world. It gained, however, from the forcingbed process of the war, which in many areas jolted it out of lingering colonialism and conservatism into attitudes and capacities that improved its ability to survive in the post-war world. It entered as part of the British Commonwealth which to the hearts and guts of very many in the forces and elsewhere was still the British Empire. It became also from 1942, the attendant of the overpowering ally: in the world that emerged, the United States saw its destiny as world leadership while war-drained Britain slipped from her station, bowed under losses, damage and enormous debt in which industrial eminence had been surrendered. She could not, in the atomic age, sustain an empire even Commonwealth ties of trade and sentiment were weakened; the shattered British family groped for new friends. To New Zealanders these realities filtered through in treaties, trade and the texture of their everyday lives. As the first Thomas Wolfe, American novelist, wrote, ‘You can't go home again’; the world and the people were changed.

[1] Werth, pp. 776–90

[2] Press, etc, cable news, 31 Jan 44

[3] Eade, The Dawn of Liberation, pp. 156, 145; Press, 4 Aug 44, p. 5

[4] Dominion, 1 Sep 44, p. 5

[5] Werner, Max, real name Alexandre Schiffrin (1901–51): b Russia; former political ed daily paper Mannheim, Germany; in Paris 1933–40; author military and internat political works

[6] Press, 15 Aug 44, p. 5

[7] Ibid., 17 Aug 44

[8] Ibid., 25 Aug 44, p. 4; Auckland Star, 25 Aug 44, p. 6

[9] Press, 28 Aug 44, p. 6

[10] NZPD, vol 266, p. 487

[11] By September 1944 the V-l had killed 5473 people and severely injured 16 000. The V-2 killed 2724 people and badly injured more than 6000. Both did enormous damage to houses, many of which were patched, hit, and patched again. Calder, pp. 559–63, 565. Churchill, at the end of July, said that the V-l had totally destroyed 17 000 houses and damaged 800 000 more. Press, 4 Aug 44, p. 5

[12] eg, Auckland Star, 12,19 May 44

[13] Documents, vol III, pp. 388, 399, 403–4; see also p. 706

[14] Wood, p. 314; Kay, Robin(ecl), The Australian-New Zealand Agreement 1944, pp. 140–8

[15] Dominion, 6 Jan 44, p. 5

[16] Documents, vol II, p. 328

[17] Ibid., pp. 332–3

[18] This had been devised in 1936 to stabilise farm incomes. The government paid dairy farmers prices calculated to give a fair return over production costs. If overseas returns did not sustain this price, the government paid the difference; if they exceeded it, the surplus was held to meet the next fall.

[19] Baker, pp. 324–5

[20] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 890; Evening Post, 31 May 44, p. 5

[21] Baker, pp. 211–12

[22] NZ Herald, 23 Nov 43, p. 4. See also ibid., 20 Nov, 4 Dec 43, pp. 6, 8, 29 Mar, 3, 5 Apr 44, pp. 6, 2, 6; Dominion, 17 Nov 43, p. 4; Press, 23 Mar 44, p. 4

[23] NZ Herald, 4 Apr 44, p. 5

[24] Documents, vol II, p. 343, fn 4, vol III, pp. 431–3

[25] NZ Herald, 8 Apr 44, p. 6

[26] Roberts, Hon Benjamin (1880–1952): b UK, to NZ 1907; member United Labour Party 1913; MP (Lab) Wairarapa 1935–46, Min Agriculture & Marketing 1943–6

[27] Hale, Sir William Edward, Kt('58), CBE('50) (1883–1967): Dir NZ Dairy Coy 1921ff; chmn Dairy Board 1938ff; chmn Auck Farmers' Freezing Co 1940ff; member NZ Meat Bd 1941ff

[28] NZ Herald, 15, 1 7 Apr 44, pp. 8, 4

[29] Ibid., 15, 20 Apr 44, pp. 8, 6

[30] Ibid., 12 Apr 44, p. 6

[31] Ibid., 10, 13, 18 Apr 44, pp. 4, 7, 4; Press, 5 May 44, p. 6

[32] This widened the franchise for electors of counties and road districts from ratepayers to residents, as was already the case in boroughs and town districts where enrolment now became compulsory. Employees of local bodies, below a certain rank, could become members of those bodies. It was fought by the Opposition in a stonewall session lasting 33 hours. NZ Herald, 3 Apr 44, pp. 2, 4; Yearbook 1945, p. 643; NZPD, vol 264, pp. 860–963

[33] Press, 18 May 44, p. 4

[34] Ibid., 19 May 44, p. 4

[35] Ibid., 4 Aug 44, p. 4; A to J 1945, H–30 (1), pp. 4–5. Stabilisation, not discussed here, is fully described elsewhere in this series, in War Economy by J. V. T. Baker

[36] Press, 4, 5, 9 Aug 44, pp. 4, 4, 4; Baker, p. 328

[37] A to J1947, H–30, p. 17; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 890

[38] A to J1947, H–30, p. 15

[39] Ibid., 1946, H–30A, p. 2

[40] Yearbook 1947–49, pp. 892–3

[41] Baker, pp. 331–2

[42] Ibid., p. 305

[43] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 36

[44] Baker, pp. 187–91

[45] Book of Awards1945, pp. 631, 888

[46] NZPD, vol 272, p. 243

[47] NZ Herald, 25 Mar 44, p. 8

[48] Evening Post, 16 Jun 44, p. 4

[49] Auckland Star, 18 Oct 44, p. 7

[50] Ibid., 1 Nov 44, p. 5

[51] Ibid., 1, 11 Nov 44

[52] Ibid., 23 Dec 44, p. 10

[53] Rundstedt, Field Marshal Karl Rudolph Gcrd von (1875–1935): cmdr Army Group A German invasions of Poland, France 1939–40; cndr Army Group South on Eastern front 1941; C-in-C West 1942–4, 1944–5

[54] Press, 2 Jan 43, p. 5

[55] Auckland Star, 14, 20 Dec 44, pp. 6, 6

[56] Ibid., 17, 22 Nov 44, pp. 3, 6

[57] Ibid., 26 Dec 44, p. 6; see p. 1192

[58] Dominion, 27 Nov, 5 Dec 44, pp. 4, 4; Auckland Star, 11 Jan 45

[59] Auckland Star, 15 Aug 44, p. 4

[60] Dominion, 20 Dec 44, p. 6

[61] Ibid., 26 Dec 44, p. 4

[62] Auckland Star, 2 Jan 45, p. 6

[63] Press, 2 Jan 45, p. 4

[64] Auckland Star, 2 Dec 44, p. 6; Dominion, 8 Dec 44, p. 6

[65] Dominion, 28 Nov 44, p. 4

[66] Auckland Star, 20 Dec 44, p. 6

[67] Ibid., 2 Jan 45, p. 4

[68] Ibid., 27 De 44, p. 4.

[69] Evening Post, 17 Feb 45, p. 6; Dominion, 1 Mar 45, p. 6

[70] Auckland Star, 2 Jan 45

[71] Press, 2 Jan 45

[72] NZ Herald, 2 Jan 45

[73] Since 1922, members' salaries had been reduced from £500 to £450, though £150 was tax-free. In December 1944, the £50 cut was restored and they received an additional £250 tax-free as expenses allowance. Auckland Star, 13 Dec 44

[74] NZ Federation of Labour, Eighth Annual Report of National Executive 1945, p. 8

[75] These rates had not been changed since 1937, when they were fixed at a minimum of 2 s 4 d an hour for unskilled, 2 s 5 d to 2 s7½d for semi-skilled and 2 s 9 d for skilled workers.

[76] Press, 17 Feb, 2, 19 Mar 45, pp. 8, 4, 4

[77] Evening Post, 3 Mar 45, p. 12

[78] 0tago Daily Times, 7 May 45. p. 4

[79] Evening Post, 12 Apr 45, p. 9

[80] Dominion, 14 Feb 44, p. 8; NZ Herald, 10, 25 Mar 44, pp. 5, 4

[81] Auckland Star, 6 Sep 44, p. 4

[82] Dominion, 5 Mar 45, p. 4; Evening Post, 7, 16 Mar 45, pp. 6, 4; Press, 8, 9 Mar 45, pp. 4, 6

[83] Auckland star,10 May 45, p. 6

[84] Evening Post, 18 Aug 45, p. 6.

[85] Auckland Star, 16 Mar 45, p. 4

[86] NZ Herald, 20, 31 May, 7, 13 Jun 45, pp. 6, 4, 4, 6

[87] Ibid., 26 Jun 45, p. 6

[88] lbid., 21 Apr 45, p. 8

[89] Auckland Star, 20 Apr 45, p. 4

[90] Press, 22 Mar 45, p. 4

[91] Evening Post, 10 Mar 45. p. 9

[92] Auckland Star, 5 Jan 45, p. 6

[93] Standard, 7 Jun, 5 Jul 45, pp. 11, 11

[94] Chappell, p. 359, quoting this passage, claimed that the first portion was highly flattering and the last sentence hardly accurate, for the bank had always had regard (or the interests of its smaller customers and the country as a whole.

[95] Standard, 16 Nov 44, p. 5

[96] Chappell, pp. 350–2

[97] NZ Herald, 16 Jun 45, p. 6

[98] Press, 31 Mar 45, p. 6

[99] NZ Herald, 23 May 45, p. 8

[100] Evening Post, 2 Aug 45, p. 6; Standard, 2 Aug 45, p. 5

[101] Chappell, pp. 361–2

[102] Auckland Star, 1 Sep 44, p. 4

[103] Evening Post, 22 May 45, p. 6; Dominion, 15 May 45, p. 3

[104] Dominion, 3 Mar 45, p. 6

[105] Auckland Star, 5 Dec 44, p. 6; Dominion, 22 Sep 44, p. 5 In February 1945 Fraser said that in Britain, France and

[106] NZ Herald, 3 Feb 45, p. 6

[107] Otago Daily Times, 2 Mar 45, p. 6

[108] Sinclair, Huia Ian (1906–58): to Shell Co staff London 1930, returned NZ 1931, branch mngr Dunedin 1936–49; Gen Mngr Dominion Fertiliser Co from 1949

[109] McLintock, Alexander Hare, CBE('63) (1903–68): NZ Parliamentary Historian, ed

A Descriptive Alias of New Zealand (1959), New Zealand Encyclopaedia (1966); former teacher WEA; lecturer History OU 1940–6, English 1950–1

[110] Otago Daily Times, 10 Mar 45, p. 4

[111] Ibid., 10 Feb 45

[112] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 42, 1951–52, p. 57

[113] Dominion, 7 Mar 45, p. 8; Bellinger, pp. 45, 80–1; see chap 20

[114] Woodward, William Harold (1883–1970); with Occupation Force Samoa 1914, registrar and acting judge German District to 1917, Cmssnr/Chief Judge High Court Samoa 1920–8; SM NZ 1929–53: Pres New Plymouth RSA 1943–4

[115] Press, 9 Mar 45, p. 4

[116] Bollinger, pp. 106–9

[117] Orange, Claudia, ‘A Kind of Equality: Labour and the Maori people 1935–49’, unpublished thesis, p. 181

[118] Yearbook1938, pp. 53, 77; H. Belshaw in The Maori People Today, p. 188

[119] Yearbook 1944, pp. 29–30

[120] NZ Herald, 3 1 Jan 42, p. 6, 6 Jan 43, p. 4

[121] Orange, p. 96

[122] ‘Report of Young Maori Conference May 22–26. 1939’, p. 19.

[123] The houses ‘comprise tents, galvanised iron shacks, portions of stables and manure sheds, and dwellings of packing cases, rough timber and rubberoid…. Over-crowding is prevalent and the sanitary arrangements most primitive. Cooking is done… mostly on open fires and in the majority of cases they sleep, cook, store and eat food in one room.’ Orange, p.183, quoting Rangi Royal to Head Office, 30 Nov 44, MA 30/3/90; see also pp. 805– 7

[124] Orange, p. 182, referring to Auckland City Council letter to Mason, 21 Dec 41, MA 36/1

[125] NZPD, vol 263, pp. 149–50

[126] Orange, pp. 129–30

[127] Paikea, Hon Paraire Karaka (1894–1943): Sec Maori Advisory Cncl NZ Labour party 1936; MP (Lab) Northern Maori from 1938, Min representing Native Race from 1941

[128] Dominion, 1 Feb 43, p. 4

[129] Ibid., 18 Dec 44, p. 4

[130] Auckland Star, 7 Feb, 10 Apr 45, pp. 2, 4

[131] Unemployment sustenance had once been paid at four different rates: for instance, a single man received Ms (id if he lived in a main centre, 14 s if in a secondary town, 12 s if in a country district or 9 s 6 d if he were a Maori. Labour in 1936 had increased the rate (£1 for a single man) and made all equal, increasing Maori receipts considerably. Widows' and age pensions for Maoris, however, remained at about one-fifth less than those for pakehas. Orange, pp. 91, 108; Yearbook 1938, p. 806

[132] Yearbook1945, pp. 368, 646; Social Security Amendment Act 1945, sec 13; A to J1946, H–9, p. 9

[133] Orange, p. 182, A to J 1944, C–9, p. 4; Auckland Star, 9 Apr 45, p. 3

[134] Auckland Star, 19 Aug 42, p. 4

[135] Ibid., 27 Jan 43, p. 2, 20 Mar 45, p. 6

[136] NZ Herald, 9 Mar 43, p. 4, 26 Jan 44, p. 4; Dominion, 19 Mar 43, p. 2

[137] Auckland Star, 5 Feb. 27 Oct 43, pp. 4, 4

[138] Edited by I. L. G. Sutherland and published in 1940 by the NZ Institute of Inter national Affairs and the NZ Council for Educational Research

[139] eg, NZ Herald, four articles published 5–8 Jan 1943

[140] The basis of this remark is not obvious

[141] NZ Herald, 20 Jun 45, p. 6

[142] Auckland Star, 4 Dec 43, p. 4, 5 Sep 44, p. 6; Dominion, 17 Nov 44, p. 4

[143] Auckland Star, 6 Feb 45, p. 6

[144] Ibid., 17 Feb 45, p. 7

[145] Dominion, 15 Feb 45, p. 7

[146] NZ Herald, 26 Feb 45, p. 5

[147] Fraser, Admiral of the Fleet Bruce Austin, 1st Baron Fraser of North Cape ('46), of Molesey, GCB('44), KBE('41) (1888-): 3rd Sea Lord & Controller 1939–42; C-in-C Home Fleet 1943–4, Eastern Fleet 1944, British Pacific Fleer 1945–6; C-in-C Portsmouth 1947–8; 1st Sea Lord & CNS 1948–51

[148] Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972): 32nd Pres USA 1945–53

[149] These are only random gleanings; thorough search would produce a great many more

[150] Standard, 5 Aug 36, p. 13, 15 Sep 38, p. 19, a series by a released prisoner, 30 Nov, 7, 14, 28 Dec 39, 11, 18, 25 Jan 40, all p. 2; NZ Herald, 1 Nov 39, p. 12 (and other papers of 30 Oct–1 Nov) from a British White Paper; NZ Listener, 15 Mar 40, p. 9, 3 Jan 41, p. 7

[151] Wodzicki, Count Kazimierz Antoni Z. Granova, OBE('76) 1900–): b Poland; Consul General for Poland in NZ 1941–5; Dir Animal Ecology Div DSIR 1948–65

[152] Dominion, 29 Jun 42, p. 6

[153] Ibid., 19 Dec 42, p. 8

[154] Evening Post, 15 Feb 43, p. 3

[155] Nihotte, Armand (b 1896): established 1st Belgian consulate in NZ, December 1926 after numerous diplomatic posts in Aust; appointed Consul-General 1940, held office to 1960

[156] Katz, Rabbi Solomon (1884–1944): b Besserabia, to Auck 1909, in USA 1919–30, Wgtn Hebrew Congregation from 1930

[157] Evening Post, 20, 22, 23 Feb 42, pp. 2, 3, 3; Dominion, 22, 23 Feb 43, p. 4, editorial

[158] Balfour, Arthur James, 1st Earl ('15) (1849–1930): UK statesman, MP (Cons) from 1874; PM 1902–3, 1st Lord Admlty 1915–16, Foreign Sec 1916–19, Lord Pres Cncl 1919–22, 1925–9; made declaration, Nov 1917, that Brit govt favoured establishment in Palestine of national home for Jewish people, without prejudice to civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities

[159] NZ Listener 9 Jul 43, p. 5

[160] Evening Post, 26 Jul 43, p. 4

[161] Chapman, Charles Henry (1876–1957): b London, to NZ 1905; MP (Lab) Wgtn Nth 1928–46, Wgtn Central from 1951

[162] Evening Post, 28 Oct 43, p. 6

[163] Auckland Star, 12 Apr 43, p. 2

[164] Ibid., 20 Apr 43, p. 2

[165] Press, 16 Aug 44, p. 5

[166] Dominion, 6 Sep 44, p. 4; Auckland Star, 9 Nov, 1 Dec 44, pp. 8, 4

[167] Auckland Star, 29 Nov 44, p. 6

[168] Evening Post, 4 Jan 45, p. 5

[169] lbid., 3 Feb 45, p. 7; Press, 5 Feb 45, p. 7

[170] NZ Herald, 17 Apr 45, p. 5

[171] Ibid., 18 Apr 45, p. 7; Evening Post, 14 Apr 45, p. 8

[172] NZ Herald, 2 May 45, p. 9; Dominion, 27 Apr 45, p. 7; Auckland Star, 26 Apr 45, p. 8 Evening Post, 26 Apr 45, p. 8

[173] NZ Herald, 20 Apr 45, p. 8

[174] Ibid.

[175] Ibid., 26 Apr 45, p. 5

[176] A reference to Auschwitz appeared in the Standard on 12 Apr 45, p. 11, and an article on 5 Jul 45, p. 5, referred to a recent overseas broadcast

[177] eg, NZ Herald, 9, 22 Jun 45, pp. 7, 9; an account by D. P. Costello, second secretary to the NZ Legation at Moscow, on Maidanek and the camp at Oswiecim (Auschwitz) appeared at the end of August. Evening Post, 29 Aug 45, p. 8

[178] They died on 28 and 30 April respectively

[179] NZ Listener, 11 May 45, p. 3

[180] Wanganui Herald, 8 May 45, p. 7

[181] Ibid., 10 May 45, p. 7

[182] Press, 9 May 45, p. 4

[183] Otago Daily Times, 9 May 45, p. 6

[184] Ibid.

