Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 19141920 1988531527, 9781988531526

Table of contents :
Epigraph
Contents
Maps of New Zealand Postal Routes, 1917
Foreword • Charlotte Macdonald
Abbreviations
Part I: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
1 A scheme of censorship
Part II: Against King and Country
2 The only Germans among the worms
3 To hell with them all
4 For dearer the grave or the prison
5 The camp in the bush
Part III: Spies, Sex and Subversion
6 Might is right
7 My Dear Doctor
8 Yours for Direct Action
9 Patriotism will not pay my bills
10 A new form of government
Postscript
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview



DEAD

LETTERS CENSORSHIP AND SUBVERSION IN NEW ZEALAND 1914–1920

JARED DAVIDSON

5

DEAD LETTERS

PRAISE FOR DEAD LETTERS FROM OTHER HISTORIANS

The system of censorship put in place during the First World War in New Zealand has until now received very little attention. In this important book Jared Davidson makes great use of previously unused archival material to reveal a fascinating story of interesting characters, and offers thought-provoking insights into the New Zealand home front experience during a terrible global struggle. — JOHN CRAWFORD

Dead Letters up-ends our comfortable ideas of a united society pulling together during wartime. Instead, thousands of New Zealanders were targets of what we would consider outrageous invasions of privacy by their own government because of their politics, lifestyles or simply birthplace. Davidson’s wonderful writing carries readers along through a world of activists, free-thinkers, conscription dodgers and those who simply would not conform to society’s norms. For all its colour and scandal, Davidson’s book is a sobering reminder of the power of governments during wartime to not only intercept private communications, but to affect relationships. As Davidson says, every letter in the censorship archive is a letter that never arrived, a connection broken. — KATE HUNTER

In ‘national emergencies’ the state penetrates more deeply than ever into the privacy of individuals, especially those opposed to or disquieted by official policies. Davidson’s examination of letters confiscated by official censors in First World War era New Zealand provides a fascinating account of the complex relationship between such dissentients and their surveillers. Along the way, Davidson’s investigative skills reveal a great deal about people whose lives conflate the ordinary and the extraordinary. — RICHARD S. HILL 2



These intercepted letters reveal dark and wonderful corners of New Zealand history. Davidson has done a superb job of rescuing long-suppressed voices from official oblivion. — MARK DERBY

Dead Letters brings welcome light to a murky part of New Zealand’s past, revealing the history of wartime censorship and giving voice to accounts long left silent. It will prove an important book in study and discussion of state power, wartime society and non-conformity. — STEVEN LOVERIDGE

The letters under discussion are anything but dead. Revelling in the texture, the handwriting, the smell, the very tangible form of the surviving correspondence, Dead Letters conveys the thrill of discovery as well as the indignation of injustice. … In telling the history of the letters’ authors and addressees, alongside the context in which correspondence was conducted, the chapters unfold an extraordinary, sometimes tragic, sometimes farcical, often funny insight into who and what it was that challenged police and defence authorities. — CHARLOTTE MACDONALD

Jared Davidson is to be congratulated on a terrific achievement, one that (almost miraculously, after years of centenary commemorations) tells us something different and enlarging about the war experience of New Zealanders. Most memorably, through nine chapters, all equally successful, the text shines a light on a dozen or so individuals whose lives will forever inhabit the awareness of those who meet them in the pages of this work. — MALCOLM McKINNON

3

DEAD LETTERS

4



DEAD LETTER S

1

DEAD LETTERS

Published by Otago University Press Level 1, 398 Cumberland Street Dunedin, New Zealand [email protected] www.otago.ac.nz/press First published 2019 Copyright © Jared Davidson The moral rights of the author have been asserted. ISBN 978-1-98-853152-6 (print) ISBN 978-1-98-853193-9 (ePub) ISBN 978-1-98-853194-6 (Kindle mobi) ISBN 978-1-98-853195-3 (ePDF) A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand. This book is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair review, no part may be stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording or storage in any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. No reproduction may be made, whether by photocopying or by any other means, unless a licence has been obtained from the publisher. Published with the assistance of Creative New Zealand

Editor: Gillian Tewsley Design: Jared Davidson and Fiona Moffat Maps: Allan J. Kynaston Author photo: Simon Jay Front cover: Chief Post Office mail room, Wellington, 1920. AAME 8106 W5603 Box 126, Archives New Zealand, Wellington

Frontispiece: Opened and confiscated letter addressed to Auckland music teacher William Henry Webbe. AAYS 8647 AD10 Box 10/19/9, Archives New Zealand, Wellington. Ebook conversion 2019 by meBooks 6



‘This is the crime of war: it reduces human beings to abstract numbers.’ – Ha Jin, War Trash

7

DEAD LETTERS

8

Contents

CO N T E N TS MAPS OF NEW ZEALAND POSTAL ROUTES, 1917 

10

FOREWORD  CHARLOTTE MACDONALD 

13

ABBREVIATIONS 

17

PART I 



BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

1 A scheme of censorship 

20

PART II 



AGAINST KING AND COUNTRY



2 The only Germans among the worms 



3 To hell with them all  74



4 For dearer the grave or the prison 



5 The camp in the bush 

54 94 116

PART III 



SPIES, SEX AND SUBVERSION



6 Might is right  138



7 My Dear Doctor 

160



8 Yours for Direct Action 

178





9 Patriotism will not pay my bills  10 A new form of government 

200 220

POSTSCRIPT 

238

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

245

NOTES 

247

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

273

INDEX 

289 9

DEAD LETTERS

NORTH ISLAND

10

Contents

Maps of the North and South Islands of New Zealand, showing postal routes and railway lines, c.1917. Allan Kynaston

SOUTH ISLAND

11

DEAD LETTERS

12

Foreword

F OR E WO R D CHA R LO TTE MACDO N A LD

I

f we are tempted to think of threats to privacy solely as a problem of the digital age, we should think again. Jared Davidson’s Dead Letters opens the lid on the extensive and systematic postal censorship of private letters in New Zealand in the years c.1914–1920. Privacy, it seems, counted for little in the face of the threat of war. Moreover, Davidson suggests it was state interests more broadly that justified interference in everyday correspondence, not solely the protection of military matters. What was learned in wartime years served as the foundation of a longer running machinery of state surveillance. Among the millions of pieces of mail passing through the postal system were those that were opened, read and sometimes detained by censors working in back offices. The letters that remain from this Secret Registry form the heart of this story, and Davidson sets out to reveal that heart. The letters under discussion are anything but dead. Revelling in the texture, the handwriting, the smell, the very tangible form of the surviving correspondence, Dead Letters conveys the thrill of discovery as well as the indignation of injustice. The archivist can also be a purveyor of secrets. Throughout, Davidson is at pains to unveil what has been hidden. Revelation is a key plot here. So, too, is resistance and dissent. In telling the history of the letters’ authors and addressees, alongside the context in which correspondence was conducted, the chapters unfold an extraordinary, sometimes tragic, 13

DEAD LETTERS

sometimes farcical, often funny insight into who and what it was that challenged police and defence authorities. Who was it, and what was it that the state found dangerous? Those suspected of socialist, anarchist, IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) convictions – perhaps not surprisingly. But also casual labourers, and those who were simply unconvinced that war was being fought for larger ideals rather than for profit. Suspected enemy aliens, and those who wrote too much, too often or in the wrong places also fell into the net. And most extraordinarily, perhaps, is a woman who preferred to dress in masculine attire, but whose health institution had been opened with fanfare by none other than Prime Minister William Massey as recently as 1912. Exploring this group of people from letters caught in the web of state censorship enables Davidson to write a history from below. That goal frames the study and brings its actors – nonconformists, dissidents, political activists – into the light of a radical heroism. Dead Letters expands the view of dissent during wartime, and the scale of state action. Beyond the pacifists and conscientious objectors were ordinary and not-so-ordinary citizens, workers, correspondents for whom the war was a provocation, or whose simple existence was inconsistent with a narrow-focused view of social order and patriotic effort. It is a history that is simultaneously deeply human and seriously chilling. As Davidson notes, the state was ‘run ragged’ keeping tabs on all those who might threaten the smooth preservation of social order at home and a united war effort abroad. The world of agitators, nonconformists, socialists, anarchists, Irish nationalists, questioners of authority, visionaries (including a dairy farmer poet and prophet seeking news of Bolshevism) and a ‘Von der boch’ stirring questions of the ethics of war capitalism in Waitara, is a New Zealand beyond the pieties of the war memorial. Dead Letters takes us to the ordinary world of everyday correspondence as well as to the extraordinary world of political dissent and state secrets. The letters that frame each chapter convey 14

Foreword

the everyday nature of exchange, the ways in which mail sent and received served as threads between families, between lovers (present, past, hoped for), between couples, between comrades, and between strangers. Mail was connection, vital to keeping relationships, political ideas and social movements alive. And in that force lay its danger, a danger appreciated by a number of correspondents. Even as they wrote, many knew their words were likely to fall into the censor’s hands. Dead Letters reminds us that the First World War was fought in conditions of political turbulence. It is an important reminder, as the historical discourse of 1914–18 has come to be strongly characterised by rather too neatly drawn themes of consensual patriotism, duty and sacrifice. That turbulence existed on both sides of the Tasman. It is telling how many of the letters were addressed to contacts in Australia. While proximity partly accounts for this pattern, it is also a reflection of the contrasting political circumstances in which the war was fought in New Zealand and Australia. For a number of correspondents, Australia would serve as a place of flight or refuge. Letters are powerful mapping devices. In the correspondence within Dead Letters we find the coordinates of political dissent in early twentieth-century Aotearoa New Zealand. Letters, in that they are written in one place yet destined for another, provide us with a precise geography of connections. What emerges from this unique collection of ‘dangerous’ letters is a map of radical New Zealand c.1914–1920 and its connections with the wider world. To the more obvious nodes of the main city centres of political action we can now add a host of places where dissent was at work: Mangōnui, Waitara, Eketāhuna, Raetihi, suburban Dunedin, Ngākawau, Swanson, Utiku, Bunnythorpe. Dead Letters provokes interesting and important questions: if the Secret Registry tells us something of who the state found dangerous in the early twentieth century, who falls under that heading in the early twenty-first century? Who do the letters in the registry 15

DEAD LETTERS

belong to? They are in state custody as part of the public record, but they have arrived there by a breach of postal delivery service. Under what conditions can, or should, the state intervene in private communications? Dead Letters presents these questions while celebrating, exulting even, in a history of resistance, of historical actors who stood against tyranny, authoritarianism and capitalism. And the author is aware of the ultimate irony of the study: that to tell such a history is possible only because of the censorship and detention of letters through the system of surveillance. We are, at once, critical of and indebted to the state machinery of censorship. We have come to understand the First World War as a critical point in the shaping of modern citizenship. But what do the exercise of censorship and the beginnings of an apparatus of state surveillance tell us of the constraints of citizen rights? If the development of the modern nation state is also a history of what Edward Higgs terms ‘the information state’, how might sanctioned censorship be imagined as a necessary activity of twentieth-century governments? In regard to privacy, specifically, how might we link the advent of near-universal literacy, the enormously powerful reach of global postal systems and the legislatively guaranteed confidentiality of private correspondence with the social relations forged under capitalism? How do we understand a history of privacy in both collective and personal forms? The story of privacy in Dead Letters is one in which the collective was at stake. For the censor, as for the censored (the socialist, dissident, nonconformist, ‘alien’), it was the collective that counted. In the early twenty-first century, privacy has taken on more of an individual aspect, a property right to be protected from identity theft. Dead Letters invites us into a world that challenges the present and the past.

