The Boys In Blue: New Zealand's Emergency Years
Part A: The 1935-1945 Labour Government
On the night of Wednesday, 27th November, 1935, a large crowd gathered outside the Evening Post office in Willis Street, Wellington. As they had four years earlier, they had come to watch the large screen election results.
Election night crowd
It had been a difficult four years. Four years of unemployment, four years of sugar bags being sewn into clothes. Four years of grinding poverty and deprivation.
The papers all said the economy was on the mend, that Coates' daring currency devaluation had worked, and that he and Prime Minister Forbes ought to be thanked for steering the nation through such a major crisis. But the crowd on Willis Street was having none of that. The Reform-United Coalition deserved to be thrown out on its ear. But voting the rotters out was one thing. Who would take their place was another. Could Labour be trusted? Some shook their heads. That Holland was a Bolshevik, they said. Others said that Bolshevism sounded a damn good idea after the hell the Coalition had put the country through.
As the results came in, seat after seat fell to Labour. From Invercargill and Dunedin, to Mid-Canterbury, to Masterton and Manawatu, and even to Tauranga and Bay of Plenty, the country was turning red. In many cases the Government was splitting the right-wing vote with the small Democratic Party, just as Labour had hoped and the press had feared.
As the night wore on, the result became a rout, in seats if not quite in vote share. The Reform and United loyalists in the crowd muttered darkly about "combined conservative votes", but their socialist brethren were having none of it. Tonight they would walk back home, knowing that the forces of hope and light had triumphed over greed and darkness.
1935 election results
Labour: 45 seats (42% of the vote)
Reform-United: 24 seats (35% of the vote)
Democrats: 3 seats (10% of the vote)
Country Party: 2 seats (2% of the vote)
Ratana: 2 seats (1% of the vote)
Independents: 4
Harry Holland had become leader of New Zealand's first Labour Government
Harry Holland
In front of the Westport Town Hall, the 67 year old Holland openly wept amid the swarming newspaper reporters. He had never thought he would live to see this day, especially after the health problems and minor heart attack a couple of years back. Some in the party had muttered about him being too old, and too extreme to appeal to voters in marginal seats, especially women. After 1931 the papers had piled on too, mocking him for not understanding the fine detail of policy. There had been dark nights when he'd nearly considered quitting.
But no, tonight the people of New Zealand had thrown off the shackles of capitalism. A new socialist dawn awaited, and as with the old Ballance Liberals forty years earlier, the country would again be the envy of the world.
"A socialist utopia is all well and good, Mr Holland," said a reporter. "Or should I say, Prime Minister Holland, but throughout the campaign Mr Forbes and Mr Coates suggested that you are an extremist. What do you say to that now?"
Holland wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
"Ah," he said with a smile. "“What man is worthwhile if he is not an extremist? Would Christ ever have gone to the Cross if He had not been an extremist? Would the primitive Christians, especially during the first three centuries of Christian history, ever have been called upon to endure what they endured if they had not been extremists? Would the Christians have made Christianity the power it eventually became if they had not been extremists? Who would object to a man being extremely honest?”
Part A: The 1935-1945 Labour Government
On the night of Wednesday, 27th November, 1935, a large crowd gathered outside the Evening Post office in Willis Street, Wellington. As they had four years earlier, they had come to watch the large screen election results.
Election night crowd
It had been a difficult four years. Four years of unemployment, four years of sugar bags being sewn into clothes. Four years of grinding poverty and deprivation.
The papers all said the economy was on the mend, that Coates' daring currency devaluation had worked, and that he and Prime Minister Forbes ought to be thanked for steering the nation through such a major crisis. But the crowd on Willis Street was having none of that. The Reform-United Coalition deserved to be thrown out on its ear. But voting the rotters out was one thing. Who would take their place was another. Could Labour be trusted? Some shook their heads. That Holland was a Bolshevik, they said. Others said that Bolshevism sounded a damn good idea after the hell the Coalition had put the country through.
As the results came in, seat after seat fell to Labour. From Invercargill and Dunedin, to Mid-Canterbury, to Masterton and Manawatu, and even to Tauranga and Bay of Plenty, the country was turning red. In many cases the Government was splitting the right-wing vote with the small Democratic Party, just as Labour had hoped and the press had feared.
As the night wore on, the result became a rout, in seats if not quite in vote share. The Reform and United loyalists in the crowd muttered darkly about "combined conservative votes", but their socialist brethren were having none of it. Tonight they would walk back home, knowing that the forces of hope and light had triumphed over greed and darkness.
1935 election results
Labour: 45 seats (42% of the vote)
Reform-United: 24 seats (35% of the vote)
Democrats: 3 seats (10% of the vote)
Country Party: 2 seats (2% of the vote)
Ratana: 2 seats (1% of the vote)
Independents: 4
Harry Holland had become leader of New Zealand's first Labour Government
Harry Holland
In front of the Westport Town Hall, the 67 year old Holland openly wept amid the swarming newspaper reporters. He had never thought he would live to see this day, especially after the health problems and minor heart attack a couple of years back. Some in the party had muttered about him being too old, and too extreme to appeal to voters in marginal seats, especially women. After 1931 the papers had piled on too, mocking him for not understanding the fine detail of policy. There had been dark nights when he'd nearly considered quitting.
But no, tonight the people of New Zealand had thrown off the shackles of capitalism. A new socialist dawn awaited, and as with the old Ballance Liberals forty years earlier, the country would again be the envy of the world.
"A socialist utopia is all well and good, Mr Holland," said a reporter. "Or should I say, Prime Minister Holland, but throughout the campaign Mr Forbes and Mr Coates suggested that you are an extremist. What do you say to that now?"
Holland wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
"Ah," he said with a smile. "“What man is worthwhile if he is not an extremist? Would Christ ever have gone to the Cross if He had not been an extremist? Would the primitive Christians, especially during the first three centuries of Christian history, ever have been called upon to endure what they endured if they had not been extremists? Would the Christians have made Christianity the power it eventually became if they had not been extremists? Who would object to a man being extremely honest?”
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