[185] The city authorities, acting correctly, did not hoist flags on the Town Hall until the official VE Day, Wednesday 9 May

[186] Eveninig Post, 8 May 45, p. 6

[187] Ibid., 9 May 45, p. 6

[188] Ibid., 8 May 45, p. 6; Press, 9 May 45, p. 4

[189] Evening Post, 9 May 45, p. 6

[190] Dominion, 9 May 45, p. 8

[191] The snatching of flags was not confined to Auckland. For instance, in orderly Christchurch so many decorations were souvenired that firms were chary about putting more forth on VJ Day. Press, 14 Aug 45, p. 4. At Wanganui, where the offence was widespread, two youths returning from a victory dance were observed taking a string of flags, valued at £1 2 s 6 d, from a bookseller's shop. They were each fined £2. The magistrate, speaking of larrikinism on an occasion of solemnity, regretted that no more of these miscreants were before the court. Wanganui Herald, 11, 28 May 45, pp. 10, 8

[192] Auckland Star, 9 May 45, p. 6

[193] eg, Marton and Waverley in Wanganui Herald, 10 May 45, p. 10; Geraldine and Temuka, in Timaru Herald, 9 May 45, p. 3

[194] Wanganui Herald, 10 May 45, p.10

[195] Press, 10 May 45, p. 4

[196] These were sung at many such ceremonies

[197] Otago Daily Times, 11 May 45, p. 4

[198] Press, 10 May 45, p. 4

[199] Ibid., 11 May 45, p. 6

[200] Ibid., 14 Aug 45, p. 4

[201] Dominion, 10 May 45, pp. 6, 8

[202] Auckland Star, 10 May 45, p. 3

[203] McClure, ibid., 11 May 45, p. 5

[204] NZ Herald, 13 Aug 45

[205] Wood, chap 21

[206] NZ Herald, 8 Jun 45, p. 6. Grade I medically, between 2 1 and 35 years, and with not more than two children.

[207] Documents, vol III, p. 472

[208] Tito, President Josip Broz (1892–1980): Sec-Gen Yugoslav Communist party 1937ff; led uprising against German occupation 1941–5; Supreme Cmdr Yugoslav Nat Liberation Army; Pres Nat Liberation Cmte 1943; PM and Min Nat Defence 1945ff; Pres

Yugoslavia 1953–

[209] Ibid., vol II, p. 427; Wood, pp. 364–5

[210] NZ Herald, 5 May, 2 Jul 45, pp. 6, 7

[211] Freyberg on 15 May told the Minister of Defence that it should be reduced in size and could be ready for action against Japan in November or December 1945. Documents, vol III. pp. 473–4

[212] Freyberg to Min Def, 8 May 45, ibid., vol II, p. 429

[213] Ibid., 15 May 45, p. 431

[214] Acting PM to Freyberg, 16 May 45, ibid., p. 432

[215] These had left New Zealand on 21 July 1943. Kay, Chronology, p. 83

[216] Auckland Star, 26 May 45, p. 7

[217] Standard, 28 Jun 45, p. 8; NZ Herald, 6 Jul 45, p. 5

[218] Auckland Star, 11 Jun 45, p. 8

[219] NZ Herald, 2 Jun 45, p. 6

[220] NZ Listener, 27 Jul 45, p. 5

[221] Eliot, Major George Fielding (1894–1971): US military commentator; military & naval correspondent NY Herald, Times, 1939–46, CBS military analyst 1939–47

[222] Evening Post, 7 Jun 45, p. 8

[223] NZPD, vol 268, pp. 831–2; Wood, pp. 301–2

[224] NZPD, vol 268, pp. 829, 831–2, 846

[225] Bohr, Dr Niels Henrik David (1885–1962): Prof Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen 1916; Nobel Prize for Physics 1922; Atoms for Peace Award 1957.

[226] Thomson, Sir George, Kt('43) (1892–1975): chmn 1st British Cmte on Atomic Energy 1940–1; to British Delegation Atomic Energy Cmssn of UN 1946–7; Nobel Prize for Physics 1937

[227] NZ Herald, 8 Aug 45, p. 7

[228] Rutherford, Ernest, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand, and Cambridge ('31), Kt('14), OM('25), FRS('03) (1871–1937): NZ-born physicist, one of greatest pioneers in subatomic physics; assisted at Manchester University by Bohr, produced ‘Rutherford-Bohr atom’ concept 1913

[229] NZ Herald, 10 Aug 45, p. 7

[230] Dominion, 10 Aug 45, p. 7

[231] NZ Listener, 24 Aug 45, pp. 13–14

[232] Dominion, 11 Aug 45

[233] Probably never before have so many listened so intently to so many radios as in the past two days', wrote the Wanganui Herald on Monday, 13 Aug 45, p. 8

[234] Evening Post, 15 Aug 45, p. 8

[235] A declaration of common objectives signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, 14 August 1941

[236] Evening Post,15 Aug 45, p. 8

[237] Ibid.,16 Aug 45, p. 8

[238] Wanganui had 9 girls' marching teams including the midget team. Wanganui Herald, 17 Aug 45, p. 10

[239] press,16 Aug 45, p. 6

[240] Ibid.,17 Aug 45, p. 4

[241] Otago Daily Times,16 Aug 45, p. 6

[242] Ibid., 16, 18 Aug 45, pp.6, 8

[243] The corner of Featherston and Hunter streets

[244] Evening Post, 15 Aug 45, p. 8; Dominion, 17 Aug 45

[245] Dominion, 17 Aug 45, p. 6

[246] On 13 August; see p. 1258

[247] Auckland Star, 16 Aug 45, p. 2; Timaru Herald, 16 Aug 45, p. 4; Press, 16 Aug 45, p. 6

[248] NZ Herald, 17 Aug 45, p. 4; Auckland Star, 16 Aug 45, p. 6

[249] Auckland Star, 17 Aug 45, p. 7; NZ Herald, 17 Aug 45, p. 7

[250] Auckland Star, 17 Aug 45, p. 7

[251] In the Rehabilitation Act, ‘servicemen’ was defined to include servicewomen, and published Rehabilitation statistics after 1946 did not distinguish between men and women.

[252] NZ Herald, 11, 31 Jan 41, pp.8, 6, 9 Jan 42, p. 6; Press, 23 Apr, 28 Jun 41, pp. 10, 8; Evening Post,12 Mar, 15 Jul 41, pp. 10, 6; A to J1941, E–2, p. 8

[253] 0tago Daily Times, 2 Jun 41, p. 4

[254] A to J1944, E–2, p. 5, 1945, H–18, pp. 6–7

[255] Evening Post, 4 Sep 41, p. 10

[256] A to J1943, H–18, p. 10

[257] Ibid., p. 6, 1945, H–18, p. 17

[258] Press, 14 Oct 41

[259] Moohan, Michael (1899–1967): b Ireland, to NZ. 1919; Asst Sec Lab party 1937, Nat Sec 1940–7; chmn Rehab Bd 1942–3; MP (Lab) Petone from 1946, Parly Under-Sec to PM 1947–9

[260] A to J1943, H–18, pp. 3–4

[261] Ibid., 1944, H–18, p. 30

[262] Ibid., 1943, H–18, p. 5, 1944, H–18, p. 4; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 760, 1951–52, p. 906, 1955, p. 256

[263] A to J1944, H–18, p. 4

[264] Ibid.

[265] Baker, Frederick, DSO (1908–58): Public Works Dept from 1932; cmdr Maori Battalion 1942; inspector State Advances Corporation 1943; Dir Rehabilitation 1943–54 and dep-chmn Rehabilitation Bd; Public Service Cmssn from 1954

[266] A to J1945, H–18, p. 5

[267] Ibid., 1944, H–18, p. 6

[268] Buy, Build or Rent, p. 15

[269] A to J1943, H–18, p. 10, 1945, H–18, p. 6; Evening Post, 9 Dec 44, p. 8; Training for a Job. Rehabilitating you, No 2, pp. 11–13; Firth, pp.46, 63

[270] Press, 17 Apr 44, p. 3; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 761; A to J 1944, H–18, p. 12

[271] A to J1945, H–18, p. 6

[272] Ibid., 1946, H–18, p. 10

[273] Large ones taking in 26 trainees three times a year were at Auckland (3), Wellington (2), Christchurch, Dunedin, Gisborne and Hamilton; smaller ones, taking in 14, at

Kaikohe, Whangarei, Thames, Masterton, Oamaru, Rotorua, Napier, Hastings, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Nelson, Westport, Timaru and Invercargill.

Yearbook 1947–49, p. 761

[274] A to J1945, H–18, p. 6; Dominion, 28 Feb 45, p. 9

[275] Firth, p. 46

[276] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 761

[277] Ibid., 1951–52, p. 907, 1955, p. 258

[278] A to J1945, H–18, pp. 6–8; Press, 1 Mar 44, p. 2

[279] A to J1946, H–18, p. 25, 1947, H–18, p. 11; Yearbook 1951–52, p. 908

[280] A to J1945, H–18, p. 8

[281] Ibid., 1946, H–18, pp. 13, 18, 1947, H–18, p. 11

[282] Yearbook 1951–52, p. 908

[283] NZPD, vol 267, p. 487

[284] Yearbook1946, p. 738

[285] Ibid., 1951–52, p. 914; A to J 1945, H–18, p. 4

[286] Buy, Build or Rent, p. 15

[287] Yearbook1950, p. 837, 1951–52, p. 912

[288] Buy, Build or Rent, p. 4

[289] Ibid., p. 5 and plans

[290] Yearbook1945, pp. 634–5

[291] Ibid., 1946, pp. 738–9

[292] Ibid., 1947–49, p. 768

[293] Ibid., 1951–52, p. 914, 1956, p. 280. The 1947–49 Yearbook was the last to publish a serviceman's waiting list.

[294] Yearbook 1951–52, p. 912

[295] A to J1944, H–18, p. 18

[296] Ibid., 1945, H–18, pp. 10, 11

[297] Ibid., 1944, H–18, p. 19

[298] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 765

[299] Ibid., 1951–52, p. 910, 1956, p. 276

[300] See p. 1175

[301] Yearbook1946, p. 737

[302] These rates were increased, in line with Social Security benefits, to £3 13 s and £6 5 s respectively, from 1 June 1949. A to J 1950, H–18, p. 9; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 765

[303] A to J1945, H–18, p. 19; Yearbook 1945, p. 634

[304] A to J1947, H–18, p. 12

[305] Ibid., 1948, H–18, p. 10

[306] Ibid., 1955, H–18, pp. 7–8

[307] NZPD, vol 267, p. 489

[308] NZ Listener, 26 Nov 43, p. 8

[309] Now that the coming home was accomplished and the being here an actuality, he became aware of the lassitude, of an emptied-out feeling as though all reserves and ambitions had been focussed on this one point which now achieved had something less to offer than had been anticipated. ‘The Return’, by Isobel Andrews, ibid., 6 Jul 45, p. 24

[310] Armstrong, Arthur Ernesr (1902–): liaison officer Nat Service Dept 1939–43; MP (Lab)

Napier 1943–51

[311] NZPD, vol 267, p. 448

[312] Dominion, 19 Sep 44, p. 3; Auckland Star, 7 Dec 44, p. 6

[313] Stout, Sir Duncan, CBE('43), DSO, ED, mid (1885–1979): past Pres, chmn Cncl, BMA; Chancellor VUW 1939–66; 1NZEF 1914–19; 2NZEF consultant surgeon overseas 1940–5; examiner in surgery NZU

[314] Stout, War Surgery and Medicine, p. 651

[315] Listener, 26 Nov 43, p. 8

[316] A to J1946, H–11A, p. 16

[317] Kay, Chronology, p. 137; Yearbook 1947–49, p. 200

[318] Baker, pp. 258–9, who adds that no great accuracy can be claimed for international comparisons of this sort

[319] Calder, p. 321

[320] Baker, pp. 255, 260, 270–1

[321] Ibid., p. 257

[322] Ibid., pp. 615 and 275, which latter notes that only for these and subsequent years are detailed national income estimates available

[323] Yearbook 1947–49, p. 942

[324] See p. 373

[325] Stabilisation, admirably discussed by Baker, is excluded here save for this summary

[326] A to J1940, H–44, p. 15; Condliffe, p. 90

[327] NZPD, vol 284, p. 4209

The Home Front Volume II

Contents

- Sources p. 1297

- [section] p. 1297
- A. UNPUBLISHED
- B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES p. 1299
- C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS p. 1300
- D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES p. 1301

- Index p. 1309

The Home Front Volume II

Sources

Sources

This is not a bibliography of the subject nor a complete list of the material studied. It sets out the sources actually quoted or embedded in the text and cited in footnotes.

A. UNPUBLISHED

Official unpublished sources:

Much relevant material from government files and also some from overseas is quoted in the War History Narratives and files of documents prepared by the War History Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, primarily for use in writing the official histories of the Second World War. This material is now lodged in the War History Records (WAII, series 10) at the National Archives, Wellington. Those narratives and files used were:

Number | Title | Author
114 | Aliens Administration, 1939–45 |
113 | The Americans in NZ | Lissington, P., and B. Angus
5 | Censorship of the Press | Witheford, H.
9 | Defaulters and Conscientious Objectors (File) | Blaikie. C.H.
1 | Department of Agriculture. Councils of Primary Production | Ross, A. A.
14 | Education Department | Rigg, E. M.
15 | Emergency Precautions Scheme | Rigg, E. M.
125 | Home Guard (answer to questionnaire about HG commanders) |
51 | Manpower for Industry 1939–43 | McGlynn, M. B.
49 | Military Manpower 1939–43 | McGlynn, M. B.
64 | Mines Department | Blaikie, C. H.
31 | NZ and the War in Europe and War Aims | O'Shea. J. D.
52 | Notes on Industrial Manpower | McGlynn, M. B.
68 | Petrol Rationing in NZ, 1939–45 | Blaikie, C. H.
69 | Police Dept |
73 | Political Parties and the War (2 vols) |
4 | Postal and Telegraphic Censorship | Lochore, R. A.
28 | Pre-war Foreign Policy | O'Shea, J. D.
Number | Title | Author
71 | Pre-War Labour Attitude to War | Witheford, H.
53 | Some Aspects of Labour Control in War | Blaikie, C. H.
106 | The Men who Would Not Serve: Defaulters and Detention, 1941–6 | Greenberg, L. J.
105 | Universities and the War (File) |
97 | Waterfront Control Commission | Pettit, P. M.
98 | Women in Industry | Angus, B.
99 | Women's Land Services | Angus, B.
100 | Women's War Service, Auxiliary | Angus, B.
101 | Women War Workers' Hostels | Angus, B.

Other files consulted (all in National Archives) were:

on British children IA 146/1, IA 173/1, IA 178/247
on emergency precautions IA 158/238/12, IA 178/—
on censorship of United Kingdom and United States material PM 25/2/1–3
on censorship of books PM 25/2/4–5
on military defaulters PM 83/10/1

Assorted unpublished sources:

Attwood, B. N., ‘Apostles of Peace: the New Zealand League of Nations Union’, research essay, University of Auckland, 1979

Barrington, A. C., MS Papers 439, Alexander Turnbull Library

———, ‘Trials of a Pacifist', script of two radio talks in October 1969, later published as a pamphlet

Burton, Ormond, ‘A Rich Old Man’, typescript autobiography, in MS Papers 438, Alexander Turnbull Library

J. T. Paul Papers, Hocken Library, University of Otago

MS Register of Strikes 1942–4, Head Office, Department of Labour,

Wellington

Murphy, W. E., ‘Blamey's and Freyberg's “Charters”; a study in civil-military and Commonwealth relations’, cyclostyled paper Political Science Department, Victoria University of Wellington

Oestreicher, P., ‘They would not Fight; being a Survey of the Position of Conscientious Objectors and Military Defaulters in New Zealand during World War II’, MA thesis, Victoria University College, 1955

Orange, C., ‘A Kind of Equality: Labour and the Maori People 1935–1949’, MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1977

Roberts Papers, Victoria University of Wellington

Scholefield, G. H., ‘Private Diary kept during the war years 5.12.41 to 24.12.42’, Scholefield Collection, MS Papers 212, folder 68

Alexander Turnbull Library

United Mine Workers of New Zealand, Minutes of National Council 1939–45, MS, Alexander Turnbull Library

University of New Zealand, Minutes of the Senate 1940–7,

Wellington

Walsh, D. B., ‘A Survey of Orchestral Activity in New Zealand’, MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1967

Waterfront Control Commission, ‘Activities of Waterfront Control Commission for year ended 31st March 1943’, cyclostyled [copy in Hare Papers, Victoria University of Wellington]

———‘Report on Organisation and Activities as at 31 March 1944’, cyclostyled [copy in Roberts Papers, Victoria University of

Wellington]

Wellington Nursery Play Centre, Records 1941–45, National Archives, Wellington

Young Maori Conference, Auckland 1939, ‘Report of Young Maori Conference held at Auckland University College, May 22nd–May 26th, 1939’, cyclostyled, Victoria University of Wellington

B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives [ A to J] 1938–48

Documents relating to New Zealand's Participation in the Second World War 1939–45, 3 vols, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs 1949, 1951, 1963

Kay, Robin, Chronology: New Zealand in the War 1939–1946, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1963

———(ed), Documents on New Zealand External Relations, vol I, The Australian–New Zealand Agreement 1944, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1972

NZ Department of Agriculture, [*] Primary Production in New Zealand 1944, 1945, 1946, 1957, Wellington

NZ Department of Statistics, Annual Statistical Report on Trade and Shipping of the Dominion of New Zealand 1939, Part II, Wellington, 1940

New Zealand Official Year-book 1940–51

New Zealand Parliamentary Debates [NZPD] 1939–45

Statutory Regulations 1939–45; being the Regulations issued under The Regulations Act 1936, Wellington1940–6

C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

Newspapers were a main source. The daily papers of the four main centres were used throughout: New Zealand Herald, Auckland

Star ( Auckland); Dominion, Evening Post ( Wellington); Press, Christ- church Star–Sun ( Christchurch); Otago Daily Times, Evening Star (Dunedin). To widen understanding, some larger provincial papers which were available in the General Assembly Library were consulted from time to time: Gisborne Herald, Grey River Argus, Grey- mouth Evening Star, Hawera Star, Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, Hawke's

Bay Herald–Tribune, Napier Daily Telegraph, Nelson Evening Mail

Oamaru Mail, Palmerston North Times, Patea and Waverley Press,

Southland Daily News, Southland Times, Taranaki Daily News, Tar- anaki Herald, Timaru Herald, Wanganui Herald. Reports of particular incidents were sometimes available, often as clippings and therefore without pagination, from other local papers: Akaroa Mail,

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Dannevirke Evening News, Hauraki Plains

Gazette, Manawatu Times, North Auckland Times, Rotorua Morning

Post, Taihape Times, Taumarunui Press, Thames Star, Waikato Times

Wairarapa Times–Age, Wairoa Star, similarly some overseas clippings from News Chronicle, London Herald, The Times.