16

Abbreviations

ABBREVIATIONS

IRB IWW NZEF NZSP NZWU PPA PRU UDC

Irish Republican Brotherhood Industrial Workers of the World New Zealand Expeditionary Force New Zealand Socialist Party New Zealand Workers’ Union Protestant Political Association Passive Resisters Union Union of Democratic Control

17

DEAD LETTERS

18

Abbreviations

PAR T I BET WEEN T H E D EV I L AN D T H E D EEP BLU E SEA

19

DEAD LETTERS

Colonel Charles Gibbon, chief censor.  1/1-013982-G, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington 20

1

1 A S C H EME OF CENSOR SH I P

H

ad he arrived six months earlier he would have been welcomed with jeers or even a piece of Ghuznee Street ripped up and hurled at him in anger – if his ship had been able to berth at all. Now that the Great Strike was over, the waterfront was safe for men like Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Gibbon. Still, gazing upon Wellington harbour from the steamship Rotorua, Gibbon must have wondered what this assignment would bring. The tall, 36-year-old British officer, whose amicable face offset a saturnine and resolved stare, had been posted to New Zealand as chief of general staff in April 1914. With him were his wife Margaret, his three-year-old daughter Mary, and the honour of the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers. While the scenery was new, the scenario was not: this was his third imperial stint, having fought the Boer at Colenso and Tugela Heights during the South African War of 1899–1902, and served as staff captain of the Intelligence Branch in India. Gibbon’s military eye took note as the ship passed under numerous gun emplacements and edged closer to the city. At that time New Zealand’s capital was a patchwork of timber dwellings and light industry, fringed by steep hills that squeezed the city against the shoreline. Here the iron gates of the waterfront jostled with brick sheds and towering cranes, lit up so that labourers could work overnight. Beyond them Gibbon could see the narrow streets that led from the reclaimed harbour through the city’s commercial 21

DEAD LETTERS

centre, made up of ornamented two- to three-storey buildings like the General Post Office, and up to the military site of Alexandra Barracks, a fortress-like complex that perched ominously over the working-class slums of Te Aro and Aro Valley. Today, the Pukeahu National War Memorial stands in its place, but in 1914 the barracks and its offshoot buildings were home to a number of imperial officers who, like Gibbon, were on loan to the New Zealand military. It was the formation of a local section of the Imperial General Staff in 1911 that had brought them to the dominion. The exchange of staff and sharing of command structures was designed to forge strong imperial links and, to the joy of lobbyists like the New Zealand Defence League, strengthen the case for New Zealand’s involvement in the empire’s conflicts. It also gave officers like Gibbon a chance to extend their career while taking a break from duties elsewhere. Only it wasn’t a break. With feelings about the Great Strike running high and war clouds looming over Europe, Gibbon knew this was no holiday. What Gibbon did not know was that he had sailed straight into the middle of a separate but related scrap. Had he browsed any back issues of New Zealand newspapers during his trip he may have read of the 7000 youths prosecuted in 1913 for refusing to comply with compulsory military training.1 Organisations like the ‘Red’ Federation of Labour, the Anti-Militarist League, the National Peace Council and the Passive Resisters Union were not happy with what they saw as the militarisation of New Zealand society. Through stickers, pamphlets, mass open-air meetings and civil disobedience, their members conducted a novel and disruptive anti-militarist campaign. Passive Resisters Union (PRU) members ignored fines resulting from prosecutions; and when they were jailed, they refused orders and staged successful hunger strikes. Close to 60,000 youths would attend military training before the outbreak of war. Yet at the time of Gibbon’s arrival, the Defence Department still had a fight on its hands.2 22

A scheme of censorship

After an introduction to the city’s notorious winds, Gibbon met Defence Minister James Allen and his new colleagues, and picked up where his predecessor – now on the way back to England – had left off. Whatever routine Gibbon settled in to, however, was swiftly dashed. Three months after his arrival, New Zealand’s rulers hastened to join what has been called one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage.3 The First World War would eventually claw its way across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the world’s oceans, taking 40 million casualties with it. It was known as the Great War because of its scale. The label is misleading – there was little great about it. Empire building and the desire for new economic markets, political and military alliances, white supremacy, nationalism and the breakneck development of industry came together in a bitter cocktail. No event before it had changed the lives of so many people, for the violence of modern imperialism had boomeranged on its originators with terrible consequences.4 On 5 August 1914 the New Zealand government publicly committed men and materiel to the British cause. Despite the prewar resistance to compulsory military training, dissenting voices were few and far between. Protests like that of unionist Paddy Webb, who decried war as pitting worker against worker at a meeting at the Globe Theatre in Auckland, were overshadowed by the moment, the media and years of creeping militarism.5 The decision of the Upper House of Parliament was not greeted with universal enthusiasm, however. Responses to the war included passive acceptance, sober reflection and the dread of things to come.6 Active resistance would come later. New Zealand’s substantial participation in the First World War changed lives forever, not least Gibbon’s. His peacetime assignment to the Antipodes morphed into the role of chief censor and chief of general staff. Besides censorship, Gibbon was tasked with organising military camps, training reinforcements, staff tours, war policy and 23

DEAD LETTERS

spreading the British military’s infatuation with discipline. At this he was brilliant and capable. Diligent to the end, Gibbon’s one regret on leaving in June 1919 was that he had not had a better opportunity to make the acquaintance of the people of New Zealand.7 It was a strange remark given his immersion in the private thoughts of hundreds of letter writers. True, he may never have met the people he directed search warrants against, but Gibbon and the military were firmly in charge of wartime postal censorship. By November 1920, when the censorship of domestic mail officially came to an end, any military rationale for opening and examining people’s private letters had long since passed. Instead, Gibbon had overseen a scheme of censorship used to silence those who had threatened the war effort, the political economy or the state itself: pacifists, socialists, unionists, military defaulters, aliens (those not of British nationality), Irish Catholics, Māori and anyone else hostile to the British Empire.8 Writers critical of the government had their mail detained, were put under close surveillance, or had their homes or offices raided. Some were jailed. Others were deported. In an era when post was paramount, the wartime censorship of correspondence heralded the largest state intrusion into Pākehā private life in New Zealand history. For men like Gibbon, this was entirely justified. Sons and daughters of empire had fought the bloodiest and most industrialised conflict the world had ever seen. New Zealand soldiers were killed or maimed in higher numbers than ever before; loose pens giving away military intelligence might as well have been stabbing them in the back. Yet censorship was not just about protecting military information – it also protected the state and its interests. ‘It seems to me,’ wrote Deputy Chief Postal Censor Walter Tanner, ‘that in times of danger to the State, when individuals or societies are reasonably believed to be acting against the safety of the State, an examination of internal correspondence is fully justified.’9 And while Gibbon’s colleagues 24

A scheme of censorship

argued that ‘care is necessary in the exercise of special powers which the law does not confer upon the Government in times of peace’, such principles, though admirably stated, did not pan out in practice.10 Like most governments during the First World War, the New Zealand authorities used military means for political ends. Of the 24 pages of quarterly reports written by Tanner, a mere 12 lines mentioned the censorship of naval or military information of any value to the enemy. Those convicted of publishing such information were fined up to £10. Anyone who criticised the actions of the New Zealand government was fined £100 (close to $20,000 in today’s money) or was given 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour. By the end of the war, 287 people had been charged or jailed for seditious or disloyal remarks under the War Regulations.11 Per capita, this was far greater than in Britain, where 422 people of a population of over 42 million were convicted or jailed for sedition under the Defence of the Realm Regulations. In fact, arrests for sedition in Britain were lower still, as this figure included offences such as evading censorship, spreading false war news or using fraudulent passports.12 The land Gibbon had left behind was more tolerant of criticism than the New Zealand administration. In August 1914, all of this was yet to happen. As Gibbon took stock of his new role, the writers whose lives would be forever altered by his handiwork were also coming to grips with a world at war. Among them was a feisty German-born socialist, a Norwegian watersider, an affectionate Irish nationalist, a love-struck miner, an aspiring Maxim Gorky, a cross-dressing doctor, a nameless rural labourer, an avid letter writer with a hatred of war, and two mystical dairy farmers with a poetic bent. In time their letters were stopped, confiscated and filed away, never to be seen by their intended audience. They are the letters that make up this book. Most of them have remained sealed and unread for over 100 years. The militarism that had brought Gibbon halfway across the world, forced the country’s youth to drill, and led New Zealand into 25

DEAD LETTERS

total war was about to steam its way into people’s private mail. Things would never be the same again. ‘TREASONABLE CORRESPONDENCE’

While peeking into mail is as old as letter writing itself, postal censorship developed with modern postal services and the introduction of demographic recording of the populace by the state. Britain’s General Post Office was formed in 1657 to deliver mail and to ‘discover and prevent many dangerous and wicked designs which have been and are daily contrived against the peace and welfare of the commonwealth’.13 Following on from the introduction of census-taking and the recording of births, deaths and marriages, the desire to know what people were writing was part of the move to make the nascent labour force more ‘legible’ to the state. And at the peak of the mercantilist era, a Secret Office was formed to intercept, read and decipher coded correspondence from nations abroad. The Secret Office remained a secret for close to 200 years until Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian nationalist living in London, discovered that his letters had been tampered with.14 To confirm his suspicions, Mazzini asked his correspondents to put poppy seeds, strands of hair and grains of sand in their envelopes. The envelopes arrived empty. With the support of radical MP Thomas Duncombe, in 1844 Mazzini petitioned the House of Commons, where it was finally disclosed that the government had been opening letters since the reign of Queen Anne. The news was a national scandal and the Secret Office was closed down. This shadowy office’s functions flew in the face of accepted notions of British liberty. Freedom of post had supposedly been protected with an Act passed in 1711: no letters were to be opened or detained without a warrant from a secretary of state.15 Between 1712 and 1844, 473 of these warrants were issued to stifle ‘dangerous tendencies’ or ‘treasonable correspondence’.16 And 26

A scheme of censorship

although the Secret Office was abolished after that date, the power to issue warrants remained in place. After 1844 only a few warrants of a general nature had been issued, mainly to dampen protest in Ireland. In 1881 and 1882 there were frequent questions in the House of Commons about letters being secretly opened in Ireland. The exact nature of the warrants were carefully concealed by the Home Secretary. ‘This is a power which is reserved for the purposes of the State,’ cried Lewis Harcourt, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and its employment was ‘an act of the gravest responsibility not to be exercised except upon urgent necessity for the safety of the State’.17 As a result, when war broke out in 1914, the British chief postal censor believed that ‘no one in the United Kingdom had had any experience of a general and continued violation of the privacy of postal correspondence’.18 New Zealand’s postal service was much younger. Erratic, patchy mail exchange existed in the provinces from the 1820s. The national postal service took off with the advent of British government in 1840, the Local Posts Act of 1856 and the Post Office Act of 1858. Provincial councils created their own offices, while central government maintained overland postal services and a head office in each province. By 1880, a year before the Post and Telegraph Department was formed, nearly 24 million letters had been posted between 856 post offices, iron pillarboxes and town letter carriers.19 In 1914 alone, 110 million letters and 5 million postcards were sent – around 160 items per person in New Zealand.20 Postal censorship did not factor into the lives of most Pākehā, as early colonial New Zealand was not a tightly regulated society. In 1845, however, mail was subject to state counter-subversion. At that time the enemy within were Māori resisting the Crown’s insistence that it had gained sovereignty over New Zealand. During the Northern Wars of 1845–46, select personnel were authorised to secretly open any letter or document believed to contain ‘treasonable material’.21 From then on resident magistrates, who in many cases 27