Weekly papers and general periodicals were useful, notably the

New Zealand Listener, Standard, Tomorrow and Truth, also In Print,

New Zealand Free Lance, New Zealand Observer, People's Voice,

Workers' Weekly. Periodicals from the four main churches gave their points of view: the Anglican Church Chronicle and Official Gazette for the Diocese of Wellington, Church News ( Christchurch) and Year

Book of the Diocese of Auckland; the New Zealand Methodist Times;

The Outlook of the Presbyterians; the Roman Catholic New Zealand

Tablet and Zealandia. Similarly, trade unionists' attitudes were available in The Borer (later Union Record) of the carpenters and in the waterside workers' New Zealand Transport Worker, the Farmers' Union in Point Blank and Straight Furrow. The New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society had its cyclostyled Bulletin. University students spoke in their students' association publications: Auckland's Craccum and Kiwi, Wellington's Smad, Salient and Spike; Canterbury's Canta; Otago's Critic. The New Zealand Woman's Weekly had its insight.

Other periodicals used were:

- Education Gazette

- Home Guardsman

- John A. Lee's Weekly

- Landfall

- New Zealand Gazette

- New Zealand Journal of Agriculture

- New Zealand Law Reports

- New Zealand Libraries

- New Zealand Magazine

- New Zealand National Review

- New Zealand Slavonic Journal

- Peace Record

- Round Table

- Social Credit News (later Democracy)

D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

Baker, J. V. T., The New Zealand People at War, War Economy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1965

Baxter, Archibald, We Will Not Cease, Autobiography of a Conscientious Objector, 2nd ed, Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1968

Beaglehole, J. C., Victoria University College: an essay towards a history, Wellington, New Zealand University Press, 1949

Bellinger, Conrad, Grog's own Country; the story of liquor licensing in New Zealand, 2nd ed, Auckland, Minerva, 1967

Breward, Ian, Godless Schools? A study in Protestant reactions to the Education Act of 1877, Christchurch, Presbyterian Bookroom, 1967 [ie 1968]

Brown, Bruce, The Rise of New Zealand Labour; a History of the

New Zealand Labour Party from 1916 to 1940, Wellington, Price Milburn, 1962

Burton, Ormond, In Prison, Wellington, Reed, 1945

Calder, Angus, The People's War: Britain 1939–45, London, Jonathan Cape, 1969

Campbell, A. E., Educating New Zealand, Wellington, Department of Internal Affairs, 1941

Canterbury University College Students' Association, University Reform; a Report by a Committee of the Canterbury University College Students' Association, Christchurch, printed at Raven Press, 1946

Chappell, N. M., New Zealand Banker's Hundred; a History of the Bank of New Zealand 1861–1961, Wellington, Bank of New Zealand, 1961

Comforts for Men in the Armed Forces, National Patriotic Fund Board,

Wellington, Thomas Avery, New Plymouth, 1940

Condliffe, J. B., The Welfare State in New Zealand, London, Allen and Unwin, 1959

Curnow, Allen (selected), A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–45,

Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1945

———(selected with introduction and notes by) The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, Penguin Books, 1960

Dalton, Hugh, The Fateful Years, Memoirs 1931–1945, London,

Frederick Muller, 1957

Davin, D. M., Crete, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1953

Deakin, F. W., The Brutal Friendship; Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962

Eade, Charles (ed), War Speeches of the Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill: The Dawn of Liberation; The Unrelenting Struggle; The End of the Beginning, London, Cassell, 1945, 1946, 1946

Efford, Lincoln, Penalties on Conscience; an Examination of the defaulters' detention system in New Zealand, Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1945

Elliott, William Yandell, and H. Duncan Hall (eds), The British Commonwealth at War, New York, Knopf, 1943

Federation of Labour (New Zealand), Joint Statement on War Policy by the National Council of the Federation of Labour and the National Executive of the New Zealand Labour Party, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Feiling, Keith, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, Macmillan, 1946

Feis, Herbert, The Road to Pearl Harbor; the Coming of the War between the United States and Japan, Princeton, New Jersey, 1950

Firth, Cedric, State Housing in New Zealand, Wellington, Ministry of Works, 1945

Fleming, Peter, Invasion 1940; an account of the German Preparations and the British Countermeasures, London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957

Galloway, S., Better Baking, Wellington, Imperial Chemical Industries NZ Ltd [194?]

Gill, G. Herman, Royal Australian Navy 1942–1945, Canberra,

Australian War Memorial, 1968

Gillespie, Oliver A., The Pacific, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1952

Gillison, Douglas, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, Canberra,

Australian War Memorial, 1962

Gordon, Ian A. (ed), New Zealand New Writing, nos 1–4, Wellington, NZ Progressive Publishing Society, 1942–5

Hall, D. O. W., Women at War, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1948

Hambleton, Keith (ed), Concord of Sweet Sounds: the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at 30; a Scrap-book of Memories from Thirty Years of Musicmaking, Wellington, Concert Department, Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, 1977

Hare, A. E. C., Labour in New Zealand 1942: Annual Report of the Research Fellow in Social Relations in Industry; Labour in New Zealand 1943: Second Annual Report…; Labour in New Zealand 1944: Third Annual Report…, Wellington, Victoria University College, 1942–4

——— Report on Industrial Relations in New Zealand, Wellington, Whitcombe and Tombs for Victoria University College; London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1946

——— Works Councils in New Zealand, Wellington, Victoria University College, 1943

Harvey, Norman B., Any old Dollars, Mister?, Auckland and Hamilton, Paul's Book Arcade, 1964

Hearnshaw, L. S., Hours of Work in War Time, Wellington, NZ

Progressive Publishing Society, 1942

Holland, H. E., Armageddon or Calvary: the Conscientious Objectors of New Zealand and “The process of their Conversion”, Wellington, H. E. Holland, 1919

Howe, C., Schola Cantorum, Wellington, New Zealand, 1936–1950;

Fifteen Years of Musical Adventuring, Wellington, printed by Wright & Carman, 1951

‘Humanist’ [Wignall, S.], C.O.'s and the Community… This Concerns You, Auckland, Auckland Service Printery, 1945

Hurst, Maurice, Music and the Stage in New Zealand; a Century of Entertainment 1840–1943, Auckland, Wellington, Charles Begg and Co Ltd, 1944

Jenkins, D. & S., Social Attitudes in the New Zealand School Journal,

Wellington, NZ Council of Educational Research, 1939

Jensen, Owen, The NZBC Symphony Orchestra, Wellington, Reed, 1966

Keesing's Contemporary Archives ( London), vol V, 1943–6

King, Michael, Te Puea, A Biography, Auckland, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977

Kirby, S. Woodburn, History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The War Against Japan: vol I, The Loss of Singapore; vol II, India's Most Dangerous Hour, vol IV, The Reconquest of Burma, London, HMSO, 1957, 1958, 1965

Labour Party (New Zealand), New Zealand Labour Movement, Statement on War Policy by a Joint Conference of the Executives of the

New Zealand Labour Party and the New Zealand Federation of Labour, Wellington… 21st February 1940, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Lee, John A., Money Power for the People, Labour's Way Out, Auckland, Grey Lynn Branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1937

——— Simple on a Soap-box, Auckland, Collins, 1963

——— Socialism in New Zealand, London, T. Werner Laurie, 1938

Lehmann, John, The Whispering Gallery; Autobiography I, London,

Longmans, 1955

Lissington, M. P., New Zealand and the United States 1840–1944,

Wellington, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1972

Lochner, Louis P. (ed), The Goebbels Diaries, London, Hamish

Hamilton, 1948

Lochore, R. A., From Europe to New Zealand; an Account of our Continental European Settlers, Wellington, Reed in conjunction with the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1951

McClymont, W. G., To Greece, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1959

McEldowney, W. J., The New Zealand Library Association 1910– 1960 and its Part in New Zealand Library Development, Wellington, New Zealand Library Association, 1962

McGibbon, I. C., Blue-Water Rationale, The Naval Defence of New Zealand 1914–1942, Wellington, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1981

McKinney, J. B., Medical Units of 2NZEF in Middle East and Italy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1952

McLeod, Roderick, and Denis Kelly (eds), The Ironside Diaries, 1937–1940, London, Constable, 1962

McLintock, A. H. (ed), An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, 3 vols,

Wellington, Government Printer, 1966

[Melrose, T. H.], Sound the Tocsin; Japanese Menace, Hamilton, Waikato Times, 1942

Michel, Henri, The Second World War, London, Andre Deutsch, 1975

Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: vol III, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931– April 1942; Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942– August 1942; vol V, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942– February 1943, London, Oxford University Press, 1948, 1949, 1949

Morton, Louis, US Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific. Strategy and Command: the First Two Years, Washington, Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept of the Army, 1962

Mowat, Charles Loch, Britain between the Wars 1918–1940, London, Methuen, 1956

Murphy, W. E., ‘ Crete: New Zealand Command Failures’, Comment, December 1967, no 33

Nash, Walter, Financial Power in New Zealand; the case for a State Bank, Wellington, NZ Worker Co., 1925

NZ Department of Defence, Conscientious Objectors. Field Punishment, Wellington, Government Printer, 1918

NZ Department of Internal Affairs, Historical Branch, Introduction to New Zealand, Wellington, printed by Whitcombe and Tombs, 1945

NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Industrial Psychology Division, Industrial Absenteeism Report No. 1, Wellington, 1943 (for private circulation only)

NZ National Service Department, War Gases, Decontamination and Protection Measures, Wellington, 1942

NZ Prime Minister's Department, Director of Publicity, New Zealand at War; Marching to Victory, Wellington, Director of Publicity, 1943

——— New Zealand's War Effort; Two Years' Achievements,

Wellington, Director of Publicity, 1941

NZ Red Cross Society, Wellington Sub-Centre, The Red Cross Wartime Rationing Cookery Book, Wellington, 1944

NZ Rehabilitation Department, Buy, Build or Rent: Housing Assistance for the Ex-Serviceman, Wellington, Rehabilitation Department, 1946

——— Training for a Job: Facilities Available Under Rehabilitation, Wellington, Rehabilitation Department, 1945

NZ Waterside Workers Industrial Union of Workers, Order of Waterfront Control Commission, June 6th, 1940, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Nicolson, Harold, Diaries and Letters 1939–1945, edited by Nigel Nicolson, Collins, Fontana Books, 1970

Olssen, Erik, John A. Lee, Dunedin, University of Otago Press, 1977

Overacker, Louise, ‘The New Zealand Labor Party’, American Political Science Review, vol XLIX, no 1, September 1955

Payton-Smith, D. J., Oil: a Study of War-time Policy and Administration, London, HMSO, 1971

Playfair, I. S. O., History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol II, The Germans Come to the Help of their Ally (1941), London,

HMSO, 1956

[Richards, Alun Morgan], What Are We Fighting For? An Analysis of War Causes and Aims, Christchurch, NZ Christian Pacifist Society, 1939

Riches, E. J., ‘Agricultural Planning and Farm Wages in New Zealand’, International Labour Review, vol 35, no 3, March 1937

Roskill, S. W., History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol 1, The Defensive,

London, HMSO, 1954

Ross, A. A., et al, Wartime Agriculture in Australia and New Zealand,

California, Stanford University Press, 1954

Ross, J. M. S., Royal New Zealand Air Force, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1955

Schroeder, Paul W., The Axis Alliance and Japanese–American Relations 1941, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1958

Scott, S. W., Rebel in a Wrong Cause, Auckland, Collins, 1960

Self-Help Wartime Cooking Suggestions: how to get the Most out of your Rations, Wellington, Self-Help Co-operative Ltd, [1944]

Sinclair, H. I., Population: New Zealand's Problem, Dunedin, Gordon and Gotch, 1944

Sontag, Raymond James, and James Stuart Beddis (eds), Nazi–Soviet Relations 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, Washington, Department of State, 1948

Soper, F. G., ‘Chemistry in New Zealand’, Journal of NZ Institute of Chemistry, vol 39, no 4, November 1975

Stout, T. D. M., Medical Services in New Zealand and the Pacific, In Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal New Zealand Air Force and with Prisoners of War, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1958

——— New Zealand Medical Services in Middle East and Italy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1956

———- War Surgery and Medicine, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1954

Stretching the Meat Ration in New Zea/and: 150 Ways to make your Coupons go Further, Wellington, NZ Dairy Exporter and Farm Home Journal, [1944]

Sutch, W. B., Poverty and Progress in New Zealand, Wellington, Modern Books, 1941

Sutherland, I. L. G. (ed), The Maori People Today: a General Survey,

Wellington, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1940

Taylor, A. J. P., English History 1914–45, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965

Thompson, H. L., New Zealanders with the Royal Air Force, vol I,

European Theatre, September 1939–December 1942, Wellington,

War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1953

Turner, E. S., The Phoney War on the Home Front, London, Michael Joseph, 1961

United Mine Workers of New Zealand, Rules and Constitution of the United Mine Workers of New Zealand, reprinted 1943 and including amendments up to that date

Urquart, H. R., Men and Marbles, Auckland, H. R. Urquart, 1917

——— The Searchlight on R.S.A.'s and C.O.'s, Auckland, Times Printing Works, 1945

Wanganui Education Board, Report on Character Training and Citizenship, Wanganui Herald, 1944

Wellington Housing and Accommodation Committee, Wellington's Disgrace; in the Shadow of the Slums… a Civic Responsibility,

Wellington, 1943

Wellington Ladies Christian Association, Alexandra Home, Wellington, 1957

Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941–1945, London, Pan Books, 1965

Wheeler-Bennett, John W., The Wreck of Reparations: being the Political Background of the Lausanne Agreement 1932, London, Allen and Unwin, 1933

Wood, F. L. W., New Zealand in Crisis, May 1938–August 1939,

Wellington, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1939

———The New Zealand People at War, Political and External

Affairs, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1958

——— This New Zealand, Hamilton, Paul's Book Arcade, 1946 [first published in USA as Understanding New Zealand]

Woods, N. S., Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration in New

Zealand, Wellington, Government Printer, 1963

Wright, A. C, and S. P. Newcombe, Bands of the World, Evanston, Illinois, USA, Instrumentalist Co, 1970

[*] Nomenclature of government departments follows Bagnall

The Home Front Volume II

[section]

This is not a bibliography of the subject nor a complete list of the material studied. It sets out the sources actually quoted or embedded in the text and cited in footnotes.

The Home Front Volume II

A. UNPUBLISHED

A. UNPUBLISHED

Official unpublished sources:

Much relevant material from government files and also some from overseas is quoted in the War History Narratives and files of documents prepared by the War History Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs, primarily for use in writing the official histories of the Second World War. This material is now lodged in the War History Records (WAII, series 10) at the National Archives, Wellington. Those narratives and files used were:

Number | Title | Author
114 | Aliens Administration, 1939–45 |
113 | The Americans in NZ | Lissington, P., and B. Angus
5 | Censorship of the Press | Witheford, H.
9 | Defaulters and Conscientious Objectors (File) | Blaikie. C.H.
1 | Department of Agriculture. Councils of Primary Production | Ross, A. A.
14 | Education Department | Rigg, E. M.
15 | Emergency Precautions Scheme | Rigg, E. M.
125 | Home Guard (answer to questionnaire about HG commanders) |
51 | Manpower for Industry 1939–43 | McGlynn, M. B.
49 | Military Manpower 1939–43 | McGlynn, M. B.
64 | Mines Department | Blaikie, C. H.
31 | NZ and the War in Europe and War Aims | O'Shea. J. D.
52 | Notes on Industrial Manpower | McGlynn, M. B.
68 | Petrol Rationing in NZ, 1939–45 | Blaikie, C. H.
69 | Police Dept |
73 | Political Parties and the War (2 vols) |
4 | Postal and Telegraphic Censorship | Lochore, R. A.
28 | Pre-war Foreign Policy | O'Shea, J. D.
Number | Title | Author
71 | Pre-War Labour Attitude to War | Witheford, H.
53 | Some Aspects of Labour Control in War | Blaikie, C. H.
106 | The Men who Would Not Serve: Defaulters and Detention, 1941–6 | Greenberg, L. J.
105 | Universities and the War (File) |
97 | Waterfront Control Commission | Pettit, P. M.
98 | Women in Industry | Angus, B.
99 | Women's Land Services | Angus, B.
100 | Women's War Service, Auxiliary | Angus, B.
101 | Women War Workers' Hostels | Angus, B.

Other files consulted (all in National Archives) were:

on British children IA 146/1, IA 173/1, IA 178/247
on emergency precautions IA 158/238/12, IA 178/—
on censorship of United Kingdom and United States material PM 25/2/1–3
on censorship of books PM 25/2/4–5
on military defaulters PM 83/10/1

Assorted unpublished sources:

Attwood, B. N., ‘Apostles of Peace: the New Zealand League of Nations Union’, research essay, University of Auckland, 1979

Barrington, A. C., MS Papers 439, Alexander Turnbull Library

———, ‘Trials of a Pacifist', script of two radio talks in October 1969, later published as a pamphlet

Burton, Ormond, ‘A Rich Old Man’, typescript autobiography, in MS Papers 438, Alexander Turnbull Library

J. T. Paul Papers, Hocken Library, University of Otago

MS Register of Strikes 1942–4, Head Office, Department of Labour,

Wellington

Murphy, W. E., ‘Blamey's and Freyberg's “Charters”; a study in civil-military and Commonwealth relations’, cyclostyled paper Political Science Department, Victoria University of Wellington

Oestreicher, P., ‘They would not Fight; being a Survey of the Position of Conscientious Objectors and Military Defaulters in New Zealand during World War II’, MA thesis, Victoria University College, 1955

Orange, C., ‘A Kind of Equality: Labour and the Maori People 1935–1949’, MA thesis, University of Auckland, 1977

Roberts Papers, Victoria University of Wellington

Scholefield, G. H., ‘Private Diary kept during the war years 5.12.41 to 24.12.42’, Scholefield Collection, MS Papers 212, folder 68

Alexander Turnbull Library

United Mine Workers of New Zealand, Minutes of National Council 1939–45, MS, Alexander Turnbull Library

University of New Zealand, Minutes of the Senate 1940–7,

Wellington

Walsh, D. B., ‘A Survey of Orchestral Activity in New Zealand’, MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1967

Waterfront Control Commission, ‘Activities of Waterfront Control Commission for year ended 31st March 1943’, cyclostyled [copy in Hare Papers, Victoria University of Wellington]

———‘Report on Organisation and Activities as at 31 March 1944’, cyclostyled [copy in Roberts Papers, Victoria University of

Wellington]

Wellington Nursery Play Centre, Records 1941–45, National Archives, Wellington

Young Maori Conference, Auckland 1939, ‘Report of Young Maori Conference held at Auckland University College, May 22nd–May 26th, 1939’, cyclostyled, Victoria University of Wellington

The Home Front Volume II

B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives [ A to J] 1938–48

Documents relating to New Zealand's Participation in the Second World War 1939–45, 3 vols, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs 1949, 1951, 1963

Kay, Robin, Chronology: New Zealand in the War 1939–1946, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1963

———(ed), Documents on New Zealand External Relations, vol I, The Australian–New Zealand Agreement 1944, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1972

NZ Department of Agriculture, [*] Primary Production in New Zealand 1944, 1945, 1946, 1957, Wellington

NZ Department of Statistics, Annual Statistical Report on Trade and Shipping of the Dominion of New Zealand 1939, Part II, Wellington, 1940

New Zealand Official Year-book 1940–51

New Zealand Parliamentary Debates [NZPD] 1939–45

Statutory Regulations 1939–45; being the Regulations issued under The Regulations Act 1936, Wellington1940–6

The Home Front Volume II

C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

Newspapers were a main source. The daily papers of the four main centres were used throughout: New Zealand Herald, Auckland

Star ( Auckland); Dominion, Evening Post ( Wellington); Press, Christ- church Star–Sun ( Christchurch); Otago Daily Times, Evening Star (Dunedin). To widen understanding, some larger provincial papers which were available in the General Assembly Library were consulted from time to time: Gisborne Herald, Grey River Argus, Grey- mouth Evening Star, Hawera Star, Hawke's Bay Daily Mail, Hawke's

Bay Herald–Tribune, Napier Daily Telegraph, Nelson Evening Mail

Oamaru Mail, Palmerston North Times, Patea and Waverley Press,

Southland Daily News, Southland Times, Taranaki Daily News, Tar- anaki Herald, Timaru Herald, Wanganui Herald. Reports of particular incidents were sometimes available, often as clippings and therefore without pagination, from other local papers: Akaroa Mail,

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Dannevirke Evening News, Hauraki Plains

Gazette, Manawatu Times, North Auckland Times, Rotorua Morning

Post, Taihape Times, Taumarunui Press, Thames Star, Waikato Times

Wairarapa Times–Age, Wairoa Star, similarly some overseas clippings from News Chronicle, London Herald, The Times.

Weekly papers and general periodicals were useful, notably the

New Zealand Listener, Standard, Tomorrow and Truth, also In Print,

New Zealand Free Lance, New Zealand Observer, People's Voice,

Workers' Weekly. Periodicals from the four main churches gave their points of view: the Anglican Church Chronicle and Official Gazette for the Diocese of Wellington, Church News ( Christchurch) and Year

Book of the Diocese of Auckland; the New Zealand Methodist Times;

The Outlook of the Presbyterians; the Roman Catholic New Zealand

Tablet and Zealandia. Similarly, trade unionists' attitudes were available in The Borer (later Union Record) of the carpenters and in the waterside workers' New Zealand Transport Worker, the Farmers' Union in Point Blank and Straight Furrow. The New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society had its cyclostyled Bulletin. University students spoke in their students' association publications: Auckland's Craccum and Kiwi, Wellington's Smad, Salient and Spike; Canterbury's Canta; Otago's Critic. The New Zealand Woman's Weekly had its insight.

Other periodicals used were:

- Education Gazette

- Home Guardsman

- John A. Lee's Weekly

- Landfall

- New Zealand Gazette

- New Zealand Journal of Agriculture

- New Zealand Law Reports

- New Zealand Libraries

- New Zealand Magazine

- New Zealand National Review

- New Zealand Slavonic Journal

- Peace Record

- Round Table

- Social Credit News (later Democracy)

The Home Front Volume II

D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES

Baker, J. V. T., The New Zealand People at War, War Economy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1965

Baxter, Archibald, We Will Not Cease, Autobiography of a Conscientious Objector, 2nd ed, Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1968

Beaglehole, J. C., Victoria University College: an essay towards a history, Wellington, New Zealand University Press, 1949

Bellinger, Conrad, Grog's own Country; the story of liquor licensing in New Zealand, 2nd ed, Auckland, Minerva, 1967

Breward, Ian, Godless Schools? A study in Protestant reactions to the Education Act of 1877, Christchurch, Presbyterian Bookroom, 1967 [ie 1968]

Brown, Bruce, The Rise of New Zealand Labour; a History of the

New Zealand Labour Party from 1916 to 1940, Wellington, Price Milburn, 1962

Burton, Ormond, In Prison, Wellington, Reed, 1945

Calder, Angus, The People's War: Britain 1939–45, London, Jonathan Cape, 1969

Campbell, A. E., Educating New Zealand, Wellington, Department of Internal Affairs, 1941

Canterbury University College Students' Association, University Reform; a Report by a Committee of the Canterbury University College Students' Association, Christchurch, printed at Raven Press, 1946

Chappell, N. M., New Zealand Banker's Hundred; a History of the Bank of New Zealand 1861–1961, Wellington, Bank of New Zealand, 1961

Comforts for Men in the Armed Forces, National Patriotic Fund Board,

Wellington, Thomas Avery, New Plymouth, 1940

Condliffe, J. B., The Welfare State in New Zealand, London, Allen and Unwin, 1959

Curnow, Allen (selected), A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–45,

Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1945

———(selected with introduction and notes by) The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, Penguin Books, 1960

Dalton, Hugh, The Fateful Years, Memoirs 1931–1945, London,

Frederick Muller, 1957

Davin, D. M., Crete, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1953

Deakin, F. W., The Brutal Friendship; Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962

Eade, Charles (ed), War Speeches of the Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill: The Dawn of Liberation; The Unrelenting Struggle; The End of the Beginning, London, Cassell, 1945, 1946, 1946

Efford, Lincoln, Penalties on Conscience; an Examination of the defaulters' detention system in New Zealand, Christchurch, Caxton Press, 1945

Elliott, William Yandell, and H. Duncan Hall (eds), The British Commonwealth at War, New York, Knopf, 1943

Federation of Labour (New Zealand), Joint Statement on War Policy by the National Council of the Federation of Labour and the National Executive of the New Zealand Labour Party, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Feiling, Keith, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, Macmillan, 1946

Feis, Herbert, The Road to Pearl Harbor; the Coming of the War between the United States and Japan, Princeton, New Jersey, 1950

Firth, Cedric, State Housing in New Zealand, Wellington, Ministry of Works, 1945

Fleming, Peter, Invasion 1940; an account of the German Preparations and the British Countermeasures, London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957

Galloway, S., Better Baking, Wellington, Imperial Chemical Industries NZ Ltd [194?]

Gill, G. Herman, Royal Australian Navy 1942–1945, Canberra,

Australian War Memorial, 1968

Gillespie, Oliver A., The Pacific, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1952

Gillison, Douglas, Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942, Canberra,

Australian War Memorial, 1962

Gordon, Ian A. (ed), New Zealand New Writing, nos 1–4, Wellington, NZ Progressive Publishing Society, 1942–5

Hall, D. O. W., Women at War, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1948

Hambleton, Keith (ed), Concord of Sweet Sounds: the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at 30; a Scrap-book of Memories from Thirty Years of Musicmaking, Wellington, Concert Department, Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, 1977

Hare, A. E. C., Labour in New Zealand 1942: Annual Report of the Research Fellow in Social Relations in Industry; Labour in New Zealand 1943: Second Annual Report…; Labour in New Zealand 1944: Third Annual Report…, Wellington, Victoria University College, 1942–4

——— Report on Industrial Relations in New Zealand, Wellington, Whitcombe and Tombs for Victoria University College; London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1946

——— Works Councils in New Zealand, Wellington, Victoria University College, 1943

Harvey, Norman B., Any old Dollars, Mister?, Auckland and Hamilton, Paul's Book Arcade, 1964

Hearnshaw, L. S., Hours of Work in War Time, Wellington, NZ

Progressive Publishing Society, 1942

Holland, H. E., Armageddon or Calvary: the Conscientious Objectors of New Zealand and “The process of their Conversion”, Wellington, H. E. Holland, 1919

Howe, C., Schola Cantorum, Wellington, New Zealand, 1936–1950;

Fifteen Years of Musical Adventuring, Wellington, printed by Wright & Carman, 1951

‘Humanist’ [Wignall, S.], C.O.'s and the Community… This Concerns You, Auckland, Auckland Service Printery, 1945

Hurst, Maurice, Music and the Stage in New Zealand; a Century of Entertainment 1840–1943, Auckland, Wellington, Charles Begg and Co Ltd, 1944

Jenkins, D. & S., Social Attitudes in the New Zealand School Journal,

Wellington, NZ Council of Educational Research, 1939

Jensen, Owen, The NZBC Symphony Orchestra, Wellington, Reed, 1966

Keesing's Contemporary Archives ( London), vol V, 1943–6

King, Michael, Te Puea, A Biography, Auckland, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977

Kirby, S. Woodburn, History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The War Against Japan: vol I, The Loss of Singapore; vol II, India's Most Dangerous Hour, vol IV, The Reconquest of Burma, London, HMSO, 1957, 1958, 1965

Labour Party (New Zealand), New Zealand Labour Movement, Statement on War Policy by a Joint Conference of the Executives of the

New Zealand Labour Party and the New Zealand Federation of Labour, Wellington… 21st February 1940, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Lee, John A., Money Power for the People, Labour's Way Out, Auckland, Grey Lynn Branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1937

——— Simple on a Soap-box, Auckland, Collins, 1963

——— Socialism in New Zealand, London, T. Werner Laurie, 1938

Lehmann, John, The Whispering Gallery; Autobiography I, London,

Longmans, 1955

Lissington, M. P., New Zealand and the United States 1840–1944,

Wellington, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1972

Lochner, Louis P. (ed), The Goebbels Diaries, London, Hamish

Hamilton, 1948

Lochore, R. A., From Europe to New Zealand; an Account of our Continental European Settlers, Wellington, Reed in conjunction with the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1951

McClymont, W. G., To Greece, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1959

McEldowney, W. J., The New Zealand Library Association 1910– 1960 and its Part in New Zealand Library Development, Wellington, New Zealand Library Association, 1962

McGibbon, I. C., Blue-Water Rationale, The Naval Defence of New Zealand 1914–1942, Wellington, Historical Publications Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1981

McKinney, J. B., Medical Units of 2NZEF in Middle East and Italy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1952

McLeod, Roderick, and Denis Kelly (eds), The Ironside Diaries, 1937–1940, London, Constable, 1962

McLintock, A. H. (ed), An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, 3 vols,

Wellington, Government Printer, 1966

[Melrose, T. H.], Sound the Tocsin; Japanese Menace, Hamilton, Waikato Times, 1942

Michel, Henri, The Second World War, London, Andre Deutsch, 1975

Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: vol III, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931– April 1942; Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942– August 1942; vol V, The Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942– February 1943, London, Oxford University Press, 1948, 1949, 1949

Morton, Louis, US Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific. Strategy and Command: the First Two Years, Washington, Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept of the Army, 1962

Mowat, Charles Loch, Britain between the Wars 1918–1940, London, Methuen, 1956

Murphy, W. E., ‘ Crete: New Zealand Command Failures’, Comment, December 1967, no 33

Nash, Walter, Financial Power in New Zealand; the case for a State Bank, Wellington, NZ Worker Co., 1925

NZ Department of Defence, Conscientious Objectors. Field Punishment, Wellington, Government Printer, 1918

NZ Department of Internal Affairs, Historical Branch, Introduction to New Zealand, Wellington, printed by Whitcombe and Tombs, 1945

NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Industrial Psychology Division, Industrial Absenteeism Report No. 1, Wellington, 1943 (for private circulation only)

NZ National Service Department, War Gases, Decontamination and Protection Measures, Wellington, 1942

NZ Prime Minister's Department, Director of Publicity, New Zealand at War; Marching to Victory, Wellington, Director of Publicity, 1943

——— New Zealand's War Effort; Two Years' Achievements,

Wellington, Director of Publicity, 1941

NZ Red Cross Society, Wellington Sub-Centre, The Red Cross Wartime Rationing Cookery Book, Wellington, 1944

NZ Rehabilitation Department, Buy, Build or Rent: Housing Assistance for the Ex-Serviceman, Wellington, Rehabilitation Department, 1946

——— Training for a Job: Facilities Available Under Rehabilitation, Wellington, Rehabilitation Department, 1945

NZ Waterside Workers Industrial Union of Workers, Order of Waterfront Control Commission, June 6th, 1940, Wellington, Standard Press, 1940

Nicolson, Harold, Diaries and Letters 1939–1945, edited by Nigel Nicolson, Collins, Fontana Books, 1970

Olssen, Erik, John A. Lee, Dunedin, University of Otago Press, 1977

Overacker, Louise, ‘The New Zealand Labor Party’, American Political Science Review, vol XLIX, no 1, September 1955

Payton-Smith, D. J., Oil: a Study of War-time Policy and Administration, London, HMSO, 1971

Playfair, I. S. O., History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol II, The Germans Come to the Help of their Ally (1941), London,

HMSO, 1956

[Richards, Alun Morgan], What Are We Fighting For? An Analysis of War Causes and Aims, Christchurch, NZ Christian Pacifist Society, 1939

Riches, E. J., ‘Agricultural Planning and Farm Wages in New Zealand’, International Labour Review, vol 35, no 3, March 1937

Roskill, S. W., History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series, The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol 1, The Defensive,

London, HMSO, 1954

Ross, A. A., et al, Wartime Agriculture in Australia and New Zealand,

California, Stanford University Press, 1954

Ross, J. M. S., Royal New Zealand Air Force, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1955

Schroeder, Paul W., The Axis Alliance and Japanese–American Relations 1941, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1958

Scott, S. W., Rebel in a Wrong Cause, Auckland, Collins, 1960

Self-Help Wartime Cooking Suggestions: how to get the Most out of your Rations, Wellington, Self-Help Co-operative Ltd, [1944]

Sinclair, H. I., Population: New Zealand's Problem, Dunedin, Gordon and Gotch, 1944

Sontag, Raymond James, and James Stuart Beddis (eds), Nazi–Soviet Relations 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, Washington, Department of State, 1948

Soper, F. G., ‘Chemistry in New Zealand’, Journal of NZ Institute of Chemistry, vol 39, no 4, November 1975

Stout, T. D. M., Medical Services in New Zealand and the Pacific, In Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal New Zealand Air Force and with Prisoners of War, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1958

——— New Zealand Medical Services in Middle East and Italy,

Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1956

———- War Surgery and Medicine, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1954

Stretching the Meat Ration in New Zea/and: 150 Ways to make your Coupons go Further, Wellington, NZ Dairy Exporter and Farm Home Journal, [1944]

Sutch, W. B., Poverty and Progress in New Zealand, Wellington, Modern Books, 1941

Sutherland, I. L. G. (ed), The Maori People Today: a General Survey,

Wellington, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 1940

Taylor, A. J. P., English History 1914–45, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965

Thompson, H. L., New Zealanders with the Royal Air Force, vol I,

European Theatre, September 1939–December 1942, Wellington,

War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1953

Turner, E. S., The Phoney War on the Home Front, London, Michael Joseph, 1961

United Mine Workers of New Zealand, Rules and Constitution of the United Mine Workers of New Zealand, reprinted 1943 and including amendments up to that date

Urquart, H. R., Men and Marbles, Auckland, H. R. Urquart, 1917

——— The Searchlight on R.S.A.'s and C.O.'s, Auckland, Times Printing Works, 1945

Wanganui Education Board, Report on Character Training and Citizenship, Wanganui Herald, 1944

Wellington Housing and Accommodation Committee, Wellington's Disgrace; in the Shadow of the Slums… a Civic Responsibility,

Wellington, 1943

Wellington Ladies Christian Association, Alexandra Home, Wellington, 1957

Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941–1945, London, Pan Books, 1965

Wheeler-Bennett, John W., The Wreck of Reparations: being the Political Background of the Lausanne Agreement 1932, London, Allen and Unwin, 1933

Wood, F. L. W., New Zealand in Crisis, May 1938–August 1939,

Wellington, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1939

———The New Zealand People at War, Political and External

Affairs, Wellington, War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1958

——— This New Zealand, Hamilton, Paul's Book Arcade, 1946 [first published in USA as Understanding New Zealand]

Woods, N. S., Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration in New

Zealand, Wellington, Government Printer, 1963

Wright, A. C, and S. P. Newcombe, Bands of the World, Evanston, Illinois, USA, Instrumentalist Co, 1970

The Home Front Volume II

Index

Index

This index covers both volumes of The Home Front. The complete text is covered, excepting the Preface and Foreword, and individual captions for illustrations.

All proper names of individuals are indexed, except where these are used only to symbolise a country (eg, ‘ Hitler invades Czechoslovakia’) or organisation (eg, Sidney Holland for the National Party), or goverment policy, or where they appear only in footnotes.

In most cases where there is more than one reference to an individual, the first reference gives biographical notes.