DEAD LETTERS

were also the local postmasters, intercepted mail whenever they felt the need. The 1858 Post Office Act made this temporary situation permanent: it allowed the governor to issue warrants and direct postmasters to ‘open, detain, or delay any Post Letter, for any purpose in such warrant mentioned’.22 In 1863 Governor George Grey used this loosely worded law to justify the military invasion of the Waikato. ​On 4 July he produced letters for the British government that implied an impending attack on Auckland by the Kīngitanga, the Māori King movement.23 None of the letters gave details of any bloodthirsty plots, only rumours of impending danger.24 Keen to produce something more useful to his cause, Grey kept an eye on future letters but failed to intercept anything to back up his claims. The invasion went ahead regardless. Five years later, as the government waged war on the peoples of Taranaki, letters were taken from villages that had been destroyed by colonial troops, and scanned for military and political intelligence. During the campaign against guerrilla leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki, messages to and from him were intercepted and carefully analysed for meaning.25 While those who were constructed as ‘racial others’, such as Māori and Chinese, had long been subject to state control, it was not until the 1890s that a flurry of censorship laws began to impact on Pākehā. As historian Paul Christoffel puts it, ‘The growth of socially conservative movements and a more interventionist style of government led to a burst of censorship activity after 1890.’26 Laws that allowed censoring of ‘indecent’ or ‘obscene’ material sent through the post were passed in 1892, 1893, 1894, 1900, 1905 1906, 1908, 1910 and 1913. Most of these targeted publications of a sexual nature such as erotica, any mention of venereal disease, and the topic of birth control. The legislation used against indecent material was often based on vagrancy laws that criminalised the idle and itinerant poor – illustrating the relationship between morality, capitalism, and the state. For those whose interests depended on the status quo, 28

A scheme of censorship

the decline of one could ultimately lead to the decline of the others. In this regard censorship is inseparable from social control and its deeper motives. The 1893 Post Office Amendment Act gave any postmaster ‘the right to detain and destroy any newspaper, packet or parcel which he believed to contain any publication of an indecent, immoral, or obscene nature’.27 A decade later these powers were extended to prevent anyone involved in fraudulent, obscene, immoral or unlawful business, or mail that advertised the treatment of sexual diseases.28 The net widened even further with the South African War. ‘The advisability of having a scheme of censorship was clearly shown during the recent war,’ wrote the secretary of state for the colonies in 1904. ‘But at the outset the fact that no definitive arrangements had been previously made prevented full advantage being taken of the power in British hands.’29 To make sure the Empire was better prepared next time, steps were taken to align telegram censorship across the colonies, including New Zealand. Secret cipher books were regularly sent south and Imperial Defence conferences took a growing interest in Commonwealth communications. In fact, the establishment of wartime postal censorship was one of the questions considered by the Committee of Imperial Defence in the decade before the First World War. In November 1913 the committee suggested that the censorship of all inwards and outwards mail would be required in wartime, but admitted that the sheer volume of letters would make it impracticable. Nothing was done about the recommendation. For Defence Minister James Allen, the activities of the antimilitarist movement in 1913 already felt like war, and one that could have benefited from the ability to censor mail. In June of that year, 14 members of the PRU had been marched through Lyttelton at bayonet point and shipped to Fort Jervois on Ripapa Island, an ageing military outpost and internment camp for malcontents. Among them were 29

DEAD LETTERS

PRU founder James Kirkwood Worrall and PRU president Reginald Williams. After the 14 men refused to clean weaponry and carry out military drill, they were placed on half-rations. They responded with a hunger strike. As well as sending letters to family and the press about their strike, Worrall and Williams posted an impassioned plea to the Labour Unity Conference in Wellington, causing the entire group of over 400 delegates to march on Parliament and demand a hearing with Prime Minister William Massey. Allen lamented in a letter to General Alexander Godley that ‘the lads in detention on Ripa Island continue to be a source of trouble, and it is perfectly plain that the legislation passed last year is quite ineffective. We have no powers except those of detention, and apparently we cannot even censor correspondence.’30 ‘INFORMATION OF SPECIAL INTEREST’

This was the situation Gibbon faced on the outbreak of the First World War. And while the Defence Department had made tentative arrangements with linguists at colleges in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin before August 1914, nothing had been arranged with the Post and Telegraph Department. Doubts about the legality of opening people’s mail were put to rest when Governor Liverpool issued warrants under the 1908 Post and Telegraph Act. Linguists acting as censors of all languages could now open and examine outward mail addressed to enemy countries, and to people or firms on the Black Lists of enemy traders circulated by the British War Office. Gibbon’s academic linguists were initially paid on a piecework basis for each letter or postcard they examined. As the letters rolled in, the linguists did a roaring trade. Concerned at the massive amount of money they were making, in October the military decided to appoint Post and Telegraph workers as the main censors and to leave foreign languages to the linguists.31 The result was a core team of 10 censors, including nine men and one woman: Gibbon 30

A scheme of censorship

and a deputy chief postal censor, along with a military censor and a linguist in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.32 Mail was also examined at Devonport and at Motuihe and Somes Island internment camps, Nelson, Bluff and in Sāmoa, which became part of New Zealand’s empire in 1914. Exactly what postal censors were meant to be censoring was vague. Gibbon wrote to the imperial authorities in London for instructions and was told there were none. Despite the detailed prewar plans for cable censorship, no plans had been made for mail.33 It was not until November 1914 that New Zealand authorities were sent instructions outlining censorship practice in Britain. In a confidential memo straight from Downing Street, Secretary of State for the Colonies Lewis Harcourt suggested that New Zealand censors use similar rules to the British War Office. The postal censors in Britain were divided into two branches – Hostile Countries and Neutral Countries: their job was to stop the leak of any information useful to the enemy and to gather information ‘of special interest or utility which is not obtainable from other sources’.34 The instructions to Gibbon stressed the sensitivity of knowledge that could be used by the enemy to jeopardise military operations, such as shipping and harbour reports. Information ‘of special interest’ was vague enough to cover almost anything, however. Local censors kept an eye on possible pro-German or disloyal sentiments and any illegal trading with the enemy, as well as on the threat of German espionage. But with British winds at their backs, the New Zealand authorities wasted no time in directing their attention to those who were critical of the war or wartime policy. There was a very real reason for this. A momentous struggle for industrial power less than a year earlier had led to armed clashes between workers and the state during the 1913 Great Strike – the largest and most disruptive strike in New Zealand’s history. The strike was the climax of years of working-class unrest. Workers in their thousands were angry with the arbitration laws that prevented 31

DEAD LETTERS

strike action, set their wages and dictated their working conditions. Arbitration had worked for a time, but a number of unions, sick of endless delays and influenced by the ideas of militant industrial unionism, put their faith in direct action. They were confronted by organised employers and farmers, backed by the government, who were determined to break their power. Class struggle erupted into outright war. It took a massive show of force by employers and the state to quell this wave of unrest, and in August 1914, memories of street fighting and defiant crowds were still fresh in the minds of the authorities. Allen and Massey were worried about the strength of organised labour, even if an initial burst of national enthusiasm had drowned out most working-class opposition to the war. People who were considered ‘desirable to censor’ were identified, their names were included alongside military information and all of their correspondence was censored.35 Three months into the war, mail sent to neutral countries was added to the earlier warrants, as was mail addressed to aliens and internees inside or outside New Zealand. War Regulations, gazetted on 17 December and plastered as posters in ships, hotels and other public spaces, informed the public they would go to jail for not complying with censorship. ‘No person shall do any act with intent to evade, obstruct, or interfere with the effective censorship of telegrams, letters, or other postal packets, whether in New Zealand or elsewhere,’ the regulation stated in heavy, brooding type.36 Gibbon, as chief censor, could recommend the surveillance and arrest of anyone he felt was contravening the War Regulations. But he was more of a postmaster, directing information into the right hands. Glad to receive such covert intelligence was Sir John Salmond, solicitor-general of New Zealand from 1910 to 1920 and author of the War Regulations. Salmond was a doting father whose kindness and wit ‘acted with tonic effect’ on his Victoria College students. His works on jurisprudence, philosophy and legal history made him an internationally recognised jurist.37 Unfortunately 32

A scheme of censorship

for some, his legal knowledge and innate conservatism had stiff consequences. According to his biographer Alex Frame, Salmond ‘relied on common law authority to justify, in cases of necessity, state action which would otherwise be illegal’.38 Salmond recognised that the power granted to him and his colleagues in the Executive Council – the highest decision-making body in the land – was a constitutional revolution. In his eyes, despotic government was valid in times of national emergency.39 For Salmond, legality ended when the state’s peril began.40 Salmond was undoubtedly heavy-handed towards many dissenters, but he himself would not go untouched by loss during the war. In June 1918, his eldest son, Captain William Guthrie Salmond, was killed in action on the Somme. For Allen, tragedy struck earlier. When he learned of his son’s death at Gallipoli in 1915 he wrote to Godley: ‘only yesterday I received the sad news of my son being killed in action, and am very grateful to you and to the Expeditionary Force for the kind telegram you sent me … there are many sad hearts in New Zealand today.’ He continued, ‘Let me give you this positive assurance that sad though we may be, we are proud to know that our sons have done their duty … those of them who are gone have died the best of deaths, and those who return will come back justified with the deeds they have done.’41 Privately, though, Allen thought otherwise. The costly Gallipoli campaign was ill conceived and mad.42 His letter to the man he thought should never have been in charge was a stoic act of self-censorship – a way to cope with the grief of losing his soldier son to war. In the colloquialism of the day, Allen played the game. Yet as New Zealand’s acting prime minister while Massey and Joseph Ward were overseas, Allen had no need to self-censor his correspondence – he was one of the few whose mail was not liable to being opened by censors. If Gibbon was the line between men like Salmond and Allen, then Walter Tanner was the hook. Tanner was a 36-year-old postal worker, born in Britain – like one in five Pākehā New Zealanders at 33

DEAD LETTERS

that time.43 To the outside world he was the successful son of Liberal MP William Tanner, a father of two and an upstanding property clerk of the Post and Telegraph Department. But in January 1915 Tanner had been secretly promoted from military censor of postal packets to deputy chief postal censor. Based at the General Post Office in Wellington, he led a team of censors shrouded in secrecy, as fear of espionage was rife. In November 1914 police suspected a postal clerk named G.V. Hudson of being a spy, because of his sister’s friendly relations with local Germans. After a brief investigation Hudson was deemed loyal and unlikely to disclose secret information.44 Just to be sure, however, the censors were kept separate from the general staff. Tanner and his team processed all of the correspondence forwarded to them from throughout New Zealand, compared notes with London and wrote quarterly reports to their superiors. No mail stopped within New Zealand crossed Gibbon’s or Salmond’s desks without Tanner seeing it first. After the war he put this experience to good use: he was head postal censor during the 1920s and chief censor from 1927 to 1938, when he caused a stir by censoring films such as The Te Kooti Trail and All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Although Tanner often drew Gibbon’s attention to individuals he wanted investigated, he did not share Salmond’s passion for jailing suspects. They did share similar views on the subject of allencompassing censorship and the defence of the realm, however: both men felt that, in the name of national security, it was necessary to examine ‘secretly the correspondence of certain persons who were supposed to be disaffected, and who were working to defeat the efforts of the New Zealand Government in meeting its obligations regarding the war by advocating “go slow” or inciting to resist the Military Service Act’; and Tanner believed his work ‘gave the Police the necessary opening… to break up organisations whilst still in the act of formation’.45 34