A

Abortion, 1038– 40

Absenteeism, 684– 97

Abyssinia, Italian invasion of, NZ's response to, 3–6, 51, 66–7

Acland, Sir Jack, 1043

Acland, Sir Richard, 1007

Adoption, 1041– 2, 1236– 7

Agriculture ( see also Farmers' Union),

669

- fertiliser shortage, 813, 815

- food production

- falls (1943), 813, 820

- for Britain, see under Britain

- for post-war Europe, 1260– 1

- for the USA, 783– 4, 830– 1

- importance to war effort, 1221– 6

- increased, 133, 138–44, 720, 721

- regulated, 777– 84, 813, 816

- general impact of declaration of war on, 38–43, 75, 475–6, 772– 3,

821– 3

- labour force requirements, 38–43,

700– 4, 720– 1, 723– 6, 1064– 6,

1222– 7, 1262– 3

- school children employed, 1141,

1143– 6

- women employed, 1101– 11

- linen flax production, 736– 7

- rehabilitation and, 1280– 1

Air Force, band (New Zealand Air Force Band),

1212

- education services for, 1148

- hospitals, 1056

- in the Pacific, 720, 1260

- rehabilitation problems, 1284

- women employed by (Women's Auxiliary Air Force), 1064, 1072,

1111– 13

Air Force Relations organisation,

1053– 4

Air raids, precautions taken in case of ( see also Emergency Precautions Scheme), 326–9, 483–9, 493–5, 572

- blackout, 497–507, 543–9, 1234

- evacuation, 493–7, 531–42

- shelters, 507–30

Aitken, W.E., 233–4

Albertson, G.W., 798– 9

Alexander, Field Marshal Harold, 718

Algie, Rt Hon Sir Ronald, 387, 591,

942

Ali, Raschid, 295

Aliens, treatment of, in war-time,

852– 85, 1292– 3

- censorship of letters, 979– 81

- in the armed and home forces,

871– 2

- hostility to, 95–8, 100, 101, 232

- economic ascendancy feared, 852,

872– 82

- routine internment advocated, 95–8, 107, 859– 60, 861, 873

- tolerance urged and shown, 96–7,

853, 862– 4, 877– 8, 879

- witch-hunts in small towns, 861– 2

- nationalities interned, 833

- regulations for control of (1939),

856– 8, 862– 3, 865– 72

Allan, Hon Andrew, 555

Alley, Geoffrey, 998

Allum, Sir John, 348, 503, 566–7, 630, 1028, 1098

Alpers, Anthony, 1206

America, see United States of America

American troops in NZ, see United States troops in NZ

Amery, Leo, 92–3

Amery, (William) Bankes, 829

Anderson, Sherwood, 1186

Anderson, Prof William, 864

Anderson, Hon William, 381, 716

Andrews, Sir Ernest, 523, 553–4, 558

Andrews, Ernest Stanhope, 940

Andrews, Isobel, 1189

Andrews, John, 1020

Angell, Sir Norman, 879

Angelo, J., 214

Anglican church, 64–5, 235, 1248

- views on pacifism and COs, 178, 186–7, 248–50

Angus, Rita, 1215, 1218

Anscombe, Edmund, 519

Appleton, Sir William, 593

Archives and records, protection of, 540–2

Armed forces ( see also Army; Navy; Air Force; National Military Reserve; Territorial forces)

- aliens in, 871– 2

- casualties, 1285– 6

- education services for, 1146– 8,

1152– 3

- expansion of (1934–9), 22–3, 27–32

- mobilisation of, and manpower planning ( see also Conscription) 21, 698– 705, 712– 15

- on leave, entertainment for,

1014– 32, 1060– 2

- recruitment of, see Recruitment rehabilitation of, see Rehabilitation venereal disease among, 1032– 3

- women employed by ( see also names of individual services), 1068– 74,

1112– 14

Armstrong, Arthur, 1284

Armstrong, Hon Hubert, 48, 245, 804

Armstrong, Richard, 16

Army

- education, 1146– 8, 1275– 6

- farm production, role in, 721– 3

- in Europe and Middle East, 369–71, 450, 622, 633–4, 706– 11,

715– 20, 1250, 1262

- home leave for, 716, 726– 33,

954– 7, 1222

- to be returned to Pacific?, 707– 11,

714– 17, 719

- in the Pacific, 371, 705– 7,

711– 14, 719– 20, 1221– 2,

1260, 1262

- recruitment, see Recruitment return to NZ of overseas troops (1945) ( see also Rehabilitation),

1260, 1275

- women employed by, 1056, 1064,

1114– 5

Army Education and Welfare Service (AEWS), 1146– 8, 1275– 6

Art collections, storage and evacuation of, 540–2, 1218

Arts, 1183– 218, 1293

Ashton, William, 209, 213

Aspey, Vincent, 1209

Assemblies of God, pacifism of, 178

Associated Chambers of Commerce, see

Chambers of Commerce

Attlee, Rt Hon Clement, 93

Atmore, Hon Harry, 590, 591, 592, 598–9, 934, 1007

Atmore, Mrs H., 1069

Atomic bomb, 1262, 1263– 5

Auchinleck, Field Marshal Sir Claude, 302

August, J. E., 308

Austria, German invasion of, NZ policy on, 12–15

Averill, Most Rev Alfred, 65

‘Awake New Zealand’ movement, 345–51, 474–5, 924, 946, 1019

B

Baden Powell, Lord Robert (Baron Baden Powell), 157, 462

Bailey, R.T., 258

Baillie, Isobel, 1203

Baker, Alfred, 490

Baker, Lt-Col Frederick, 1275

Balfour, Arthur, 1247– 8

Ball, Lt-Col Douglas, 1147

Banking, 36–7, 46–7, 48, 847,

1235– 6

Baptist church, 177–8, 248–50, 252–3

Barclay, Hon James, 782, 815– 17

Barker, Arthur, 1189

Barnard, Hon William, 29, 163, 298, 502

- criticises censorship, 342–3, 925

- involvement in Society for Closer Relations with Russia, 590, 597, 610–11

- and Labour party, 46, 49, 76

- on war effort, 29, 163, 298, 502,

- 707

- urges return of 3rd Division, 707

Barnes, Rt Rev Ernest (Bishop of

Birmingham), 282, 306

Barnes-Graham, A.B., 1217

Barr, John, 1197

Barrowclough, Maj-Gen Rt Hon Sir Harold, 369

Barrington, Archibald, 200–2, 204,

1164– 5

- public meetings held by, 181, 182–5, 189, 197

- secretary, Christian Pacifist Society, 178, 179, 196

Basham, Daisy (‘Aunt Daisy’), 826– 7,

1234

Basile, Vicenso, 122

Bastings, Dr Lyndon, 520

Battle of Britain, NZ's knowledge of and reaction to, 133–6, 162

‘Battle of Manners Street’, 645–6

Baxter, Archibald, 1005, 1008

Beaglehole, Dr J.C. (John), 1002,

1153, 1210, 1212

Beattie, Raymond, 1203

Beaverbrook, Lord (Hon William Aitken, Barson of Beaverbrook), 156, 161, 1263

Beeby, Dr Clarence, 124–5, 131, 175–6, 1050, 1097, 1116– 7

Beecham, Sir Thomas, 1203, 1212

Begg, Neil, 1159– 60

Belgium, invasion of, NZ reaction to, 93

Bell, Dr Muriel, 1065

Bell, N.M., 1165

Bell, Brigadier Peter, 77

Bell, Robert, 655

Bell, Lt-Col W., 469, 1064

Belshaw, Prof Horace, 1188, 1244

Bennett, Dr Agnes, 1068– 9

Bennett, Bishop Frederick, 1159

Bennett, H.D., 1070

Bennett, Lt-Gen Henry, 342

Bentley, Mary, 1069, 1070

Bethell, Ursula, 1188

Bevin, Rt Hon Ernest, 693

Billens, Robert, 961– 3, 970– 4

Billeting

- of British children, 133, 162–70

- of NZ children, 531–40

Birchfield, Albert, 992

Birthrate, 1038, 1236– 7, 1239

Bishop, T.O., 399

Bishop, Hon Thomas, 309

Bishop, W.G., 216

Blackout, 497–507, 543–9, 1234

Blair, Sir Archibald (Justice), 198, 203,

1038

Blum, Leon, 13, 113–14

Boal, J.W., 197, 199

Bock, Field Marshal Feodor von, 602

Bockett, Herbert, 692

Bodkin, Hon Sir William, 419, 524–5,

984

Bohr, Dr Niels, 1263

Bomb shelters, 507–30

Bombs

- atomic, 1262, 1263– 5

- disposal of, 326–9, 476–7, 488–9, 549–58

Bonham, P.O., 345, 350

Bonnet, George Étienne, 114

Books and other publications, censorship of

- imported, 997– 1013

- local, 199, 200–2, 213–14, 219–21, 257, 893– 4, 955– 6

Boswell, Charles, 229, 619–20

Bowden, Hon Charles, 973

Bowling, Captain Thomas, 430

Bracken, Brendan (1st Viscount of

Christchurch), 964– 5, 972

Braithwaite, Warwick, 1213

Brasch, Charles, 1184, 1186, 1188,

1190– 1

Brash, Rev Alan, 208

Bray, H.R., 199

Brethren church, 274–5

Brett, Lt-Gen James, 356–7

Britain, NZ's relationship with, 92–3, 636, 1294– 5

- before war declared (1939), 2, 5–7, 8, 11, 16–21, 25–6, 28–9

- Britain criticised over fall of

Singapore, 331–9

- children billeted, 133, 162–70

- consultation on NZ troop movements, 292–3, 298

- on declaration of war (1939), 32, 35, 41, 42, 48

- food, crop and manufacturing production for, 733– 9, 813– 21,

825– 6, 828– 33, 1065,

1221– 6

Brittain, Vera, 282

Broadcasting, censorship of, 940– 2

Broadfoot, Hon Walter, 127, 418–19, 468, 889– 90, 967– 8, 974, 996

Brookes, R.A., 389–90

Bronson, K., 87–8, 218

Browder, Earl, 60–1

Brown, Helen, 1217

Brown, Vice-Admiral Wilson, 355

Building, see Housing

Bullock, Marie, 552

Burbidge, Prof Percy, 230

Burdon, Randal, 1188, 1189

Burnett, Robert, 191

Burton, Rev Ormond, 64, 86, 180–2, 200

- arrested, 188–90, 192–5, 197–8, 202–4, 209, 215, 216

- dismissed from Methodist ministry, 205, 206

Butcher, H.J., 563

C

Callan, Hon John (Justice), 198, 199,

866

Campaign for Christian Order, 1019

Campbell, Sir John Logan, 541

Campbell, J.R., 56

Campbell, W.J., 231

Carman, Arthur, 197, 204

Caro, H.D., 514–15, 1101

Carr, Rev Clyde, 46, 49, 229, 261,

1189

Carr, Peter, 212

Catholic church, see Roman Catholic church

Cato, C.L., 1051

Censorship ( see also Publicity), 21, 99,

1287

of broadcasting, 940– 2

Censorship and Publicity Regulations (1939), 216, 886– 90

of pamphlets, leaflets, etc, produced in NZ, 199, 200–2, 213–14, 218–21, 257, 893– 4, 955– 6

of parliamentary sessions, 925

of postal and telegraph services, 884,

886– 90, 981– 97

- aliens, correspondence of, 979– 81

- internal mail, 974, 981, 989– 93,

996– 7

- inward overseas mail, 980

- outward overseas mail, 980– 1,

985– 9, 996– 7

- overseas cables, 890– 1, 979

- parliamentary inquiry into, 967– 8,

993– 5

- ‘subversive’ publications, imported,

997– 1013

of the press, 66, 82, 886– 98, 942– 8,

951– 3, 959– 70, 977– 9

- communist press ( see also under

Communists), 62, 216–19, 222

- gradually relaxed, from 1944,

975– 7

- of controversy over ‘furlough strike’, 727– 8, 729, 731, 954– 7

- of coverage of industrial disputes, 234, 415, 824, 902– 12, 953– 4,

957– 63, 970– 6

- of information on US presence in NZ, 624–8, 627–8, 645,

929– 30, 932, 935– 6

of material by, or about, the Roman Catholic church, 597,

919– 21, 1008– 10

of material embarrassing to, or critical of, the government,

898– 902, 913– 19, 930– 5,

946– 8, 961– 3, 970– 4

of military and overseas material generally, 339, 657–61,

921– 30, 974– 7

of ministerial statements, 948– 51

of ‘subversive’ statements, 892– 4,

907

Challiner, R.R.V., 955– 6

Chambers of Commerce, 33, 133

- criticise censorship, 970, 974, 982,

991, 996

- suggest gifts of farm produce to

Britain, 140, 813

- urge conscription and coalition, 75, 76, 81, 94, 103–4, 106, 110

- views on government's handling of war effort, 29, 171, 345–6, 349,

852– 3, 863– 4

- views on economic and manpower issues, 43–5, 140, 712– 15, 813,

818, 309–10, 1223

Chamberlain, Rt Hon Arthur Neville, 8, 15–19, 92, 93

Chandler, Very Rev Charles, 1030

Chapman, Charles, 1248

Chapman, Prof Robert, 1190– 1

Chautemps, Camille, 12

Chiang Kai-shek, Generalissimo, 11

Children ( see also Education; Young people)

- day care for, 1197– 8, 1125– 7

- evacuation and billeting of, 133, 162–70, 531–40

- holiday programmes for, 1050– 2

- identification disks worn by, 566–7

- illegitimate, 1040– 3

- at school, emergency procedures for, 495–7, 525–32

- of working mothers, 1096– 1100

- and US troops, 1048– 50

China, Japanese invasion of, NZ attitude to, 2, 3, 11–12, 20, 314–15, 335, 1265

Chinese, resident in NZ, 852, 873,

880, 1256, 1267

Chisholm, George (SM), 372

Christadelphians, recognised as COs, 244, 249, 250

Christian Assembly church, 274–5

Christie, Bessie, 1217

Christie, T.B., 219–20, 898

Church of Christ, submissions on COs, 248–50,

Church of England, see Anglican church

Churches ( see also Religion; names of individual churches)

- attitudes to war and foreign policy issues, pre-war, 63–5, 174

- declaration of war, reaction to, 32, 63–5, 248–9

- facilities and services provided by,

1041– 3, 1051– 2, 1061– 2

- and pacifism ( see also under Pacifism), 205–6, 244, 274–5

- statements and representations on liquor and ‘immorality’, 1015,

1016– 19, 1022, 1028, 1029– 32,

1037– 8

- submissions on COs, 248–57, 284

- support for aliens and refugees,

851– 3, 863

Churchill, Rt Hon Sir Winston, 9, 305, 333–6, 717– 19

Civil Defence, Emergency Precautions Scheme re-organised as, 570–1

Civil liberties ( see also Censorhip), 84, 86–8, 107, 221

- of aliens, see under Aliens

- freedom of speech and assembly, 179, 180–208, 209–11, 214–16, 223–34, 301–2, 591–4

- organisations banned, 222–3, 234–43

- of workers ( see also under

Employment), 376–7, 380, 384–6

Clare, Maurice, 1202, 1209, 1210

Clark, (Cedric) Russel, 1217

Clark, Kenneth (Baron), 1208

Clere, Frederick, 519

Clothing made by school children, 1139– 40

- refurbished and made for refugees etc, 1057– 9, 1260– 1

- shortages, 775– 6, 758– 61, 790,

792– 4, 833– 47, 1233

Coal mining industry, 372–3, 392–426,

911– 12

Coalition government Labour party views on, 93–4, 100, 103–4, 311–13

- support for, 89, 93–4, 98–104, 311–13, 343–4

- War Cabinet, 109–10

- ‘War Council’ created (1940), 104–7, 109–10, 311

- Coates, Rt Hon Joseph Gordon, 34, 98, 107, 420–1

- appointed to War Cabinet, 110, 925

- involvement in nationalisation of coal mines, 417–19

Coates, Canon Robert, 1017– 18, 1022

Coates, Rodney, 71

Cocker, William, 231

Cocker, Mrs W.H., 1082

Coe, James, 1217

Cole, John, 1191

Collier, Edith, 1217

Collins, J.A., 55

Collins, James H., 866, 874

Combs, Frank, 1164

Combs, Harry, 716, 968– 9

Communications, special Home Guard groups for maintenance of, 465–6

Communists, 51–63, 83, 456–8

- attacked by RSA, 225–8, 230, 231–3

- attitudes to, and Russia's entry into war (1941) ( see also under Russia), 579–82, 587–98, 618–19

- books by, banned, 997– 1008, 1013

- censorship of publications and mail, 107, 213–21, 223, 893, 898– 901,

991– 2

- foreign policy, pre-war, 4, 8–11, 15, 24–5, 51–3, 174–5

- opposition to war, prior to 1941, 70, 178–9, 209–23, 224–1

- linked with pacifists, 182, 184–6, 188–90, 209

- relationship with Labour party, 51–7, 62–3, 86, 87, 222–3, 587–9

- support for war effort (after Russia enters war, 1941), 390, 587–9

- in universities, 1157– 67, 1169– 71

- in trade unions, 51–2, 55–6, 62, 221–3, 226, 588–9

Concentration camps, NZ reaction to,

1246– 50

Condliffe, J.B., 1215

Congregationalist church, submissions on COs, 248–50

Conscientious objectors (COs) ( see also

Defaulters; Pacifists), 87, 244–85,

1287, 1289

- appeal provisions for, 255–6, 264–8, 274–5, 281–5

- assisted by pacifists, 195–6, 203, 207, 220, 256–7

- in First World War, 244–6, 274

- Labour government attitude to, 245–51, 255–7, 259

- Labour party, traditional attitudes to, see under Labour party

- recognised for alternative service, 244–5, 245–6, 247–57

- stigmatisation of, 207, 255, 257–63

Conscription ( see also Recruitment), 31, 72–88, 726– 33, 1153, 1289– 90

- to Home Guard or Territorials, 461 industrial, see Manpower Office Labour party opposition to, 22, 28, 29, 30, 46, 76, 85–8

- principle accepted by, 105

- National party policy on, 28, 46, 76, 77

- pacifist reaction to, 64, 84

- public attitude to, 72–7, 98–104, 174–5

- regulations for, 247–57

Contraception, 1031, 1037– 8

Cook, Hon Arthur, 589

Cornish, Hon Henry, 219, 898– 901,

970

Coughlan, Father Charles, 237

Counihan, N., 87–8

Coward, Sir Noel, 941

Cox, Sir Geoffrey, 113

Crabb, Helen, 1217

Crauford, Robert, 719

Crete, NZ troops in, see Greece

Crime, 504, 1044– 50, 1244

Cripps, Rt Hon Sir Stafford, 60

Cummings, James, 241, 885

Cunningham, Admiral Andrew (Viscount), 304

Curtin, Rt Hon John, 330, 365

Curnow, (Thomas) Allen as ‘Whim-Wham’, 583, 881, 1183

- poetry, 1184, 1186, 1187– 8, 1189

Czechoslovakia, invasion by Germany, NZ reaction to, 15–17

D

Dalmations, see Yugoslavs

Dalton, (Edward) Hugh (Baron Dalton), 579

Danilow, Dr Nicholas, 1156

Davies, Dorothy, 1209

Davin, Daniel (Dan), 1191

Dawson, Peter, 1204

Day care for children, 1097– 8, 1125– 7

Daylight saving, 787

Darbyshire, H.G., 214

Davies, Very Rev David, 760

Davies, Joseph, 600

Davis, Sir Ernest, 210, 241, 380–1, 617

Davis, John, 257

De Gaulle, see Gaulle

De la Mare, Frederick, 16, 863, 878

Deans, (Alister) Austen, 1217

Defaulters ( see also Conscientious objectors)

- distinguished from COs, 195, 244

- imprisonment of, 205–6, 253, 266–85

Defence Construction Council, 339–40, 423–4

Defence League, formation and philosophy of, 26–32, 81–2, 99, 100–1

Democratic Labour Party ( see also Lee, John A.), 50, 231, 966

Denham, William, 349

Denmark, invasion of, NZ reaction to, 90

Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Industrial Psychology Division, 687– 9, 694, 695,

1212– 13

Depression, of 1930–5, 1–2, 35, 45–6, 72, 171

Devlin, J., 410

Dickenson, W.G., 213, 214

Dickie, H.G., 400, 421

Dickie, Very Rev Dr John, 1161

‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, 480, 785

Dimitroff, Georgi, 56

Disabled ex-service personnel, 1275,

1284

Dissenters ( see also under Communists;