A scheme of censorship

To facilitate such openings Tanner and his fellow Wellington censors were armed with four office tables, five office chairs, a BarLock typewriter, an electric iron, duplicating carbon paper, reams of unruled foolscap paper, foolscap envelopes, gummed strips (for resealing opened envelopes), rubber stamps, lead pencils, Banel pens, sheets of blotting paper, iodine, a French dictionary, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, Kelly’s Dictionary of Merchants, Manufacturers and Shippers of the World, the New Zealand Directory, Wises Wellington directory and a box of pins.46 They used this arsenal to impressive ends: as well as stopping all mail to and from enemy countries, nationally they examined over 19,000 letters a month to and from neutral countries. Letters to prisoners of war in Europe were examined at a rate of 930 per month, as well as over 3000 letters to and from internees in New Zealand.47 By November 1920 this amounted to well over 1.2 million civilian letters, postcards and packages opened and examined by the New Zealand military.48 This figure needs to be put in perspective, however. In 1917 alone, six million letters were posted each week: domestic postal censorship only ever scratched the surface of private mail sent within New Zealand during wartime. Total censorship – checking every letter posted within New Zealand – was never introduced; although, in the face of unrest, regulations were passed in mid-1918 that gave the military power ‘to exercise a full censorship’ if needed.49 Instead, for practical reasons, censorship focused on mail to and from New Zealand, and on letter writers who were deemed worthy of surveillance. Many writers, aware that their letters would be read by unintended eyes, self-censored their feelings for fear of infringing censorship laws: as Becky of Auckland wrote, ‘one is filled with such indignation [about conscription], though I am continually having my mouth stopped but I feel sometimes as if I will burst’.50 Not all letters that were examined were kept or destroyed. The majority reached their intended readers, in some cases after being stamped ‘Passed by the Military Censor’. Still, for marked men like 35

DEAD LETTERS

Charles Mackie of the National Peace Council, whose mail was under permanent watch, it is little wonder he told his friends not to bother writing.51 Harry Holland, outspoken socialist and editor of the labour newspaper Maoriland Worker, concurred: ‘my letters were held up for periods which ranged from three days to a month ... Letters to my wife from our sons in Australia were subjected to the same scrutiny. Even the Christmas cards which came addressed to our children did not escape.’52 This work pales in comparison to that of New Zealand’s allies. When the Armistice of November 1918 brought fighting to a close, Britain had almost 5000 censors working in the War Office using a systemised registry of suspected individuals.53 Their most important prey were freethinkers and pacifists such as  Bertrand Russell and Edmund Morel, who posted anti-war articles abroad and were jailed for evasion of censorship. In Australia, postal censors in six military divisions submitted detailed weekly reports. Every bit of information extracted from a letter was typed into spreadsheets, given a unique code and filed, which was a huge help to the New Zealand censors as letters were transcribed and sent back across the Tasman. Canada took a different approach: it set up a six-member subcommittee of the Executive Council, putting the whole strength of government behind the censorship staff.54 The most far-reaching censorship occurred in France, where over 5000 censors across 55 departments and 21 military regions ensured that all forms of communication were scrutinised. Wartime surveillance in New Zealand was less methodical and more diffuse. A 1921 report on imperial intelligence from Britain’s counter-espionage and security service (MI5) observed that, unlike in Australia, a central special intelligence bureau modelled along British lines was never established in New Zealand. The military personnel for such a branch were all at the front, Gibbon argued; and anyway, the population was so small that ‘everyone appears to know everything about everyone else’.55 The lack of an official secret 36

A scheme of censorship

service meant pragmatism was the order of the day: sometimes the state was unable or unwilling to prosecute those who came under its watch, as we shall see. It also meant Gibbon and military intelligence relied on the close support of the Navy, Customs, the Post and Telegraph Department, the Marine Department, the Aliens Registration Branch and, naturally, the New Zealand Police, whose experience of monitoring agitators before the war put them in good stead for gathering intelligence. ‘THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLES’

Police Commissioner John O’Donovan, with his ‘gentle manner and fine sensibilities’ and his carefully cultivated goatee, was described as the police officer who never looked like one.56 He had replaced the authoritarian ‘Czar’ John Cullen as commissioner in December 1916. Any comparisons between the two chiefs ended with their first names and the fact they were born in Ireland. The mere mention of Cullen was enough to make most workers’ blood boil, whereas O’Donovan, although he was firm in enforcing the regulations, did not attract the same infamy. O’Donovan established what one historian described as ‘an organisation, ethos and pattern of administration that remained largely unchanged for the next 45 years … O’Donovan’s style of leadership was more benign than that which had previously prevailed.’57 So was his policing: constables shelved their strikebreaking batons and turned to snooping on Gibbon’s behalf – thereby consolidating their pre-war partnership with the defence force. Despite this, the military complained that detectives were too soft in carrying out surveillance; for example, they were too lenient on those with non-British parents.58 Detectives were hardly welcome in working-class communities, either. When Detective Sergeant Rawle went looking for information on socialists living at 208 Adelaide Road in Wellington, a guarded Mrs Bishop shared few words and plenty of cold stares.59 After all, the term ‘detect’ comes 37

DEAD LETTERS

from the Latin detegere or ‘unroof ’, and because the devil supposedly allowed his henchmen to peer into houses by removing their roofs, detectives were sometimes known as ‘the devil’s disciples’. The work of Gibbon and the police led to a number of arrests during the war, but convictions for evading the censor were relatively rare. Did the public consent to their mail being read? Was the fear of prosecution too great? The small number of infringements, especially cases in Sāmoa involving German residents, were widely publicised as a deterrent to others. New Zealand governments had long been itching to make Sāmoa a part of its empire, causing friction with Germany in the process. As Damon Salesa writes, in the late nineteenth century ‘New Zealand had acted decisively, even provocatively, to try and secure British control of Samoa, ideally under New Zealand administration’.60 New Zealand’s eagerness hindered British negotiations with Germany over the control of Sāmoa in 1883 and again in 1893–94, causing an uproar in the German press and the deterioration of Anglo-German relations. Some in Germany even called for military action. When Auckland resident Frederick Gaudin left Sāmoa with 15 letters written by German friends, including the ex-governor of Sāmoa, Erich Schultz, the risk of being charged with treason was far from his mind. Gaudin, who was either ignorant or very relaxed about the regulations, had no idea detectives lay in wait in Auckland. He was arrested on 9 November 1914, escorted back to Apīa and tried by a three-man military tribunal for evading the censor. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour – a charge even the conservative press thought was drastic. After reviewing the case, Allen and Salmond reduced the sentence to six months, although Gaudin was still lobbying to clear his name well into 1916. He remained on Tanner’s watchlist for the rest of the war.61 While Cabinet was deciding to decline Gaudin’s petition to put his case before the Supreme Court, businessman Karl Hansen’s Sāmoan office was raided by the military. Hansen was found guilty 38

A scheme of censorship

of illegally shipping letters to Germany via interisland trading ships; he was sentenced to six months’ hard labour, and on his ‘release’ he was interned for the duration of the war.62 In another case, six German clerks admitted to evading the censor and were collectively fined £150. Back in New Zealand, writers knew their mail was being opened – or quickly figured it out. Mrs Mandeno of Epsom, Auckland sent news of the state’s clampdown on dissent to her son in Australia, and advised him: ‘Percy it’s wise to keep out of this … burn this letter dangerous to even express yourself by letter. Best to be wise and keep quiet these are terrible times and a terrible war.’63 Percy, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), did not ‘keep out of it’, and was imprisoned during a Brisbane Free Speech fight over conscription. Bruno Urbansky, a Polish socialist whose mail had been watched by Tanner since October 1916, had to tell a newspaper he subscribed to, ‘you’d better stop sending your paper to my surname. All my correspondence goes through the hands of the local censor.’64 Don of Blackball was more direct when he described ‘the fingers of these dirty pimps who are interfering with the mail’.65 Charles Mackie even had the nerve to complain directly to the military. ‘A few days ago I received a PRIVATE letter from a friend in Wellington, the envelope of which bore the inscription “passed by the Military Censor” … As a British subject and an Elector I should like to know why I have been chosen as a victim of such a pernicious system. I protest against the indignity of having my private correspondence tampered with in this extraordinary manner.’66 Salmond was unsympathetic: ‘Mackie knows perfectly well why his correspondence is being censored, and his letter is not a genuine request for information.’67 He suggested Allen should tell Charles that the military had no power to interfere with the actions of the Post Office during the war. This Allen duly did, and Charles duly replied – numerous times, in fact; his file is one of the largest. Undeterred by the template responses, Charles was still lobbying 39

DEAD LETTERS

the military in 1919, when he asked for his confiscated mail to be returned. Salmond denied his request. William Henry Webbe was a respected music teacher and founder of the Webbe School of Music in Auckland. In July 1918 he wrote to the military after discovering his inwards correspondence had been under surveillance ‘while my neighbours have not had to suffer such an indignity’.68 William had been ordering labour and pacifist material from the Chicago-based Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, and writing to radicals offshore. ‘As a Britisher with a long English heritage it is hurtful to the writer to find the once customary sacred privacy of mail in transit no longer exists,’ he wrote.69 Gibbon replied that ‘persons who have their correspondence censored must loyally submit to an inconvenience suffered, as no information can be supplied in connection with censorship matters’.70 Despite knowing that censorship was in place, writers still tried to sneak information past the censor’s gaze. Some, like Christchurch bootmaker and anti-militarist Henry Reynolds, hid mail within mail. In court Reynolds argued that the war was a capitalists’ war for which no worker should die. To the judge’s annoyance he gained a ‘hear hear’ from the audience. The ruffled judge sentenced Reynolds to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. ‘No man who behaved in such a manner was worthy to be called a man,’ the judge noted.71 Others tried spy-like subterfuge. A solution of iodine was used whenever censors came across hints of text written in condensed milk, and letters suspected of being written in invisible ink were pressed with an iron to reveal the writing. Just to be sure, selling or buying invisible ink was outlawed in late 1917. Tanner kept a watch for secret code, too, but only a few cases were detected, ‘all of a harmless nature and decipherable with a little patience’.72 Some people took postal matters into their own hands. Wharfies and seamen devised an illicit mail network to smuggle letters via the ports. This slowed to a trickle when the Marine Department increased surveillance in March 1916. In mid-1917, Canadian authorities were 40

A scheme of censorship

tipped off by Gibbon to keep watch for a Dutch Catholic priest due to arrive in Vancouver. He was stopped, derobed and his stash of letters confiscated. Nurses and invalided soldiers returning to New Zealand also tried their luck with letter-laden khaki. They often succeeded, until they made the elementary mistake of mailing the letters in a country post office without paying postage: with no stamps and no sign of having been examined by officers at the front, the letters were easy to spot. Despite these subterranean acts against censorship – and, ironically, the odd complaint via letters to the editor – the most remarkable feature of the control of the postal service was the relative lack of public agitation against it.73 Debate about postal censorship flared only in the final stages of the war and in the turbulent years that followed. There were two prominent exceptions, however. In July 1916 the American consul general based in Auckland, Alfred Winslow, wrote a terse letter to Allen after he discovered that mail marked as official United States business had been examined: a Department of State envelope had been found inside the mail of American shipping agent and suspected spy Harold Ebey and opened by Tanner. (Harold had been shadowed by undercover police from the moment he entered New Zealand; the government had been warned of his arrival by London authorities.) ‘I herewith enter an earnest protest, not only in this case, but for the future,’ Winslow wrote.74 Allen was staunch in his reply. ‘It is not conceded that correspondence addressed by private persons to private persons is in any manner exempt from censorship, merely because it is addressed to the care of a foreign consulate.’ Only official correspondence was exempt, he explained, and the envelope contained no such thing. ‘I am unable to accept the view expressed by you that the action taken by the censors amounted to a violation of any such privilege.’75 Had Winslow known that his private cablegrams to Washington were also read by the New Zealand government, the outcome may have been radically different. 41

DEAD LETTERS

A year later a more serious case emerged when Reverend Howard Elliot of the Protestant Political Association (PPA) denounced the authorities for targeting the association’s mail. The resulting ‘Auckland Post-Office Inquiry’ was widely reported: it showed that Salmond had ordered the PPA’s post office box to be monitored and all of its letters opened. ‘Perhaps steps could be taken by the Auckland censorship to see that all circulars … are examined, and if necessary, suppressed,’ Salmond wrote to Gibbon.76 When he was cross-examining Salmond during the inquiry, Hubert Ostler, counsel for the PPA and a past student of Salmond’s, accused his former lecturer of having too much power. ‘Are we to understand that you are really the censor of New Zealand, Mr Salmond?’ Ostler asked. ‘No.’ ‘It sounds like it, does it not?’ ‘No,’ snarled Salmond, ‘I said I was the legal adviser.’ ‘But [you] advise, of course, and when you advise the military authorities they follow your advice, do they not?’ ‘Usually.’77 Ostler had no doubt that Salmond had overstepped and the state, caught flat-footed, put a temporary hold on postal censorship. Still, the inquiry sanctioned his activities and censorship was resumed. ‘THE NATION IS DOOMED’

Private mail, cables, pamphlets and books, newspapers, plays, films and the press were all examined during the war. So many laws were passed regulating what could or could not be published that the government was accused of making a small industry out of the War Regulations.78 And while this meant intrusion into ever-widening sectors of society (constables were ordered to keep an eye on chemists with suspect backgrounds, for example), more often than not it was foreigners, Māori, pacifists, civil libertarian groups and militant workers who were targeted.79 42

A scheme of censorship

Although visions of the 1913 Great Strike haunted Allen and Gibbon’s correspondence, a fragile peace had settled between capital and labour.80 Calls to put country before class mostly held true as workers fell in line with the mood around them. But from 1916, as inflation set in and the cost of living skyrocketed, the illusion of industrial harmony began to fade. It was clear some were making a handy profit from the business of war. The Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company in Petone was rolling in it thanks to the need for military blankets, trousers and jackets, yet their workers, especially women, earned barely enough to survive.81 Tired of working 60 hours a week for 60 per cent less than their male colleagues, in March 1916 the women took illegal strike action and demanded a 10 per cent pay rise. Despite being called unpatriotic and fined for their action, they won their raise. Conscription was a major wartime issue both before it was introduced and after, and it marked a turning point in the history of postal censorship. The state was wary of working-class opposition to conscription and hesitated to introduce it. Allen had confided in his colleague Godley, ‘we are right for conscription and it is only the fear of what might happen in Labour circles that prevents it being adopted here’.82 It was not until November 1916 that the government finally pressed all non-Māori men aged between 20 and 46 into military service, summoning them through the ballot of a national register taken in 1915. By the end of the war, 32,270 conscripted men were sent to military camps, although not all without resistance. The Military Service Act was also extended to Māori men in June 1917. Despite pockets of Māori support for the war, the cloak of the past hung heavily over te ao Māori. Resistance was strongest in Taranaki, Te Urewera and Waikato, where Te Kirihaehae Te Puea Hērangi, the granddaughter of Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero, the second Māori king, played a major role against conscription. ‘They tell us to fight for king and country,’ she declared. ‘We’ve got a King. But we haven’t got a country. That’s been taken off us. Let them give us back 43

DEAD LETTERS

our land and then maybe we’ll think about it again.’83 In June 1918 three police officers were sent to a hui at Te Paina, Mercer to arrest seven of the Waikato defaulters. They were met by a brass band and officially welcomed. Initially thrown by this mixture of hospitality and contempt, the officers then read out the names of the wanted men. No one in the large crowd moved. In an act of desperation, the officers grabbed the seven most likely men they could reach; these included the 16-year-old brother of one of the wanted and a 60-yearold – both ineligible for military service. The arrested men were eventually sent to Narrow Neck Military Camp, north of Auckland. The war’s end thwarted the state’s attempt at Māori conscription: not one single frontline conscript had been produced. By the end of the war, meetings to protest conscription were drawing crowds of thousands. Calls for the conscription of wealth alongside the conscription of men struck a chord: if people were forced to fight, shouldn’t those who were making money from the war also be forced to share it? In 1916 those who were brave enough to speak out did so to audiences wherever they could find them – on street corners, in community halls or outside factory gates. To stop the spread of discontent, the War Regulations were changed to target the spoken rather than the written word.84 Seditious utterances – a category of elastic dimensions in the hands of the state – became an offence, and anyone whispering, writing or distributing ‘seditious’ intentions could be imprisoned for one to two years with hard labour. One of the first to be targeted with sedition charges was the Ringatū prophet Rua Kēnana, who was accused of making disloyal remarks and discouraging men from military service. Police raided his community at Maungapōhatu and, during his arrest, his son and another of his followers were shot dead. Eight months later the fiery Federation of Labour organiser Robert Semple preached resistance to a gathering in Auckland, causing Salmond to recommend that he be given ‘as long a term of imprisonment as is practicable’.85 Semple 44

A scheme of censorship

was arrested and jailed for 12 months with hard labour. A relieved Allen wrote to Massey that soapbox orators were ‘all pretty well muzzled by the new Regulations’.86 Even ordinary people were caught out by the regulations. Harmless banter in the pub suddenly became highly dangerous and even seditious – a slip of the tongue was all that stood between a walk home or a night in the cells. Some cases seem comical in hindsight. In an unfortunate choice of words, 70-year-old Ellen Fuller was jailed after quarrelling about her luggage at the train station, when she yelled, ‘King George is a bastard, and when the Kaiser comes out he will have the lot of you slaughtered!’87 For those in power, challenges to the status quo were no laughing matter. The number of industrial disputes trebled from 15 in 1916 to 45 the following year, fuelled by anger over conscription and the cost of living in a population weary of a war with no end in sight.88 There were strikes by freezing workers, flaxmillers, seamen and public works labourers, and go-slows by watersiders, miners and drivers. ‘It is the most serious problem that we face at the present time,’ Allen confided in January. ‘We cannot possibly allow this fatal practice to get hold in New Zealand or else the nation is doomed.’89 Going slow threatened war profits and the government’s lucrative commandeer – a deal that meant 90 per cent of the country’s exports went directly to Britain. It also questioned the whole work ethic that was central to the wage system. Desperate to stop the go-slow spreading, Allen acted quickly. War Regulations of 16 February 1917 included going slow in the category of seditious strikes. Police braced themselves for class war and secretly made arrangements to enrol strikebreakers as special constables. In April 1917 they launched raids on miners’ halls and homes across the country.90 Prominent officials of the union were arrested and charged with conspiring to incite a seditious strike. In doing so, the government only sparked further strike action on the coalfields. To make matters worse for those trying to contain radicalism, that 45

DEAD LETTERS

year a workers’ revolution in Russia overthrew the tsar, silenced the Eastern Front and brought revolutionary socialists, the Bolsheviks, to power. Like conscription, the spectre of Bolshevism entrenched censorship and surveillance even further. Allen had little time for those he deemed Bolshevist sympathisers and others he believed were not genuine objectors to military service; he viewed them as ‘selfish, unreasonable and immoral’.91 Despite recognising some religious grounds for exemption, he allowed conscientious objectors (including Mark Briggs and Archibald Baxter, father of poet James K. Baxter) to be shipped to the Western Front where they were brutally abused and humiliated. He also supported increased surveillance and censorship of pacifists and other dissenters on the home front, including police raids in September 1917 on the seamen’s and watersiders’ union offices. In an attempt to halt the slaughter, in August 1917 a pacifist organisation affiliated to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom posted an appeal to Christian ministers in which they called for peace without annexations or victory for any nation. Unfortunately for the women – and for countless lives on all sides – both the British and the German authorities had unleashed a massive propaganda campaign against any peace proposals. Britain, for example, had promised the Dardanelles to Russia and other territory to Japan, Italy, Serbia and Romania, which committed them to a war to the finish.92 Tanner intercepted the women’s mail, and later boasted that ‘the whole of the postings was captured by the Censor, and as a result the appeal never gained any publicity whatever’.93 ‘SECRET REGISTRY’

It is hard to know exactly how many letters were withheld or destroyed: it was policy after the war simply to destroy any letters and packets that had been confiscated.94 Despite this, some letters ended up in the Army Department’s Secret Registry. A writer whose 46

A scheme of censorship

correspondence went into this exclusive set of records would have a constable following their every move, enquiries made with their employer or a raid of their home. It meant censors in New Zealand and Australia were talking about them, as were the chief of general staff, the commissioner of police, the upper echelons of parliament and, in some cases, the prime minister. It put a halt to the intended trajectories of the letters. And if they made it through the haphazard recordkeeping of the twentieth century, the letters found a home in the long metal stacks of the modern archive. The Secret Registry appears to have been set up before 1912 as a way for the military to store confidential material too sensitive for their main filing system. Not everything has survived – only 3–4 per cent of the records created by the New Zealand government have made it to Archives New Zealand: for example, Post and Telegraph Department registers show that secret wartime lists existed of people to be censored. Frustratingly, the lists were destroyed by fire in 1961.95 The incomplete nature of the records suggests the Secret Registry was far larger in the past. Still, among the 500 surviving records in the registry are more than 50 complete letters, and extracts from many others. As objects they are a real treat. Close to half remain in their original, handwritten form; the rest have been meticulously transcribed on a typewriter. The archival experience of viewing and handling these artefacts is near-impossible to convey – the joy of each discovery, the smell, the texture, grappling with their hundredyear-old folds. Some contain treasure within treasure: a clipping of a West Coast fern, perfectly dried and preserved; money order receipts from a Te Aro post office; pocket-sized pamphlets printed on a rebel press. Others feature elaborate letterheads, patterns of splattered ink and loose scribbles designed to convey order. The Secret Registry material offers a fascinating insight into the experience of ordinary people during an extraordinary time. Labels such as ‘shirker’, ‘pro-German’ or ‘Bolshevik sympathiser’ 47

DEAD LETTERS

are revealed to be people who, although they were on the margins of wartime society, were people nonetheless. The letters provide us with a personalised snapshot of life from the bottom up. Indeed, because the writers describe their day-to-day lives and the issues that concerned them, the letters allow us to undertake an exercise in biography and identity formation from below.96 As historian Marcus Rediker wrote, ‘we do not, for once, have to ask repression to recount the history of what it was repressing’.97 In their own words and often in intimate detail, the writers describe the social forces that shaped opinion and the lenses used to make sense of war. Even the language they use is one way these fragments of everyday life steer us towards a larger and more complex story. Because of this the letters are a useful companion to generalisations about the impact of the war on New Zealand society and culture.98 As a unique record of working-class experience, the letters allow us to hear voices often silenced by traditional histories. Most working-class women and men did not keep diaries, publish their thoughts or fill the shelves of manuscript libraries with their personal archives. Historian Miles Fairburn, writing about the remarkable exception of Wairarapa labourer James Cox, notes how illiteracy, work-related fatigue, the stress of economic insecurity and lack of spare time deprived many workers of the opportunity to keep a diary.99 Letter-writing was far more common, yet even these snippets of working-class life are wholly dependent on whether they were kept or, in the case of this book, detained. The letters bring to life the debates and figures of the war. The issue of conscription naturally found its way into the letters – and into the hands of censors: two-thirds of the mail detained and archived in the Secret Registry was stopped on political or socialist grounds. The rest relate to issues of nationality and so-called pro-German or disloyal activity. For example naturalisation – the process whereby a non-British subject could gain British nationality – was decried as a cover for enemy spies, and foreigners were placed firmly in the 48