Conscientious objectors; Pacifists), 223–43, 1287, 1289

- books by, banned, 997– 1013

- correspondence censored, 991– 2

- at universities, 1148– 50, 1157– 67

Dixon, Vivien, 1209

Doherty, J., 189, 197, 199

Doidge, Hon Sir Frederick, 102–3, 114, 129, 636, 1250

- attitudes to dissenters, 53, 245, 1157

- criticises government use of censorship, 240, 898, 906, 932,

940, 966, 972

Dominion Farmers' Union, see Farmers' Union

Don, Frances, 1069

Donnelly, A.T., 1235– 6

Doolittle, Brig-Gen J.H., 356

Dowling, Basil, 199, 1188

Downey, Richard (Archbishop of Liverpool), 598

Dowsett, Edward, 96

Dreaver, Hon Mary, 817, 1100– 1,

1107

Drennan, A., 215

Drinking, see Liquor

Du Chateau, Leon, 1187

Duff, Oliver, 255, 952, 978, 1248

Duggan, Eileen, 1186

Duigan, Maj-Gen Sir John, 453

Dumbleton, Eric, 963– 4, 969

E

Economy, national, effect of war on ( see also Prices; Wages), 35–45, 1286– 7,

1290– 1

Eden, Anthony (Earl of Avon), 616

Education, 1116– 18, 1123– 5,

1127– 37, 1293

- in army, see Army Education and Welfare Services

- effect of building shortage, 1118– 21,

1135– 7

- patriotic activities carried out by schools and universities, 1139– 46,

1167– 8

- pre-school, 1097– 8, 1125– 7, 1134

- for rehabilitation, 1174– 9, 1271,

1276– 8, 1281– 3

- teacher shortages, 1120– 3, 1137

- truancy, 1048– 50

- university, see universities

- values promoted in, 124–32, 236–7,

1137– 9

- patriotic, 225–31, 242, 260–3

- religious, 129–32, 1134– 5

Eise, Ida, 1216

Eisenhower, Gen Dwight, 370

Electricity, restricted use of, 500–1,

786– 7, 1233– 4

Eliot, Major George, 1261

Elworthy, Arthur, 307

Emergency Defence Corps ( see also

Emergency Precautions Scheme;

Home Guard), 558–9

Emergency Fire Service, 487–8

Emergency Precautions Scheme (EPS), 327–9, 344–5, 351, 371, 508–9, 558–9, 567–8

- air-raid shelters, 507–30

- blackout arrangements, 497, 507, 543–9, 1234

- creation of, 453–5, 480–9, 570

- evacuation plans, 493–7, 531–40, 540–2

- emergency traffic police organised by, 465–6

- fire precautions, 487–8, 549–58, 562

- food and water reserves, 542–3, 562–3

- gas attacks, precautions against, 481, 493, 561, 564

- helmets and transport for, 561–4, medical services, see Medical services

- membership, 468, 472, 473, 490–3, 558–9, 567, 870– 1, 975

- rehearsals and training of, 489–90, 559–61, 568–70

Emergency Regulations Act 1939, 34, 104–5, 198, 959– 63

- Public Safety Emergency Regulations (1940), 191, 212, 237, 242,

893

Employment ( see also Unemployment),

787– 8, 1288– 91

- by American troops in NZ, 637–41

- on farms, see under Agriculture

- government co-ordination of, see

Industrial Emergency Council;

Manpower Office

- hours of, see Forty-hour week; Overtime

- industrial relations, see Industrial relations

- in the Public Service, 1079

- on public works, 35, 38, 40–3, 47, 94

- women in, see Women in employment

- of young people, 1128– 34

Employers' Federation, see New Zealand Employers' Federation

Endean, William, 255–6, 873, 992

Engineering industry, effect of war effort on, 726, 733– 41

Enlistment, see Recruitment

Entertainment, effect of war on ( see also

Holidays; Racing), 306–9, 322, 329, 340

- available for troops on leave,

1014– 32, 1060– 2

- blackout, effect of, 503–4

- US troops in NZ, effect of, 624, 628–9, 630–1, 1023– 4, 1026,

1061– 2

Entrican, Alexander, 277

Ergot, collection of, 1142

Essential industries, see under Manpower Office

Evacuation plans, 493–7, 531–40

- for libraries and art galleries, 540–2

Ex-nuptial births, 1040– 3

External trade effect of war on, 15, 35, 41, 288–90

- import restrictions, 44, 45, 46, 757,

997– 1003

- shipping losses, affected by, 288–90

- supplies to Britain, see under Britain

F

Fair, Hon Sir Arthur (Justice), 199, 214–15, 220–1

Fairburn, A.R.D., 96, 259, 1183– 4 , 1186, 1187, 1188, 1189

Family Planning, 1031, 1037– 8

Farmers and farming, see Agriculture;

Farmers' Union

Farmers' Union criticism of censorship, 931, 943– 5

- support for Home Guard, 452–3, 458

- views on coalition government, 106, 312, 343

- views on conscription, 78, 94, 100

- views on farm employment and conditions, 40–2, 43, 44

- views on patriotism and defence, 28, 32, 126, 140–1, 228, 853,

859– 60

- views on war economy and human resources planning, 136, 144, 287,

712– 15, 816, 1019, 1223– 6

Federation of Labour, 85, 1223, 1290

- foreign policy after declaration of war, 33, 86, 222

- on Russia's entry into war (1941), 587–9, 594

- pre-war, 13–15, 24–5

- views on industrial relations in war- time, 375, 415, 639–40, 674– 5,

1231– 2

Findlay, F., 1043

Fine arts, 540–2, 1215– 18

Finland, invaded by Russia, NZ reaction to, 58–60, 579–80

Finlayson, Roderick, 1183– 4, 1186,

1187

Fire services and fire-watching, 487–8, 549–58, 562

First-aid, see Medical services

First World War NZ participation in, 69, 75, 1270,

1294

- NZ treatment of COs in, 244–6, 274

Flandin, Pierre, 114

Fletcher, Admiral Frank, 357

Fletcher, Sir James, 47, 339, 424, 516,

737, 739, 948

Flood, John, 432–3, 439–40, 443

Foden, Dr Norman, 962– 3

Food, 36, 318–19

- deliveries of, effect of petrol rationing on, 323–4, 848– 50

- emergency reserves of, 542–3

- parcels, for POWs and troops overseas, 1054, 1286

- production, see under Agriculture

- rationing, 34, 133, 141

- censorship of controversy over,

824, 957– 8

- effect on cooking methods, 826– 7,

833

- introduced, 779– 80, 788– 93,

795– 6, 813– 28

- proposals for, 133, 141

- specific foods:

- biscuits, 762

- butter, 813– 28

- eggs, 778– 80

- fish, 769

- honey, 777– 8

- meat, 813, 827, 828– 33

- oranges, 767

- sugar, sweets, tea, 788– 92

- vegetables, 780– 6

- to maintain supplies for post-war

- Europe, 1260– 1

- surplus (1941), 289–90

Folkes, Major K. (Head of Security Intelligence Bureau), 884– 5

Forbes, Rt Hon George, 6, 23

Forde, A.E., 1083

Fortune, Wilfred, 212

Fortune-telling, 1043

Forty-hour week ( see also Overtime), 133–8, 309–11, 343, 372–3, 902– 6,

1227– 8

Fox, H.C.A., 1201

France, fall of (1940), NZ's reaction to, 111–15, 125

Franco Bahamonde, Generalissimo Francisco, 8, 1009

Franklin, Benjamin, 930

Fraser, Sir Bruce (Admiral), 1245

Fraser, Gordon, 310

Fraser, Janet, 129, 1068– 9

Fraser, Rt Hon Peter, 14, 89, 110, 129, 195–6, 385–6, 1290

- attacks Communists, 55–7, 86, 191, 213, 222, 906, 908

- directs war-time censorship, 886– 90,

906– 11, 913– 14, 923, 928,

932– 3, 949– 50, 1287

- Labour party leader, 46–9, 87

- opposition to First World War, 215, 245

- personal qualities of, 337, 343, 386,

1020, 1200

- radio broadcasts (1940, 1945), 94–5,

1265– 6

- support for national orchestra, 1204,

1212

- on use of NZ troops overseas, 298, 304, 716– 19

Freeman, William (SM), 268, 415

Freeth, Pierce, 963– 4, 969

Freyberg, Lt-Gen Rt Hon Sir Bernard,

937

- General Officer Commanding 2NZEF (1940), 77, 719, 732– 3

- relationship with British command, 293–4, 298, 299

- public statements on NZ troop activities, 301, 304–5

Friedman, Ignaz, 1204– 5, 1206

Frost, Frederick, 716

Fund raising, for the war effort ( see also War Purposes Fund), 145–62, 341,

1140– 1, 1055, 1059– 60

- for rehabilitation, 75, 154, 1270

‘Furlough strike’, 726– 33, 954– 7

G

Galbraith, A., 215

Galway, Lady ( see also Lady Galway Guild), 161

Galway, Lord George (Viscount Galway), 151, 152

Gardner, Roy, 1189

Gas

- as a substitute for petrol, 752– 5

- attacks, precautions against, 481, 493, 561, 564

- should it be used on Japan?, 1261

Gascoigne, Dr Noel, 596–7, 1099

Gaskell, A.P. (Alexander), 1187, 1190,

1191

Gaulle, Gen Charles de, 115

German

- refugees, 851– 61

- residents in NZ, 95–7, 851– 6, 873,

883

Germany, NZ's relationship with pre-war, 2, 6–7, 12–20

- invasions of European countries, NZ reaction to, 12–20, 58–60, 90–3, 110–15, 125, 579–80

- knowledge of concentration camps,

1246– 50

- surrender, 1250– 9

- post-war, 1287– 8

Ghormley, Vice-Admiral Robert, 370, 624, 625, 648, 658

Gilbert, G.R. (Gavin), 1188

Gillespie, William, 1109

Glen, Robert, 400

Glover, Dennis, 1186, 1187– 8, 1188,

1190

Goddard, Air Marshal Sir Victor, 305, 572, 601

Goebbels, Dr Joseph, 301, 612–13,

977

Goodman, Isador, 1210– 11

Gooseman, Hon Sir William, 287

Gordon, Prof Ian, 1181, 1189– 90

Göring, Reich Marshal Hermann, 1194

Gould, C.J., 213

Gould, N., 60

Gould, Prof William, 126, 131, 590

Goulding, Arthur (SM), 216

Graffiti, anti-war, 220–1

Graham, George, 806

Greatorex, H.J., 221

Greece, NZ troops fighting in, reaction to, 290–313, 500, 1054

Greenberg, Len, 268–70, 272–6, 278–81, 941

Greene, Brig Alfred, 535–6

Grigg, Mary (Mrs A.N.; Lady Mary Polson), 1107, 1132

Gunther, John, 575

Gurr, Frank, 1214

Guy, Christina, 1189

H

Halder, Gen Franz, 305

Hale, Sir William, 1224

Hall, John, 888– 9, 911

Hall, Tom, 404, 414, 416, 418

Halsey, Admiral William, 353, 370,

1224

Hamerton, J.R., 197–8, 199

Hamilton, Hon Adam, 17, 41, 89, 97, 420, 860

- appointed to War Cabinet, 110, 419

Hamilton, George, 139, 158

Hampson-Tindale, V.E., 551

Hare, Dr Anthony, 401, 403–4, 1165,

1232– 3

- comments on waterfront industry, 434, 448

- research on employment of young people, 1130– 3

- research on industrial relations and working conditions, 403–4, 664,

693– 4, 695, 697

Hargest, Brig James, 1191

Harker, Cyril, 1037

Harris, (William) John, 1184

Harrison, E., 218

Hawkins, Major D.M., 1063– 4

Hay, Caryll, 281

Haycock, H., 233

Hearnshaw, Leslie, 693, 1188– 9

Heenan, Cardinal John, 598

Heenan, Sir Joseph, 1204

Heffron, Hon Robert, 547

Helm, A.S. (Arthur), 1191

Henderson, Alexander, 656

Henderson, (Andrew) Kennaway, 894

Henderson, James (Jim), 1191

Henderson, Louise, 1217

Henry, John, 389–90

Henry, Sir Trevor (Justice), 389

Herangi, Te Puea, 628

Hercock, Thomas, 163, 165

Hercus, Sir Charles, 227

Herrick, (Hermione) Ruth, 1113

Hervey, J.R. (Rev John), 1188

Hess, Dame Myra, 1208

Higgs, Sidney, 1216

Hill, H. Gladstone, 1212, 1214

Hinsley, His Eminence Cardinal Arthur, 123

Hinton, John, 305

Hislop, Thomas, 1248

- opposes dissidence and ‘subversion’, 187–8, 189, 223, 1011– 12

- organises emergency precautions as Mayor of Wellington, 507, 508, 513, 520–1, 535, 557

Hitchcock, Edward, 503

Hitler, Adolf, 2, 1194, 1250

Hoare, Rt Hon Samuel, 3, 5–6

Hodge, Agnes, 1042

Hodge, Dr Alexander, 253, 592

Hodgkins, Arthur, 1214

Hoffey, Frank, 1209

Hogan, John, 930– 5, 992

Hogben, Julius, 937

Holcroft, M.H. (Montague), 1183– 4,

1188, 1189

Hole, (Ottoline) Valerie, 1066

Holidays, effect of war on, 133–4, 319–22, 373–5, 379–80, 1229– 30

- absenteeism following, 684– 6, 694– 6

- school, activities for, 1050– 2

Holland, invasion of, NZ reaction to, 93

Holland, Henry, 23

Holland, Right Rev (Bishop) Herbert, 176–7

Holland, Rt Hon Sir Sidney, 37, 287, 413, 477, 1224, 1250

- criticism of government censorship,

898, 906– 7, 911– 12, 948– 51,

991, 993

- member of War Cabinet, 110, 419–21

- views on recruitment, 78, 80, 88

- volunteers resources for war effort, 134, 443

Holloway, Ron, 1187

Holyoake, Rt Hon Sir Keith, 6, 877,

879– 80, 991

Home Guard activities of, 456–7, 470–2, 489

- criticism of, 345–51, 456–7, 466–7, 474–5, 477–9

- decreased need for (1942–3), 479–80

- formation of, 133, 329, 345, 452–8

- membership of, 443, 473, 870– 2,

875, 1241

- training of, 454–5, 459–60, 461–9, 472, 475–9

- weapons available to, 462–3, 464, 467, 471–2, 473–5, 478

Hore-Belisha, Lord Leslie (Baron of

Devonport), 298

Horton, Sir Henry, 902, 945

Hospitals, 326, 484, 486, 565–6,

1119– 21

Housing for farm workers, 40, 142

- for coal miners, 405–7, 423–4

- for Maoris, 805– 7, 1240– 1

- for returned service personnel, 805,

813, 1276– 80

- Labour party housing policy, 47–8,

797– 9, 807

- shortages (1943-), 797– 813

Howard, Mabel, 187, 537

Howell, C.R., 189, 199, 200

Hughes, Rev Percy Gladstone, 98, 107, 109, 253, 589, 1248

Hughes, Rt Hon William, 239, 581–2

Hull, Cordell, 315, 316, 616, 636

Hulme, Alfred, 305

Hunter, E.W., 213, 510

Hunter, James, 264–5, 279–80, 509

Hunter, Sir Thomas, 1156, 1164,

1165, 1169, 1248

Hurd, R., 214

Hurley, A. Eaton, 96, 233, 255

Hurley, Maj-Gen Patrick, 361

Hyams, May, 1209

Hyde, Robin, 80, 1186

I

Identification discs, 566–7

Illegitimate births, 1040– 3

Import restrictions, 44, 45, 46, 757,

997– 1003

Industrial Emergency Council, 135, 138, 287, 309–11, 373

- regulates holidays, 375–6, 379–80

Industrial relations ( see also Manpower Office), 390–2, 426–9, 663– 4,

1231– 3, 1290– 1

- absenteeism, 684– 97

- censorship of press coverage of disputes, 234, 415, 824, 902– 12,

953– 4, 957– 63

- coal mining, 372–3, 392–426,

911– 12

- forty-hour week, 133–8, 309–11, 343, 373, 902– 6

- meatworks, 377–90, 391–2, 678– 9

- police, 953– 4, 958– 9, 970

- waterfront, 429–49, 637–41

Industry ( see also Industrial relations;

New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation), 733– 41, 766– 8

- regulated by government, see

Manpower Office

Ingersoll, Ralph, 600–1

Inglis, Maj-Gen Lindsay, 301–2

Italians, resident in NZ, 118–23, 852,

857, 862, 870, 872, 883

Italy, NZ's relationship with, 3–6, 51, 66–7, 115–24

J

Jackson, (Alan) Frances, 1191– 2

Jackson, E.A., 221

Jacobs, Bertram, 273

Jamieson, I.M., 213

Japan, NZ's relationship with

Japan enters the war ( Pearl Harbour, 1941), 168, 264, 316–29, 375, 510, 921– 6

- Japanese invasion of China, NZ attitude to, 2–3, 11–12, 20, 314–16, 335, 1265

- Japan's Pacific campaign, NZ reaction to Battle of Midway Island, 360–5

- battles in the Solomons, 365–71, 421, 479, 523, 547, 554–5, 558

- fall of Hong Kong, 346

- fall of Singapore, 330–44, 474, 521

- home defences set up in fear of invasion by Japan, 455–9, 569–70

- Japan surrenders, 1263– 70

- Japanese submarines in the Tasman, 359–60

- naval battles, 352–9

- post-war, 1287– 8

Japanese, interned in NZ, 833

Jehovah's Witnesses, 127, 178, 221, 234–43, 274–5, 1009

Jensen, Owen, 1209

Jews in New Zealand anti-semitism, 852, 855, 1248

- knowledge of concentration camps,

1246– 50

- refugees, 852, 854– 6, 858

Joad, C.E.M., 246, 282

John A. Lee's Weekly, 921, 923

Johnsen, John, 1004

Johnson, Dr Samuel, 937

Johnstone, Hon Harold (Justice), 191–2, 218, 970– 1

Jones, Connie, 198–9

Jones, Hon Frederick, 27, 110, 450,

716– 17

Jordan, Margaret, 592

Jordan, Rt Hon Sir William, 8, 11, 28, 1250

Jowett, Vida, 1069, 1113

Jury service, extended to women,

1100– 1

K

- Kain, Flying Officer Edgar (‘Cobber’), 157, 158

- Kane, Amy, 1069

- Katz, Rabbi Solomon, 1247

- Kay, Robin, 1217

- Kelly, Cecil, 1216

- Kelly, Elizabeth, 1216

- Kelman, J., 218

- Kennedy, Hon Sir Robert (Justice), 198, 213–14

- Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger, 92

- Kidd, David, 720– 1

- Kindergartens, 1097– 8, 1125– 6, 1134

- King, Fleet Admiral Ernest, 365

- King, Marcus, 1216

- Kingsford, Elaine, 1101

- Kingsford, Roger, 1228

- Kingston, Brian, 98, 108, 109, 348

- Kippenberger, Sir Howard, 1192

- Kissel, Frederick, 497

- Kitson, H., 106

- Klein, H.W., 214

- Knight, Group Captain M.W.B., 161

- Knox, Colonel William, 332, 371

- Knox Gilmer, Dame Elizabeth, 1069,

1082

- Koroki, Te Wherowhero ( Waikato), 617

- Kyle, Herbert, 420, 991

L

Labour party, 22, 45–50, 587–9,

911– 14, 966

- Communists, relationship with, 51–7, 62–3, 86, 87, 222–3, 587–9

- conscription policy, 22, 28–30, 46, 76, 85–8, 105

- COs and pacifists, attitude to, in government, 86–7, 245–51, 225–7, 259

- declaration of war, reaction to, 32, 70

- economic policy, 35–7, 1235,

1290– 1

- education policy, 1116– 17

- First World War, opposition of leaders to, 48, 76, 97, 181, 216, 245–6, 458

- foreign policy, pre-war, 8, 5, 8–11, 16–17, 20, 22–9, 47

- housing policy, 47–8, 797– 9, 807

- press, traditional relationship with,

911– 14, 972– 3

Lady Galway Guild, 161, 1057– 9,

1261

Laking, George, 998, 1004

Lambourne, Nelson, 1137

‘Land girls’ (Women's Land Service),

669, 682, 1065– 6, 1101– 11

Lang, Most Rev and Rt Hon Cosmo (Archbishop of Canterbury), 64–5, 599–601

Langdon, J., 214

Langstone, Hon Frank, 46, 49, 84

Laski, Harold, 972

Laval, Pierre, 2, 112, 114

Lawlor, Patrick, 952

Lawrence, J.E., 213–14

Lawry, Herbert (SM), 962– 3, 1027

Lawson, George, 404–5, 410, 422

League of Nations, attitudes to, 2, 4–7, 59, 63–5, 173–5

- Labour party, 5, 8, 22–3

- National party, 5, 25–6, 28

Lee, John A. ( see also John A. Lee's Weekly), 29, 76, 87, 934, 1057,

1186

- criticism of censorship and security measures, 884, 933, 991, 992,

1006– 7, 1009– 10

- criticism of conduct of war, 293–4, 299, 301, 339, 707, 1259

- criticism of treatment of COs, 240, 252, 268

- leaves Labour party to set up Democratic Labour party, 46–50, 231, 966

- support for Russia, 591, 599

Lee, Mrs J.A., 1100

Lee-Johnson, Eric, 1215

Lehmann, John, 1185– 6, 1189

Leisure activities, see Entertainment Levien, Felix (SM), 215, 267–8

Levvey, Ernest (SM), 233–4, 268, 1027

Leys, Sir Cecil, 916– 7, 978– 9

Libraries, 1124, 1193– 1200, 1293

- censorship of, 1010– 13

- storage and evacuation of, 540–2

Lilburn, Douglas, 1204, 1206

Linen flax production, 736– 7

Lino, Joseph, 122–3

Liquor royal commission to investigate,

1237– 9

- sales, licensing, and consumption,

757, 1014– 32, 1044– 5

Liston, Most Rev James, 123

Literature ( see also under Censorship),

1183– 1200

Litvinoff, Maxim, 603

Lloyd George, Rt Hon David, 93

Lochore, Dr Reuel, 14, 118, 861, 871,

882, 968

- senior translator of censorable mail,

981, 988– 9, 991– 2

Lovegrove, Claude, 531, 532–4

Low, Sir David, 4

Lowry, Leonard, 478, 993– 4

Lowry, Robert, 1187

Lowry, Thomas, 152

Luckie, Martin, 1163– 4

Luckner, Count Felix von, 13–15

Luxembourg, invasion of, NZ reaction to, 93

Luxford, John (SM), 653, 1034, 1041,

1043– 4

- comments on youth and Maori crime, 1047, 1130, 1244

- hearings of prosecutions related to: censorship, 224, 923, 987– 8

- industrial relations, 380, 386–7

- liquor laws, 1015, 1023, 1027– 8,

1032

- pacifists and COs, 197–8, 267–8, 282

Lyon, William, 29, 46, 49

Lyons, Hon Dame Enid, 761

Lyttle, H.G., 181, 182–5, 189, 191–2, 194, 215

M

McAra, W., 216

MacArthur, Gen Douglas, 317, 365,

929, 947

McCarthy, D., 213

McCormack, T.A. (Thomas), 1216

McCormick, Eric, 1184

McCready, W., 218

McCaul, Michael, 345

McCahon, Colin, 1215

McDonald, Colonel Thomas, 128, 130, 132, 173–4, 232–3, 261–2

Macfarlane, Hon Sir Robert, 187

MacGibbon, William, 103–4, 137

Machin, William, 102

McIntosh, Sir Alister, 941, 998, 1008,

1009

McIntyre, Peter, 1192, 1217

Mackay, Ian, 1192

McKean, William, 193–4

McKeefry, Cardinal Peter, 920– 1

Mackenzie, Colonel W. (‘Fighting Mac’), 172

Mackrell, R., 348

McLagan, Hon Angus, 375, 390, 410–16, 589, 1290– 1

McLean, Mary, 1064– 5

McLennan, S.B. (Stewart), 1217,

McLeod, Hugh, 430

McLintock, A.H. (Alexander), 1237

McMillan, Hon Dr David, 46, 49, 225, 343, 452

McNamara, George, 888– 9, 979

Maher, J.J., 141

Mair, Hon Alexander, 239

Maisky, Ivan, 584, 588, 920

Mander, (Mary) Jane, 1185

Maning, Frederick, 1184– 5

Mannerheim, Carl (Baron Mannerheim), 60

Manpower Office, 663– 4, 666, 934– 5,

1260

- absenteeism, action taken against,

687– 97

- industrial conscription of women,

675– 84, 686– 92, 696– 7, 1074

- women's absenteeism, 686– 7,

688– 90, 691– 2, 696– 7

- regulation of essential industries,

665– 74, 1289– 90

- release of workers from armed forces to industry, 698– 705, 723– 6

Maori Battalion, 291, 295, 299–300, 647, 729, 1241, 1294

Maoris, 805– 7, 1037, 1048, 1120,

1239– 44, 1293– 4

- liquor and, 1017, 1238– 9, 1243,

1294

- women, 682, 805– 7, 1030– 1, 1110,

1242– 3

Mansfield, Lord Justice William, 909

Manufacturer's Association, see New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation Manufacturing, stimulated by shortages and by war effort, 733– 41, 766– 8

Marris, Charles, 1187

Marketing Amendment Act 1939, 36, 38–9, 41–2

Marsh, Dame Ngaio, 1065, 1193

Martin, Douglas, 215, 216

Martin, Kingsley, 967

Martin, Thomas, 389–90

Martin, Hon William Lee, 1101– 2

Martyn, F. (Furneaux), 1191

Mason, Hon H.G.R., 913, 1240

- Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, 108, 238, 246, 250–2

- Minister of Education, 124–5, 1138

- views on COs' appeal provisions, 264–5, 280–1

Mason, R.A.K., 923, 1186, 1188

Massey, John, 420

Massey, Rt Hon William, 173

Matthews, Thomas, 1204

Mazengarb, Hon Oswald, 254–5

Meat industry, employment in, 377–90, 391–2, 678– 9,

Medical services, 787– 8, 1119– 21,

1228

- emergency arrangements for, 326, 484, 486, 565–6

- nursing services, 1055– 7, 1234

- penicillin becomes available, 1228

Meehan, W., 237

Meek, R.L. (Prof Ronald), 1189

Melrose, Major Thomas, 345, 474

Memorials, 1244

Methodist church, attitude to war, 63–4, 205

- pacifism in, 171, 177–8, 184, 205

- statements on liquor consumption,

1016, 1030– 1

- submissions on COs, 248–50, 252–4

Mikawa, Admiral, 366

Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw, 619

Milk deliveries, instituted as efficiency measure, 848– 50

Milner, Frank, 619

Minhinnick, Sir Gordon, 4, 58

Mirams, Gordon, 179, 189

Mobilisation of armed forces ( see also

Conscription), 21, 698– 705, 712– 15

Moller, Uffa, 1217

Molotov, Vyacheslav, 61

Moncur, Alexander, 414–15, 913

Montgomery, Field Marshal Bernard,

707, 718

Moody, A.J., 95–8, 259, 371,

1039– 40, 1121

Moody, T.K., 128, 261–2

Moohan, Michael, 1272

Moore, Dr Lucy, 767

Moore-Brabazon, Lt-Col John (Baron Moore-Brabazon), 586

Morey, J.D., 214–15

Morice, Stella, 1189

Morison, S.E. 353, 355

Morling, Joseph (SM), 282, 381

Morrell, William, 226

Motherhood of Man movement,

1041– 2

Mourant, Elise, 1216

Movement Against War and Fascism, 174–5

Mulgan, Alan 952

Mulgan, John, 1186, 1192

Mulholland, Sir William, 106, 126, 141–2, 1224– 5

Munitions, manufacture of amateur, 348, 351, 475

- industrial, 347, 693, 734– 5, 726

Munn, Ralph, 1197

Munro, James, 913

Murdoch, Sir Keith, 974

Music, 1200– 15

Mussolini, Benito, 3, 116–17, 1250

Muston, Colin, 1208

Myers, Rt Hon Sir Michael (Justice), 45, 192–3, 198, 201–2, 215–16,

970

N

Nash, Heddle, 1203

Nash, Rt Hon Sir Walter, 5, 23–4, 46–8, 110, 247, 255–6

- invites US to set up NZ base, 634–5, 636–7

- Minister of Customs, responsible for censorship of books etc, 998,

1002, 1005, 1012– 13

National Council for the Reclamation of Waste Materials, 155–6

National Council of Women, 33, 80,

1042– 3, 1099

National Film Unit, 940, 1118, 1125

National Military Reserve, 31, 470, 472

- recruitment and training for, 33, 317, 450, 453

National party, 224, 807, 966, 1029

- censorship of press criticised by, 898,

906– 7, 911– 12, 940, 942, 951

- coalition government, calls for, 89, 94, 105–6, 109–10, 311–13

- conscription policy, 28, 46, 76, 77

- criticism of government's war effort, 94, 97, 102–3, 1259

- declaration of war, reaction to, 32, 34–7

- defence policy, pre-war, 5, 17, 25–6, 28–9, 31–2

- members in War Cabinet, 109–10, 417–21

- questions conduct of war overseas, 301, 715, 719

National Patriotic Fund Board, 149–51, 155, 156, 157, 162

National Security Tax, 147–9

National Service Department, 453–4, 497

- manpower branch, see Manpower Office

National Service Emergency Regulations, 247–57

National Service Movement, 98–9, 107–9, 348, 859

Natzke, Oscar, 1203

Navy, 737– 41, 1112– 14, 1148,

1259– 60

Navy League, 26, 127–9, 1053, 1055

Newall, Lady, 1042, 1218

Newall, Air Marshal Sir Cyril, 128–9

New Zealand Alliance, 1016

New Zealand Army, see Army

New Zealand Army Nursing Service ( NZANS), 1056, 1114– 15

New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society (CPS), 177–85, 192, 194–5, 198–9, 204–5, 208, 220

New Zealand Democracy Association,

931– 2, 992

New Zealand Employers' Federation, 102, 694, 697, 712– 15, 1097, 1223

New Zealand Expeditionary Force, see under Army New Zealand Freedom Association, 187, 591, 942

New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation, 33, 106, 712– 15, 878– 9,

1110, 1096

New Zealand Peace Pledge Union, 177, 178–9, 185–6, 194, 200, 205, 249,

853

New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association (NZRSA), 33, 77, 81, 343–4, 346, 453–4, 601

- attacks on COs, defaulters, and pacifists by, 186–7, 244, 246, 251, 261, 273–4, 283–5

- attacks on Communists by, 225–8, 230, 231–3

- attitude to aliens, 853– 4, 856, 859,

872– 4, 876– 7, 881

- attitude to retained workers, 725– 6,

729– 30

- policy on conscription, 74–5, 76, 81, 97–9, 100–1, 103

- policy on pre-war recruitment, 26, 30, 31, 32

- policy on rehabilitation and home leave, 74–5, 729– 30, 731– 2, 957

New Zealand Social Credit Movement,

929– 35, 992

New Zealand Workers' Educational Association seen as subversive influence, 225–7, 230, 258, 1008

- tutors fired for pacifism, 1161– 6

Newspapers coverage of war material in, see under

Censorship; Publicity size restricted, 755– 6

Ngata, Sir Apirana, 299–300, 636,

1239, 1241, 1243

Nicholls, C.H.W., 130

Nicoll, A.F. (Archibald), 1216

Nicoll, Harry, 307–8

Nihotte, Armand, 1247

Nimitz, Fleet Admiral Chester, 360

Nimmo, Robert, 310, 349, 520, 593,

803, 864

Nordmeyer, Hon Sir Arnold, 46, 716,

1018, 1034– 5, 1037– 8

Norrie, Joseph, 1012– 13, 1195

North, Dr John, 253

Northcroft, Hon Sir Erima (Justice), 176, 198, 221, 970– 1

Northcroft, Dr Hilda, 1039– 40

Norway, invasion of, NZ reaction to, 90, 92–3, 110

Norwood, Sir Charles, 157

Nursing home nursing and first-aid courses,

1055

- New Zealand Army Nursing Service ( NZANS), 1114– 15

- VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment),

1055– 7

- volunteers in NZ, 1073, 1234– 5

O

- O'Brien, Hon James, 245, 913

- O'Leary, Rt Hon Sir Humphrey (Justice), 1163

- Oliver, Stanley, 1202, 1209, 1211

- O'Reilly, W.D., 189

- Oram, Hon Sir Matthew, 962– 3, 973,

993– 4, 995

- Organisation for National Security (ONS), 21

- Orr-Walker, Charles, 256, 726

- O'Shea, Hon Alexander, 312, 1104

- O'Shea, Archbishop, 760

- Ostler, H.A. (Alec), 218–19, 898– 901,

909– 10

- Ostler, Rt Hon Sir Hubert (Justice), 218, 229, 244, 898

- Ostova, Greta, 1209

- Overtime ( see also Forty-hour week),

692– 4, 953– 4, 1288– 9, 1290

- Owen, Rt Rev Reginald (Bishop of

Wellington), 288

P

Pacific Defence conference (1939), 29–30

Pacifists ( see also Peace and Anti- Conscription Council), 70, 84, 171–208

- books by, banned, 997, 1003,

1004– 5, 1008

- Christian ( see also Jehovah's Witnesses; New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society), 63–6, 127, 172–85, 203–4, 205–6, 244

- and conscription, 64, 84

- government and police action against, 180–2, 183, 186, 188–94, 195–205

- in Labour party, 22, 48

- not recognised as COs, 274–5

- public attitudes to ( see also under

Conscientious objectors), 80–2, 107, 172–9, 182–94, 202, 206–8, 224–5, 233

- in universities, 225–7, 1157– 67,

1165– 6, 1169– 71

- views on government treatment of COs, 248–50, 270

Packer, Prof John, 1151

Page, Evelyn, 1217

Page, Frederick, 1201– 2, 1209, 1211

Paikea, Hon Paraire, 1241

Painting, 1215– 18

Paris, Rev Percy, 63, 590, 592

Parliament, secret sessions, 925

Parry, E.S., 198

Parry, William, 482

Parsons, Mary, 1199– 200

Parsons, Roy, 1002

Patriotic funds, see Fund raising Paul, (David) Blackwood, 1189

Paul, Hon John, 351, 415, 648–9,

886– 90, 977– 8

- dealings with US censorship, 649–54, 656, 657, 935– 6

- handling of Billens case, 961– 3,

970– 4

- handling of Ostler case, 898– 902,

910

- motives and methods of, 936– 40,

946– 8, 920– 2

Peace and Anti-Conscription Council, 84, 86–8, 185, 186, 187, 218, 220

Peace Pledge Union, see New Zealand Peace Pledge Union Pentacostal church, 274–5

People's Movement, 102

Perry, Hon Sir William, 27, 177, 478,

881, 883

Pétain, Marshal Philippe, 111, 112–13

Petrol fuels used as substitutes for, 752– 5

- rationing of, 742– 52

- for commercial and official vehicles

- (1940), 322–6, 743, 745– 6,

748– 50

- causes industrial and EPS problems, 377–8, 380–1, 561–2

- for private cars, 320, 322–3,

743– 5, 747– 8

- temporary, (1939), 34, 134, 136, 319, 742

Pius XI, 123, 594

Pius XII, 123

Playcentres, 1097– 8, 1126– 7

Plomer, William, 1186

Poland invaded by Germany, NZ response to, 17–20

- relations with Russia, NZ fears about, 612–18

Police, 496–7, 991– 2

- employment by, 953– 4, 958– 9, 970,

1081– 2

Pollit, H., 56

Polson, Lady Mary, see Mary Grigg

Polson, Hon Sir William, 53, 241, 308, 418–19, 1037, 1045

Ponsonby, Lord Arthur (Baron of Shulbrede), 203

Population, 1037– 8, 1236– 7, 1239

Post Office censorship of mail and telegraph, see under Censorship employment in, 1079– 80

- services restricted, 847– 8

Prendeville, A.V., 399

Presbyterian church, 863, 1017

- attitude to war, 65–6, 131–2, 177–8

- views on COs, 242, 248–50, 252–3, 282

Press censorship of, see under Censorship publicity for war effort, see Publicity traditional relationship with Labour party, 911– 14, 972– 3

Price, Captain Richard, 430–1, 435, 438

Prices, 44

- clothing, 846– 7

- for farm produce, 36, 39, 777– 82,

785– 6, 1221– 6

- housing, 800– 1, 807– 8

- liquor, 1020– 1

- stabilisation of, 21, 34, 43–5, 150, 287, 319, 1291– 2

Priestley, J.B., 257, 972

Prisoners-of-war, 304

- fund-raising and parcels for, 154,

1054, 1286

- rehabilitation of, 1152, 1260, 1284

Propaganda, see Publicity Prostitution, 803, 972, 1014– 15,

1034– 6, 1049– 50

Public expenditure on the war effort,

1286– 7

Public Safety Conservation Act 1932, brought into force, 21

Public Safety Emergency Regulations

- (1940), 191, 212, 237–8, 242,

893

Public Service, 458, 1077– 9

Public works, provide work for unemployed, 35, 38, 40–3, 47, 94

Publicity, for war effort, 351–4, 361–2, 579–80, 888, 926– 8, 936– 40, 952

Publishing and censorship, see under

Censorship Puttick, Lt-Gen Sir Edward, 303, 351, 472, 474, 478, 926– 7

Q

- Quakers, see Society of Friends

R

Racing (horse), proposal to ban for duration of war, 306–9, 321–2, 343

Ralph, Eileen, 1204

Rationalist Association, 1009– 10

Rationing ( see also Shortages), 788– 9,

796, 813

- of clothes, 758– 61, 792– 6, 844

- fertiliser, 813, 814

- of food, see under Food

- of petrol, see under Petrol

- of wool, 762, 795

- prosecutions arising from, 751– 2,

821

Rawlinson, Gloria, 1186

Reclamation, see National Council for Reclamation of Waste Materials

Records, and archives, protection of, 540–2

Recruitment ( see also Conscription) after war declared, 33, 65, 68–84, 88–91, 110