A scheme of censorship

sights of local patriots. Take the Women’s Anti-German League, who blamed outbreaks of disease on Germans: ‘the way to get rid of spinal meningitis is to intern all Germans in New Zealand.’100 In this overtly nationalist environment, the censors were primed for any hint of anti-Empire sentiments. Some confiscated mail shows how wide the net of postal censorship reached. When Arthur Ringer, a young bank teller from Dunedin, wrote to his uncle in Queensland he found out the hard way that his innocent hobby of stamp collecting broke the regulations. Other detained mail included appeals from Belgium to help fund family homes for war orphans; letters written in Hebrew and Yiddish; pamphlets from the Smithsonian Institute distributed locally by the Dominion Museum; pamphlets in Esperanto and, on behalf of the chief censor in London, any letters sent to the Bolsheviks in Russia. Considering the original rationale behind censorship, however, very few letters were stopped on account of revealing shipping information. Nor did censorship stop with the end of the war. Allen wrote to Massey in July 1919 that ‘a good deal of valuable information comes to the government through the medium of the censor, and it was thought wise not to lose this information’.101 Tanner stayed on as deputy chief postal censor after the Armistice, and after Gibbon left New Zealand in June 1919, he forwarded most mail to Salmond. As late as October 1920, labour leaders such as Harry Holland and Ted Howard complained in Parliament that mail was still being opened.102 The peak of postal censorship had passed, however, and on 16 November 1920 – six years and over a million letters later – the censorship of private correspondence officially came to an end.103 Despite its wartime veneer, censorship by the New Zealand state was politically motivated, far-reaching and, although the operation was smaller and less streamlined than in Britain or Australia, generally successful in its aim. Steering what military historian John Crawford calls ‘a middle course’, the Defence Department was flexible 49

DEAD LETTERS

towards those it perceived to be ‘genuine objectors’ but extremely harsh on ‘defiant objectors’ and other forms of radical dissent.104 This meant that censorship – and New Zealand’s war effort in general – was never seriously challenged. It may not have seemed like it to Allen and Massey at the time, but the likelihood of mass, revolutionary change in New Zealand was also pretty slim. Although there was class tension and industrial disputes, the majority of the population consented to the wartime polices of the government, supported the war effort and tolerated increased legislation and surveillance. Richard S. Hill, the foremost historian of policing and social control in New Zealand, describes how public consent for policing increased during the war, ‘enhancing official portrayals of the policeman as servant of the public rather than agent of the state’. The image of constables embodying the rule of law and as ‘guardians of civilised order’ helped to frame the First World War as a struggle ‘to preserve civilisation’.105 Still, the scale of postal censorship and the volatile class struggle of the later war years should not be underestimated. The military response to people’s thoughts and opinions had material, longlasting effects. In an era when mail was the way to communicate, letter writing was an important part of forming and maintaining relationships. Letters were ‘a necessity, a life-line, part of a social existence’.106 They were a place to find comfort, intimacy and delight, and a way to share feelings or ideas that would otherwise have been hard to pronounce in public. Postal censorship changed this forever. The private became public, and writers could no longer be sure that what they wrote would be safe from prying eyes. Historians Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross note how ‘the Great War seeped and stormed into New Zealanders’ lives and could not be easily or quickly dislodged at war’s end’.107As archives, the confiscated letters are the tangible evidence of this. Postal censorship during the First World War also helped cement the role of surveillance in monitoring dissent for years to come. Like 50

A scheme of censorship

the phenomenon of disaster capitalism – using a crisis to implement polices that would be unpopular in normal circumstances – the turmoil of 1914–18 served to expand, and make permanent, measures introduced at a specific time, for specific reasons. One hundred years on, the ‘five eyes’ of Walter Tanner, Charles Gibbon, John O’Donovan, John Salmond and James Allen are still with us, albeit in more advanced forms. For the writers whose letters are shared here for the first time, the prying eyes of the state meant more than just lost privacy. While a small number of the Secret Registry letters went no further than creating a Defence Department file, the majority sparked some form of surveillance, ranging from a chat at the door to covert shadowing. Often the work of Gibbon and Tanner went much further, leading to arrests, internment and deportation. Relationships were broken and lives were shattered in the process, and for some of our writers, it was as if their world had been turned upside down. But not without a fight.

51

DEAD LETTERS

52

A scheme of censorship

PART II AGAINST KING AND COUNTRY

53

DEAD LETTERS

The Prince of Wales in Dunedin on his 1920 royal tour. ACGO 8363 IA31 Box 1/1, Archives New Zealand

54

2

2 T HE ONLY GER MANS AMON G THE WORMS Marie Weitzel to Hermann Weitzel, Germany, undated 1916. Translated from German by Stefan Grand-Meyer  AD10 Box 10 19/26

My dear brother, The dreadful war is still raging, and we haven’t heard from you in a long time. Receiving a few words from Germany is a blessing to those of us here. The Germans who live here, and myself in particular, are faced with hatred from the English, who show their fear of us in the meanest ways. All day long all we hear about are the brutal and awful acts the Germans carry out. Respectable people know of course that of all peoples, only the English commit such wickedness, and because they think of nothing, they believe other people to be as bad as themselves, and stay in churches, praying to God all day long that He may help them to kill everyone – those hypocrites. Naturally, no hostility is spared on us here. We get robbed and duped everywhere. The law doesn’t protect us. Only a madman would give his money to a lawyer to have his rights enforced – and yet I was that mad, but that was a year before the war started, at a time when no-one thought of war. I have to tell you that story one day. It will hopefully not bore you, and if you think it is worth the effort, you might write it up on a typewriter and publish it in the papers. This may help others not to feel misplaced sympathy, for the people should only be treated with disdain. The English and their greed are the roots of the misery that prevails in the world. When we still lived in Petone, a neighbour came into our house one day. Our sons had gotten into a fight with his son, and 55

DEAD LETTERS

I had to ban him from our house. His father used the worst swearwords, calling us German pigs – that’s how they refer to us now. He wouldn’t leave the house until I chased him out with a broom. I took him to court, but I lost only because I’m German. Seeking revenge, he then agitated a group of his friends, they sued me for something I had nothing to do with and again, I lost. This is mostly what happens to Germans here. We’re being plundered and denigrated, and the courts don’t help us. I thank God that I went through this experience. It thoroughly healed me of any fondness I felt towards the English and I can now wholeheartedly pray for my fatherland. I know what wicked liars the English are, and that God will help the Germans. My dear brother, I could come home and help. The children are old enough that they can go without me for a while. And maybe I could find a good occupation for the older ones, and a good trade for the younger ones. If only we could get our money out of the country! Otherwise everything’s as usual. It is awfully lonely to be in this country, the only Germans among the worms, the only ones with a heart.

***

O

n a calm, picturesque day in April 1920, the Prince of Wales arrived in Auckland. His personal battleship, the HMS Renown, glided gracefully into Queen’s Wharf surrounded by a flotilla of yachts and motorboats, and amphibious planes overhead added to the royal spectacle. Guns thundered a salute to the young prince, drowning the sound of cheering crowds that had gathered from an early hour. As the handsome figure stepped effortlessly onto the wharf and into the waiting motorcade, his mission to thank New Zealand for its contribution to war began in earnest. The streets his car weaved through were lined ten-deep with onlookers, while others balanced dizzily on rooftops, all straining to see the personification of the empire for which so many had perished. 56

The only Germans among the worms

Among them were officers of the New Zealand Police Force, for these were turbulent times. Police Commissioner John O’Donovan had sent a confidential memo to his detectives: special steps were needed to monitor ‘any criminals or persons suspected of having anarchist or extreme revolutionary tendencies’, and passengers and crew arriving at the docks were to be given ‘close attention’ but in ‘such a manner as not to cause alarm to His Royal Highness or the public’.1 In the end it was striking railway workers who got to the prince. Tired of unanswered requests for better pay and conditions, they downed tools and held up the royal train for two days until all their demands were met. Yet despite the collective frustrations of postwar workers, according to one police officer the enemy within was a lone socialist called Marie Weitzel. Detective Lewis singled Marie out as someone ‘fully capable of inciting some hot-headed revolutionary to do something rash’. He insisted she was ‘intensely bitter to the British, and as she is now getting on in years, her brain may not be as well under control as formerly, and should she get excited, and opportunity offers, she may endeavour to do harm’.2 The war may have ended but the contents of Lewis’s neatly typed report echoed the recent past: Marie had long been the subject of police attention. With his words the state’s wartime treatment of Marie’s class politics and the underlying tensions of a settler colonial society are laid bare. Patriarchy, too, is at play. For holding political ideas and acting on them, Marie was considered wild, uncontrollable, hysterical. With his very next line, though, Lewis steers us closer to the truth: ‘I have recently seen her in the city, and except for an occasional sneering grin, she appears quite rational.’3 After all, what is a rational response to war? ‘HATRED FROM THE ENGLISH’

About the time New Zealand’s future chief censor was scaling the ridges of Tugela during the relief of Ladysmith in the South African 57

DEAD LETTERS

War, Marie Weitzel was relieved to be leaving that same country for good. With three restless years in South Africa behind them – and 13 in Australia before that – the pregnant Marie, her husband Friedrich Gustav Weitzel and their three children were on their way to New Zealand. They arrived some time before September 1900 and initially settled in Palmerston North, where another daughter, Hedwig (known as Hettie), was born. Carl (Charles) and Friedrich Junior (Frank) followed soon after. The family tried their hand at farming but, after 12 years of toil, they went south to Wellington. There, like many common folk, they moved about: Petone, Tawa Flat, Central Wellington, Wellington South, Newtown and, later, north to Eketāhuna. All were a long way away from Westphalia, Germany. They were not ‘the only Germans among the worms’, though. Since 1843 a steady stream of German settlers had arrived in New Zealand; they were the second largest immigrant community after the British.4 By 1914 at least 10,000 had arrived, mostly from northern Germany, and although they found harsh conditions that were far from the image sold to them, many overcame the isolation, poor land and excessive flooding that went with farming. Others migrated to the cities where they and their trades formed an important, if not always accepted, part of the urban working class. There were many reasons for leaving their homeland. ‘Germany’s rapid industrialisation and increasing militarism in many aspects of daily life were contributing factors,’ writes historian Andrew Francis.5 By the 1870s millions of rural families had been displaced as land was enclosed for capitalist expansion. Mass urbanisation, political unrest and the increased threat of conscription led people like Marie and Friedrich to uproot their families, cross unforgiving oceans and take a chance at something new. Militarism was definitely a factor for Friedrich: a socialist opposed to war, he had reportedly deserted both the Kaiser’s army and the Kaiser’s country.6 Although Germany was home to a burgeoning movement typified by the 58

The only Germans among the worms

German Social Democratic Party and the growth of labour unions, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s anti-socialist laws all socialist organisation and agitation were prohibited. The distribution and publication of socialist literature were outlawed, and in areas of strong socialist sentiment or on suspicion of illegal activity, police were empowered to impose a state of siege and force people to leave the area. In contrast, New Zealand at the turn of the century was a land without strikes and considered by many to be a laboratory for progressive social policy. It soon became a destination for many curious socialists. The New Zealand Socialist Party (NZSP), which Marie and others in her family later joined, was born of a failed plan by a group known as the ‘Clarion’ settlers to set up a socialist colony in New Zealand.7 Carl Mumme, a German-born anarchist living in Wellington, was an early member of the NZSP and a staunch anti-militarist. Johann Sebastian Trunk, an influential figure in the European anarchist movement and a comrade of Johann Most, Errico Malatesta, William Morris, Emma Goldman and other internationally prominent radicals, moved to Christchurch in 1906 and eventually settled in Geraldine, where he laid low during the war.8 That same year Franz Wolter, a left-leaning Berliner who had been imprisoned in Germany for resisting military training, moved to New Zealand based on its reputation as ‘the most democratic country in the world’.9 The reality was far from utopian. Hettie Weitzel recalls watching, as a 13-year-old, the columns of mounted special constables ride through Wellington, where they were violently unleashed on workers during the Great Strike. Unpicking arcadia was a society based on class, and class struggle was as sharp in New Zealand as it was elsewhere. The sight of machine guns on street corners had a profound influence on Hettie. She and her siblings were encouraged by their parents to think critically, and went on to have colourful lives of 59

DEAD LETTERS

their own. Frank, horrified at the treatment of his parents during the war, left New Zealand and found success in the international art scene – his abstract linocuts, Bauhaus-inspired furniture designs, primitive style sculpture and art deco printed textiles were celebrated in Australia and Europe but not in the land of his birth.10 Hettie was a brilliant student and a founding member of the Communist Party of New Zealand. In 1921 she made history when she was arrested and convicted for selling communist literature to an undercover policeman and was expelled from teachers training college. Her trial sparked two government inquiries on communism in the education system, and led to a compulsory oath of loyalty for all teachers (still in place today).11 Hettie left for Australia early in 1922 and became a role model for communist women of the late 1920s and 1930s.12 Unlike their mother, however, neither Frank nor Hettie had ever stormed parliament. Marie Weitzel (née Benninghoven) was born around 1862. She was in her fifties by the time of the war, and was described caustically in police reports as 5’2” in height with grey eyes, a sallow complexion, and eccentric in character. Why she left Germany is not recorded, but by 1900 she had raised three children and lived in three continents. She and Friedrich married in Redfern, Sydney in 1888. Their first daughter Henrietta Marie was born that year, and Gertrude was born two years later. An economic depression in Australia meant the family had outgrown the opportunities New South Wales could offer and they moved to South Africa, where Annie was born. Whether it was the South African War or the push for better wages, the Weitzels soon left for New Zealand. Frank was born in 1906 when Marie was 44 and Henrietta was 17. Not long after the Great Strike the family purchased land in rural Tawa Flat, 17 kilometres north of Wellington. They struggled to make ends meet. Marie was often separated from Friedrich as she sought extra income working odd jobs for other Germans. In late 1916, when blood poisoning meant Friedrich could no longer 60

The only Germans among the worms

work as a brass founder, the family sublet a room of their Wellington rental – a dingy, bug-ridden shadow of a house on Buller Street, off Ghuznee Street in Te Aro. Taking in boarders was a common way for the working class to supplement their meagre incomes: watersider and casual labourer Joseph Goss, whom we will meet again later, noted that ‘it is absolutely necessary that the great majority of citizens must take out a few boarders, to eke out their income, owing to, on the one hand, the high price of the necessaries of life, and on the other, the exorbitant rents charged’.13 Joseph and working-class families like the Weitzels were ‘between the devil and the deep sea’.14 For the Weitzels, taking on boarders was meant to be only a temporary fix – the family and their fellow tenants could not wait to move. It was not to be. By 1921 Marie and three of her children had left the country. The workers’ paradise that was New Zealand had been anything but. It may have been her stubborn character, her politics or the everpresent animosity towards anyone non-British, but Marie found herself on the wrong side of the law more than once during her time in New Zealand. Police labelled her variously an extremist, antigovernment, disaffected, obstinate and dangerous. A vocal figure not afraid to voice her opinion, she refused to play the docile, inoffensive woman. As a result her views ruffled plenty of feathers, while her ancestry tarred her own. Anti-German feeling and fear of the other had its roots in the interests and identities of New Zealand’s predominantly Britishorigin white settler society. Like a weathervane, the measure of Britishness, whiteness – and therefore acceptance – shifted with economic, cultural and global events. What remained constant was a strong imperial tie to Britain. As historian Steven Loveridge explains, ‘wartime anti-Germanism emerged from a pre-war cultural context which can, in some sense, be attributed to a larger dichotomous theme of nationalism: that inclusion and exclusion inherently stimulate one another’.15 Longstanding hostility towards 61

DEAD LETTERS

‘racial others’, such as peoples of Asian or Eastern and Southern European descent, was extended on the outbreak of war to include Germans. Germany now posed the greatest threat to the security of the Empire, despite a close relationship based on dynastic, cultural, religious and economic ties.16 Hostile British newspaper reports and the proliferation of populist literature such as the Empire Annual for Boys and The Spies of the Kaiser all fed a local sense of vulnerability and a culture of white supremacy. This did not mean everyone was hostile to Germans. But as Marie’s experience shows, she was subjected to discrimination even before the war. In December 1912 her neighbour Herbert Appleyard verbally abused her in her own home. Marie took him to court for alleged assault, bad language and trespassing. Appleyard denied the charge: he claimed the case was simply a ruse to extort money from him. The court sided with Appleyard and Marie was forced to pay him £3 in costs.17 Two weeks later she was back in court, this time as the defendant. According to court clerk and police officer J. Forster, Marie had used ‘obscene language in a public place’ when she swore at three children on Petone Esplanade: ‘you are Buggars, you are Bloody Buggars’.18 She was reprimanded in court and a conviction was recorded before she was discharged. Two years later a bitter Marie told her side of the story to the governor of New Zealand, Lord Liverpool. ‘I hope you will forgive me for worring you with my troubles. I have been asking for justice everywhere & cannot get it & I cannot rest until something is done as my children suffer as well as me.’19 She described her court experience and said that she ‘was more humiliated & insulted in court than when my neighbour forced his way into my house & used obscene language in front of my children’. Regarding her conviction, she wrote that she was convinced Mr and Mrs Parkin – the parents of one of the children on the Esplanade and friends of Herbert Appleyard – had set her up. Marie relayed how the mother of the other children stated she ‘was very much distressed & said it was Mr Parkin who influenced the 62

The only Germans among the worms

children’. This woman ‘would have restored my character through the paper,’ Marie wrote, but was afraid of offending the Parkins. Marie claimed her own children could have proven her innocence, but her previous court experience made her wary of putting them on the stand. She ended with a sombre plea for help: Hoping you will excuse me if my letter is not very ceremonial as I don’t know the English custom how to address high born people … I pray to God that this letter will not be in vain as it is my last hope. If that fails I might do something desperate.20

Her letter never reached the governor. ‘Mrs Weitzel better be told the Gov. cannot interfere in the matter’ an official scribbled on her file. A short reply to Marie stated that the minister of Justice ‘regrets that he is unable to interfere in the matter as he has no power to review the proceedings of the Law Courts’.21 ‘THIS IS MOSTLY WHAT HAPPENS TO GERMANS HERE’

When war broke out in August 1914, already tense relations between British and German settlers in New Zealand were torn apart.22 Germans, whether naturalised or not, found themselves targets of a rage inflamed by wild reporting and years of propaganda that positioned Germany as a threat to the British Empire. Within days the office of the German Consulate in Wellington was besieged by an angry mob; windows were smashed and any German symbols were torn down. The government, for its part, seized the consulate’s archives and interned a number of German reservists – and, eventually, some of the consuls themselves. Thus did a populist streak of anti-German agitation operate alongside state action.23 Germans found themselves confronted in the street, spied on by neighbours or sacked from their jobs. This wave of hostility reached Marie and her family. One week after the outbreak of war, police in Wellington were tipped off about a disaffected German named ‘Gavin’ in Tawa. Constable Michael 63

DEAD LETTERS

Cox was sent to investigate, and unsurprisingly, paid a visit to the Weitzel family. At that time Tawa Flat was a scarcely settled outpost of Wellington, a featureless, grass-covered valley dotted with farmhouses, unruly macrocarpa, and cows.24 It was a 45-minute train ride from Wellington, and on arrival passengers were often greeted by a cold southerly or a blustery northerly sweeping through the valley. The station itself had only recently expanded from a ‘flag’ station to one with actual staff: residents no longer had to wave down passing trains. From the station Cox walked the half-mile to the Weitzels’ farm, where he found Marie hanging out washing in the backyard. He wasted no time with pleasantries: ‘Do you know a German named Gavin?’ he asked. ‘Why? Do you want to put him on the island?’ joked Marie, referring to Somes Island in the middle of Wellington Harbour, where several Germans had already been interned. ‘It’s been reported to the police that he is hostile to the British. I want to see him, to find out whether he is a German reservist or a naturalised British subject.’ ‘I don’t know any Gavin,’ Marie said. She led Cox inside and handed him her husband’s naturalisation certificates from both Australia and New Zealand. Satisfied, Cox left. Soon after, Marie penned an angry letter to his superiors: We are not hostile to any nationality. It is only the mean cursed hypocrites we don’t like … you will perhaps remember the case I had with Appleyard in Petone and how his friend Mrs Parkin got revenge by making these little children lie such filthy language … My German parents taught me that it was better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. But I can assure you that my happiest moment will be when I have the money for my farm in my pocket and stand on the deck of a boat with my children and say goodbye to this God forsaken country.25

Luckily nothing came of her letter. 64

The only Germans among the worms

A month later police received further complaints from informants in Tawa. A number of men had been coming and going from the Weitzel farm: should they not be made to explain themselves? ‘She has a sharp tongue,’ wrote Cox’s boss, ‘and lets it run freely. But I am told that is her principal weakness.’26 Not concerned with the speculation of her neighbours, the police left Marie alone. Then in May 1915, a German torpedo sunk the passengerladen liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland – and any tolerance for Germans living in Allied countries went down with it. The death toll of almost 1200 sparked violent episodes across the country. Businesses that were thought to be German-owned were attacked and there were calls for harsher legislation, including the wholesale internment of any German regardless of whether they were naturalised as a British subject. In early 1916, when Marie wrote to her brother via a friend in Holland, her letter found its way into the primed hands of a postal censor. Tanner had the letter translated and forwarded it to the recently promoted Colonel Charles Gibbon, chief censor and a veteran of the war Marie thought she’d escaped. Gibbon looked over the censored letter and, keen to know more about the writer and her family, sent a memo to the commissioner of police. Two weeks later police tracked Marie to Pihama, a sleepy town on the South Taranaki coast where she had been working for a German farmer. Here, Opunake officer Constable Clouston confronted her with the letter. If Clouston had been expecting denial he was sorely mistaken: Marie not only confirmed she wrote it, she added that ‘she hates the English, as she was robbed of her land and was convicted on a charge of using obscene language at Petone. She talked in a defiant manner,’ wrote Clouston, ‘and said she did not care whether she was interned or not.’27 Clouston cautioned Marie ‘against writing in the strain she had written’ but she would give him ‘no promise that she would not repeat the offence’.28 In the meantime, further reports of disaffection had been brought to the attention of the authorities – and to none other than Prime 65

DEAD LETTERS

Minister Massey himself. ‘I have the honour to call your attention to the fact that the German schoolmistress at Pleckville, Eke[tāhuna] district, is not carrying out her duties in a proper manner,’ wrote Mr Arthur D. Stubbs, Esq. ‘Last Friday my boys came home and announced that the teacher gave them the Iron Cross to draw. What of that for a – insult!’ The schoolmistress in question was Marie’s daughter Henrietta. Stubbs complained further that Henrietta’s mother was even more hostile towards the English. If any evidence of that disaffection was needed, declared this patriotic citizen, ‘I can refer you to the manager of Dalgety & Co. Eketahuna and his assistant, who both came under the lash of her tongue last week and were treated to a sample of her wares.’ Stubbs claimed Marie was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical workers’ organisation and the biggest left-wing bogey before Bolshevism; and he suggested that with her ‘out of the way the rest of the family could be controlled’.29 Stubbs, a temporary captain of the senior cadets who had been a resident of Eketāhuna for a mere two weeks, was found by police to be exaggerating. There were no Iron Cross colouring books, no subversion of the British curriculum – although Henrietta did agree that her mother spoke her mind in public. Stubbs’ patriotism had been confronted by a type of working-class gender politics embodied in the vocal Marie. His suggestion of internment was not an idle one: the state commonly resorted to this measure to silence those who were deemed problematic. However, at this stage of the war women were off-limits as internees; Friedrich was unwell, and their sons were still too young to be interned. Gibbon focused his attention instead on Marie’s mail. From mid-1916, with both a chief of general staff and the prime minister investigating, she was subjected to increased state scrutiny. Her house was placed under surveillance, her movements were recorded and any travel out of the district required a police permit.