- criticised by war resisters and anti- conscriptionists, 186–7, 215–16, 219–21, 234–5

- pre-war, 26–30

Red Cross American, in NZ, 629

- NZ, 162, 484, 486, 489, 1054– 5,

1066, 1139– 40

Refugees ( see also Aliens), 97, 851– 82,

1237, 1292– 3

- children, British, 133, 162–70

- correspondence censored, 979– 81

- in Europe, clothing and fund-raising for, 161–2, 1057– 9

- musicians, 1214– 15, 1293

Rehabilitation, of ex-service personnel, 74, 98, 1270– 85

- education and training, 1174– 9,

1271, 1276– 8, 1281– 3

- employment safeguarded, 1270– 1,

1275– 6, 1283– 5

- in farming, 1280– 1

- fund-raising for, 75, 154, 1270

- housing and, 805, 813, 1276– 8,

1279– 80

Reid, Frank, 1047

Reid, John, 998

Reid, Robert, 236, 241

Religion (Christian) freedom of, 234–43, 1008– 10

- and pacifism, see under Pacifism in schools, 129–32, 1134– 5

Reynaud, Paul, 111, 113

Rhodes, (Harold) Winston, 591

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 117

Richards, Rev Alun, 66, 1161– 5

Richards, Arthur, 46, 806, 894

Richardson, Maj-Gen Sir George, 172

Richardson, Harry Linley, 1216

Riddell, J., 199

Ripley, Gladys, 1203

Roberts, Benjamin, 1224

Roberts, Hon James (‘Big Jim’), 49, 105, 429–31, 439, 1290

Roberts, John, 376, 587, 591, 593, 617

Robertson, Sir Carrick, 96

Robertson, Hon John, 941

Rollings, William P., 1161, 1163– 4

Rollings, Rev Williams, 590

Roman Catholic church, 1017, 1060– 1,

1099

- attacks on, and by, censorship of, 597, 919– 21, 1008– 10

- foreign policy, 8–11, 66–7, 123, 583, 594–8, 1248

- relationship with Jehovah's Witnesses, 234–5, 237, 240

- views on COs and conscription, 83, 248–50

Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin, 334

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 637

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 117, 334–5,

717– 18, 719, 1245– 6, 1263

Ross, Sidney Gordon, 884

Row, Colonel Robert, 301

Roy, James, 228

Royal New Zealand Air Force, see Air Force

Royal New Zealand Navy, see Navy

RSA, see New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association

Rundstedt, Field Marshal Karl von,

1228

Russell, Sir Andrew, 478

Russell, Bertrand (Earl), 246, 282

Russia, NZ attitudes to up to invasion by Germany (1941) ( see also under Communists), 19–21, 50–63, 179, 184, 574–5

- after German invasion (1941), 351, 575–9, 619–20, 1157

- Anglo-Soviet agreement (1941), 580–605

- Anglo-Russian Alliance (1942), 605–12

- censorship of publications from and about, 999– 1001, 1006– 8

- need for second European front to relieve Russia (1941–2), recognised by NZ, 363–5, 584–6, 603, 605, 606–7, 614, 615–16

- post-war, 610–19, 1287, 1267

Rutherford, Lord Ernest (Baron of

Nelson), 1264

Rutherford, Joseph (‘Judge’), 235, 237, 238, 240

S

St John Ambulance Brigade, 486, 489,

1055, 1066

Salazar, Antonia, 1009

Salvation Army, 248–50, 1017, 1041,

1061

Samuel, Rt Hon Sir Herbert, 193

Sargent, Sir Malcolm, 1211

Sargeson, Frank, 1186, 1188

Satchell, William, 1185

Savage, Cedric, 1216

Savage, Rt Hon Michael Joseph, 6, 23, 45–9, 74, 76, 85

Scanlan, Nelle, 1193

Scarlett, R.J., 199

Scholefield, Dr Guy, 541

- comments on censorship, 202,

951– 2, 1011

- entries in war diary kept by, 324, 353–4, 378, 1019– 20

Schools ( see also Education), 495–7, 525–32, 1050– 1

Schorss, Erika, 1209

Schramm, Hon Frederick William, 53, 98

Schramm, Paul, 1209– 10

Scott, Walter, 188

Scrimgeour, Colin (‘Uncle Scrim’), 590, 592, 942

Security Intelligence Bureau, 884– 5

Seddon, Richard John, 913

Seddon, Thomas, 122

Semple, Hon Robert, 55, 121, 219–20, 232–3, 413, 457–8

- Minister of National Service, 453–8, 460–1

- Minister of Rehabilitation, 1272– 3,

1274– 5

- opposition to First World War, 194, 216, 245, 458

Semple, Mrs R., 1070

Seventh Day Adventists, recognised as COs, 244

Sewell, Prof William, 592, 657

Sexual behaviour and morality ( see also

Prostitution; Women and US troops),

1017– 19, 1029– 31, 1032– 43, 1045,

1049– 50

Shakespeare, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey, 163

Shaw, George Bernard, 60, 577

Shearer, A., 199

Sheat, William, 993– 4

Shelley, James, 1204

Sheppard, Canon Dick (Very Rev Hugh), 171–2, 178

Shipbuilding industry, 737– 41

Shortages ( see also Rationing), 755– 66,

768– 9, 947, 1229– 30, 1233

- building materials, 756, 808– 9

- china, glass and cutlery, 757– 8,

765– 6, 1233

- clothing, 775– 6, 758– 61, 790,

792– 4, 833– 47, 1233

- iron, 756

- liquor, 757

- paper, 755– 6, 1233, 1253

- petrol, see Petrol rubber, 769– 77

- tobacco, 768– 9

- wool, 762, 842

Sievwright, Archibald, 232–3, 592

Sievwright, James, 593

Silverstone, Harold, 907– 8

Silvester, D., 197, 199–200

Sim, L., 214

Sinclair, Rt Hon Sir Archibald, 93

Sinclair, H.I. (Huia), 1237

Sinclaire, Prof Frederick, 1188

Singapore, fall of (1942), NZ's reaction to, 330–44, 351, 474, 521

Skinner, Hon (Major) Clarence, 880,

1248, 1275, 1284– 5

Smith, Hon Sir David (Justice),

1162– 3, 1164, 1181, 1238

Smith, George, 414–15

Smith, G.M. (Dr George), 1188

Smithells, Olga, 1126– 7

Smithells, Philip, 1124

Snell, F.A., 230–1

Social Credit Movement, see New Zealand Social Credit Movement

Society for Closer Relations with Russia, 589–93, 595–7, 606, 609, 610–11, 617

Society for the Protection of Women and Children, 1042– 3

Society of Friends (Quakers), 171, 174, 248–50, 244

Soviet Union, see Russia

Soper, Prof Frederick, 1156

Spain, civil war in, NZ response to, 7–11, 67, 1183

Sparks, W., 213

Spencer Bower, (Olivia) Catherine,

1217

Spitfire funds, 156–61

Stabilisation ( see also Prices; Wages),

1290– 1

Stables, Margaret, 590

Stalin, Joseph, 53–4, 59, 584, 600, 615–16

- NZ opinions of, 594, 598, 603–4, 606, 607, 618

Stanley, Roy, 215, 593

Stanley, Tom, 209, 214

Stenberg, Ron, 1217

Stephens, Jack, 400

Stevenson, J.R., 347

Stewart, Catherine, 591

Stewart, William Downie, 942

Stimson, Henry, 627–8, 649–50, 1263

Stout, Sir Duncan, 1284– 5

Stout, John (SM), 122–3, 1043

- hearings related to pacifists and COs, 181, 189, 191–2, 199–200, 218, 267

Strongman, Charles, 399

Sullivan, Hon Daniel, 309, 413

Sumners, Hatton, 344

Sutch, W.B. (William), 1189

Sutherland, Andrew, 421

Sutton, W.A. (William), 1217

T

Taxation, 147–9, 1286

Taylor, (Ernest) Mervyn, 1217

Teachers fired for dissenting views, 124–32, 236–7, 1161– 6

- shortage of, 1120– 3, 1137

Territorial forces, 339, 472, 479–80

- activities and role of, 342, 450, 453, 470, 722– 3

- pre-war expansion of, 26, 27–8, 31–2, 69

Thomson, Sir George, 1263

Thompson, Sydney, 1216

Thorn, James, 216, 804, 913

Thorndike, Dame Sybil, 282

Timoshenko, Marshal Semyon, 602, 604, 606

Tirikatene, Hon Sir Eruera, 478

Tito, President Josep, 1259

Tojo, General Hideki, 395

Tole, Charles, 1216

Tole, John, 1216

Tombs, Harry, 1187

Toop, Ernest, 102

Trade, external, see External trade

Trade unions ( see also Federation of Labour; Industrial relations), 86–7, 637–41, 823– 5, 1290– 1

- cancellation of public holidays, reaction to, 133–4, 374–5, 379–80

- Communists in, 51–2, 55, 56, 62, 221–3, 226, 588–9

- conscription, views on, 83–5, 103, 104

- defence policy after declaration of war, 70–1 586–7

- pre-war, 4, 9–10, 11–12, 13–15, 16–17, 30

- Labour party, role in, 46, 49,

1290– 1

- views on manpower planning, 135–8, 309, 376–7, 712– 15

- views on censorship, 902– 12, 942

Transport bicycles and horses used for, 324–5,

771

- effects of blackout on, 504–5, 545–7

- effects of tyre shortage on, 769– 72

- emergency precautions for, 465–6, 561–2

- restrictions on travel ( see also Petrol), 320–2

- shipping, see Waterfront industry

Traub, Dr Michael, 1247– 8

Trotsky, Leon, 618

Truman, Harry S., 1246

Tuck, W.R., 384, 386, 387

Tyler, James, 517

Tyndall, Sir Arthur, 47

Tyrer, Anderson, 1202, 1204, 1206,

1212

U

Unemployment, 72, 136–7

- Depression (1930–5), 1–2, 35, 45–6, 171

- public works, provide work for unemployed, 35, 38, 40–3, 47, 94

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR), see Russia

Unions, see Trade unions

United Kingdom, see Britain

United States of America, NZ's

- relationship with, 334–5, 1245– 6

- American Pacific Fleet, seen as important to NZ safety, 316–17, 331–3, 353, 358–9, 371

- NZ back-up for US Pacific troops,

711– 14, 739– 41, 783– 4, 830– 1

- impact of troops on NZ society, see

United States troops in NZ US censorship of NZ press, 648–61

- US troops requested by NZ, 622–3, 633–7

United States troops in NZ, 364, 479, 625–31, 637–41

- effect on NZ entertainment scene, 624, 628–9, 630–1, 1023– 4,

1026, 1061– 2

- and NZ women, see Women and US troops problems resulting from, 546, 631–3, 643–8, 653–4, 1048– 58

Universities, 1148– 82, 1293

- pacifism and dissent in, 225–7,

1149– 50, 1157– 67, 1169– 71

- returned service personnel as students at, 1174– 9, 1281– 3

- students go to industry and armed forces, 1152– 3, 1171– 2

Upham, Charles, 305

Urquhart, H.R., 171, 282

V

- ‘V for Victory’ campaign, 585

- VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment),

1055– 7

- Vandewart, Marie, 1209

- Varnell, E.J., 1198

- Venereal disease, 1031, 1032– 7, 1049

- Victory certain, 1219– 22, 1228– 9, 1245– 6,

1259– 63

- in Europe, 1250– 9

- in Japan, 1263– 70

- Vogt, Anton, 1188

W

Wages, 668– 9, 1286, 1290, 1292

- and absenteeism, 684– 5

- for farm workers, 39–40

- for coal miners, 401–2

- for nurses, 1057, 1234– 5

- for women, 684– 7, 1075– 6, 1078,

1082– 3, 1104, 1232

- for watersiders, 440–1, 443, 637–41

- for young people, 1129– 30

- overtime, see Forty-hour week; Overtime

Waghorn, R.J. (Reginald), 1216

Walsh, Fintan Patrick, 1290

War Cabinet ( see also Coalition government), 109–10

War Council, proposed (1940), 104–7, 109–10

War memorials, 1244

War Purposes Fund, 145–6

Ward, James, 305

Ward, Right Hon Sir Joseph, 156–7

Water, emergency supplies of, 562–3

Waterfront industry, 429–49, 637–41

Watson, Gordon, 61, 212, 214

Wavell, Field Marshal Archibald (Viscount Wavell), 296, 302

Webb, Caroline, 1078– 9

Webb, Hon Patrick, 42, 55, 138, 245–6, 991

- as Minister of Labour and Mines, 372, 374, 378–82, 403, 406–18, 427–8

Weeks, John, 1215– 16

Welch, Nugent, 1216

Werner, Max (Alexandre Schiffrin),

1220

Weston, Claude, 866

White, Charles, 156–7

White, Lois, 1216

Whitlock, William, 963– 4, 969

Wilde, Leonard, 864

Wilkinson, Charles, 421

Wilkinson, Vice Admiral Theodore,

720

Williams, Charles, 163

Williams, General Sir Guy, 466, 467

Williams, Harold, 1204

Williams, General Leonard, 864

Willets, J., 199

Wilson, Hon David, 454, 455, 534,

938, 941

Wilson, George, 400

Wintringham, Tom, 462

Wodzicki, Dr (Count) Kazimierz, 1247

Women as cooks, effect of food shortages on ( see also under Food), 826– 8, 833

- drinking by, 1016– 18

- evacuation from urban areas, 531–40

- fortune-telling, by and for, 1043– 4

- jury service extended to, 1100– 1

- Maori, 682, 805– 7, 1030– 1, 1110,

1241, 1242– 3

- mobility restricted by blackout, 500, 503, 546

- organisations of, see Womens' organisations

- pacifists and anti-conscriptionists, 86, 198–9, 218, 1053

Womens' role in war-time, 94, 1053,

1062

in armed forces ( see also Women's forces, given below), 663

arming for self-defence, called for, 345–8

boost morale of troops, 340–1, 642–3

digging shelters, 511, 513

driving (voluntary), 1066– 7, 1071,

1073

in employment, see Women in employment

in Emergency Defence Corps, 464, 483, 486, 558–9, 1055, 1072

entertainment of troops ( see also Women and US troops), 91, 630,

1060– 2

fire-watching, 552

fund-raising, 1055, 1059– 60

letter-writing ( see also under Censorship), 1062

motherhood, 1096– 110, 1125– 7

national service proposed for, 102, 347, 1067

nursing, see Nursing supplies for troops (knitting, food parcels, etc), provided by, 91, 109, 133, 1053– 5

vegetable growing, 785, 1064– 6,

1070– 1

rural ( see also Women's Land Service), 43, 228, 540, 1101– 3

and sexual behaviour, 1017– 19,

1030– 2 ( see also Women and US troops) contraception and abortion,

1037– 40

- prostitution, 803, 972, 1014– 15,

1049– 50

- unmarried mothers, 1040– 3

wives and relatives of service personnel, 731, 1284, 1059, 1065

Women in employment, 148, 1288,

1293

- child care facilities for, 1096– 110

- in domestic work, 1092– 3

- in hotels, shops and restaurants,

1088, 1093– 4

- industrial conscription of, 675– 84,

1074

- absenteeism of, 686– 7, 688– 90,

691– 2, 696– 7

- meatworkers, 382–4, 678– 80

- in non-traditional occupations, 143–4, 734, 735, 1074– 7,

1082– 92, 1103

- in the State Services, 1077– 82

- wages of, 684– 7, 1075– 6, 1078,

1082– 3, 1104, 1232

Women and US troops, 624–6, 629, 641–5, 661, 689, 1049– 50

- article on, censored, 966– 7, 972

- resentment of, by NZ soldiers, 633, 643–5, 648, 653, 657, 728

Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF),

1064, 1072, 1111– 13

Women's Auxiliary Army Corps ( WAAC), 1064, 1112– 14

Women's Land Service (Army), 669,

682, 1065– 6, 1101– 11, 1041– 3

Women's National Service Corps, 511,

1063– 4

Women's organisations, 1053– 4,

1041– 3, 1068– 70

- Farmers' Union, division of (WDFU), 228, 1053, 1099,

1102– 3

- Lady Galway Guild, 161, 1057– 9,

1261

- National Council of Women, 33, 80,

1042– 3, 1099

- National Service Movement branch, 107, 109

- submissions and statements on liquor laws, 1016, 1018

Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service (WRNZNS), 1112– 14

Women's War Service Auxiliary (WWSA), 453, 489, 493, 542–3,

677, 1064– 5, 1068– 74, 1112– 14

Wood, Lord Edward (Earl of Halifax), 353

Wood, Prof Frederick, 1205– 6

Wood, Joan, 1126

Woodley, J.H., 197

Woodward, William (SM), 1238

Woollaston, Sir Tosswill, 1215

Wright, Hon Robert, 593

Writing ( see also under Censorship),

1183– 93

Y

- Yamamoto, Admiral Isoruku, 360

- Young, Guy, 966– 7

- Young, Michael, 179, 185, 200

- Young, Maj-Gen Robert, 454, 458, 464

- Young people, 1016, 1027, 1045– 52,

1125– 7

- Yugoslavs, resident in NZ, 851, 862,

872, 883, 979

Table of Contents

- digital title page and colophon

- Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45 THE HOME FRONT

- [covers]

- Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45 THE HOME FRONT

- National Savings poster
- [titlePage]
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Metric Conversion
- CHAPTER 15 Manpower is Directed
- CHAPTER 16 The Shoe Pinches
- CHAPTER 17 More Shortages
- CHAPTER 18 Aliens
- CHAPTER 19 Censorship
- CHAPTER 20 Camp Followers
- CHAPTER 21 Women At War
- CHAPTER 22 Education
- CHAPTER 23 The Arts Survive
- CHAPTER 24 Victory at Last
- Sources
- Sources
- [section]
- A. UNPUBLISHED
- B. OFFICIAL PUBLISHED SOURCES
- C. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS
- D. GENERAL PUBLISHED SOURCES
- Index