66

The only Germans among the worms

Marie did not take kindly to the restrictions. When she was warned for travelling between Pihama and Wellington without a permit, she claimed ignorance of the War Regulations. When she was ordered to report every Thursday to the Mount Cook police station, she said she would think it over. When she finally did visit the station in August 1916, police questioned why she had not reported sooner. She said she would please herself as to when she would report to them; and, by the way, Sundays suited her better than Thursdays. Two police permits remain in Marie’s file, both for further travel to Eketāhuna in late 1916. Although she had agreed using permits she still balked at giving the state power over her. During one of these trips Marie visited the Eketāhuna policeman Constable Le Fevre and handed him an expired permit. ‘Don’t you have a fresh permit to travel?’ asked Le Fevre. ‘No,’ replied Marie. The constable reported that he ‘then tried to make some arrangement with her to report herself to me weekly but she walked away from the office saying “she was not going to bother her head and no person in NZ would make her, she would do as she liked” ’.30 Commissioner O’Donovan was beginning to tire of such news. ‘This woman has persistently defied the police, and if it were conveniently possible to intern her [I] would recommend it be done.’31 Gibbon was not so sure. ‘As there are no women, as far as I know, detained or interned in Germany or Austria, it would be inadvisable to intern Mrs Weitzel.’32 Instead, if she would not change her ways and follow procedure, he would deport her to Germany. ‘THE ROOTS OF THE MISERY THAT PREVAILS IN THE WORLD’

Being German amidst a sea of British patriots was one thing. To be German and a revolutionary socialist was altogether too much for many. Marie Weitzel’s anti-capitalist politics were therefore a significant factor in her wartime treatment – by her neighbours and by the authorities. For example, after losing both court cases back 67

DEAD LETTERS

in December 1912, Marie asked a minister of the local church why she had been robbed of justice. Socialists and anarchists such as you have no right to claim justice, was his reply.33 Whether she was an anarchist in the true sense of the word is impossible to know. What matters is that Marie’s experience resulted from the intersection of many ills. Labels such as ‘disaffected’ or ‘pro-German’ fail to convey the complexities that she – like all people – embodied. In numerous letters to civil servants Marie railed against the rich in defence of the poor, and in her actions she used whatever means she had to aid those who were struggling for a more humane world. Hers was the important but unrecognised work of social reproduction and mutual aid, the resistance of everyday life. Whether collecting funds for striking Broken Hill miners, sheltering radicals in her home or carrying out the unwaged domestic work of supporting her own family, Marie played an active – albeit gendered – part in Wellington’s working-class counterculture. On this point, at least, Stubbs was right. From late 1916 her Te Aro home at 19 Buller Street was ‘a hot bed of revolutionaries’. Radicals such as Kevin ‘Slim’ Byrne and Sidney Fournier, ‘both of whom are of anarchist tendencies, and numerous other men of like tendency’, frequently visited or boarded with the family.34 Byrne, a stowaway from San Francisco, had emerged in New Zealand late in 1912 where he found work as an electrician before throwing himself into the Great Strike. Comfortable on a soapbox and a member of NZSP’s Wellington branch, he was active in the campaign against conscription before he left for his native Ireland in 1919. Sidney Huguenot Fournier d’Albe could fill a whole book with his life story. One of the most colourful figures of the New Zealand labour movement, he was a ‘captain of pickets’ during the Great Strike, charged with sedition in 1917 and, during the Depression, was active in providing relief for the unemployed. Before he moved to New Zealand he had mingled with figures such as Bernard Shaw 68

The only Germans among the worms

and H.G. Wells, fought during the Greek revolts against Turkey, helped grow the pan-Celtic movement in Wales, and was left scarred by a rifle blow to the face during the Welsh Tonypandy riots – a series of pitched battles between miners and police. Militant to the end, he was still advocating revolution during the 1951 waterfront dispute (Dick Scott dedicated his history of the dispute, 151 Days, to Fournier). In his final years he led an eco-lifestyle in Christchurch, building a home of rammed-earth and practising organic gardening and sustainable living. When they weren’t using the Socialist Hall on Manners Street, Marie’s home on Buller Street was where she and her comrades talked, sang and planned the revolution. With them was Jack Loughran, an Irish-born rebel who had worked with Irish revolutionary James Connolly in Dublin and Glasgow. In December 1917 Loughran married Marie’s daughter Gertrude and became a permanent member of the Weitzel family. Gertrude, too, was a socialist and (later) a Communist Party member who worked as a nurse at Wellington Hospital; police reports claimed that in June 1916, on the announcement of the death of Lord Kitchener – the British war secretary who had established concentration camps for civilians during the South African War – Gertrude ‘danced about the ward in great glee’.35 Indeed, the sisters Gertrude, Annie and Hettie were all active in the NZSP during or after the war.36 With such figures living nearby, Marie’s neighbours’ imagination ran wild with visions of secret societies and blood-tinged subversion. ‘The German woman Weitzel’ was ‘a dangerous person’, the secretary of the Women’s Anti-German League wrote to O’Donovan. ‘Meetings are held there by the Socialists and the IWW.’37 At a time when a woman’s duty was to keep a home of serenity in order to serve her husband and preserve the moral fibre of society, Marie’s house of radicalism was too much for some to bear.38 In practice, while the meetings were real, their evil plot was a bloodless free speech campaign against conscription. Styled on the 69

DEAD LETTERS

tactics of the American IWW, speakers would mount a soapbox at busy sites around the city, speak until they had either finished or were arrested, when another would take their place. (Perhaps they used the same trick of drawing a crowd as their US comrades. ‘Help! I’ve been robbed,’ their first speaker would yell as passers-by stopped in concern. ‘I’ve been robbed … by the capitalist class!’) Fournier, Byrne, Loughran, Joseph Herbert Jones, William Parker, John Patrick (Jim) Rea, Gerald Dee and other prominent radicals were all convicted between late 1916 and early 1917. There was also talk of a nationwide rent strike for the duration of the war, but nothing came of this suggestion.39 This was a concerted attack on the government’s war effort by the NZSP, the Anti-Conscription League and their allies. Formed in the main cities and mining towns in mid-1916, Anti-Conscription League meetings in Wellington gathered hundreds of signatures to a pledge to resist conscription no matter what the penalties.40 In Christchurch, women organised their own Anti-Conscription League and paid a visit to Massey. Their unexpected tenacity during the meeting reduced the prime minister to thumping the table vigorously and shouting, ‘If a man won’t go he must be driven!’41 The strength of patriotic feeling, coupled with the threat of prosecution, made speaking out against the war a difficult and courageous action. Despite this, agitators like Fournier empowered, entertained and sometimes enraged the throngs of people gathered on street corners or in the urban amphitheatre that was Wellington’s Post Office Square. ‘The view of us workers is that we should be fighting the only war in which we can at least become victorious – that is, the class war,’ Fournier bellowed. ‘The truth is this war is being forced on us by conscription, because as we know they take any opportunity that will produce them more wealth and give them more opportunity of oppression, until a peace could be brought about to their advantage.’42 For this speech Fournier was arrested for sedition and sent to jail with hard labour for 12 months. 70

The only Germans among the worms

William Parker was another convicted for sedition during the free-speech fight. A watersider whose ‘great big heart in a shortsighted, half doubled-up wreckage of an undersized soul-case’ was revered on the waterfront, Parker called on his audience to resist ‘those old fossils in the Parliamentary Buildings, Molesworth Street’, to strike against conscription and to ‘seize the foodstuffs and starve the fat man’. As he put it in court, he was ‘breaking his way into gaol’ to show the laws were undemocratic.43 Police also went after Kevin Byrne and Jack Loughran. Marie’s house, which had helped give birth to the campaign, was raided and her boarders arrested. Byrne was charged with breaking the city’s bylaws by ‘obstructing traffic’ at Clyde Quay as he soapboxed to a crowd of 500, and Loughran had also ‘obstructed traffic’ on Dixon Street. Once in court, they charged the city with bias against the Anti-Conscription League, cross-examined police officers and, to the amusement of their supporters, drew on poetry and economic theory. ‘I will not allow applause in this court!’ thundered His Worship, ‘if there is anything of this sort again the whole lot of you will be cleared out – every one of you.’44 Both received two months’ hard labour. Despite the court humour, this was no laughing matter. Convictions meant hardship, and for the cash-strapped Marie, her hardest trial was soon to come. In July 1917 Friedrich died, leaving her a single parent of six children and with two large mortgages. A quiet, unassuming man, Friedrich had left some money for his wife and children. It was never enough. It would be nice to think comrades such as Byrne and Loughran helped where they could, but from all accounts Marie was in a dire situation. She moved to Newtown from Buller Street, and offered to sell her Tawa land to the government – ironically, as a farm for returned servicemen. Defence Minister Allen was not interested. As financial pressure mounted and her letters to government were politely declined, the events of Petone and her wartime treatment coalesced into the desperate act 71

DEAD LETTERS

she had warned of. On 5 December 1918, Marie stormed Parliament and threatened a politician. Very little trace of this incident can be found. We know nothing of how she gained entry, whom she threatened or what was said. According to police reports Marie somehow gained access to the upper parliamentary gallery. Leaning over the polished wooden banister and surrounded by the pseudo pomp of a British dominion, she singled out a politician in the chamber below and vented upon him years of anger and hurt – much to ‘the great alarm of the person threatened’.45 No charges appear to have been laid. Whether by coincidence or design, Parliament was at that very moment debating Allen’s Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill, a vindictive law designed to deprive military defaulters of their civil rights for 10 years and to stop them from re-entering the country. Yet in Marie’s case, she would have given anything to leave. ‘THOSE HYPOCRITES’

Marie’s story ends much as it began: with letters. Correspondence detailing her attempts at getting herself and her family out of wartime New Zealand is scattered through the archives. Even this final act was not free of drama. Nor was it free of police harassment. Marie’s friends in blue continued to monitor her and the family, and she continued to report to their stations – still when it suited her, of course. In 1916 Marie had come close to being deported as an enemy alien. In August 1919, when she asked to be repatriated to Germany, Defence Minister Allen wrote that as Marie was a British subject through the naturalisation of Friedrich, she did not qualify for repatriation. Harassed for being German, she was now told she was British. The irony was not lost on her: ‘I cannot be both German and English.’46 For the state, it came down to cost. When Marie had considered moving to Australia earlier in 1919 the military were all for it. Gibbon had no objections, and the police were keen to see 72

The only Germans among the worms

the back of her as long as her departure was at her own expense. Repatriation paid for by the government was a different matter. Not long after the Prince of Wales had come and gone from New Zealand, Marie again requested that she and her youngest children be repatriated to Germany. Asked to declare what money she had, she noted that Friedrich had left a little for the children but she herself was in debt. ‘We have not, in fact, gained anything here except disappointments and sad experiences,’ she wrote. ‘We have cultivated land and have worked hard here. And yet we feel we are not wanted here. From what we hear about British justice the least it can do is to do us the courtesy to send us somewhere where we will be able to live in content [sic].’47 Lieutenant Colonel Edward Puttick, a commander of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade who had been wounded during the German spring offensive of 1918, decided the fate of Marie and her family in 33 words. ‘Under the circumstances I say no assistance is warranted. In any case the letter is couched in such an impertinent typically German manner that I think the applicant condemns her case at once.’48 The formal rejection letter Marie received, hiding Puttick’s racial bias, stated that she ‘cannot be regarded as destitute and cannot therefore be provided with passage to Germany’.49 She would have to make her own way home. What did Marie feel as she and two of her children steamed out of Wellington on 5 February 1921? Standing on the deck of the Tahiti bound for San Francisco, was she glad to be leaving ‘this God forsaken country’, having experienced all that she had? Was she relieved? Angry? Hopeful? She had managed to hold her own against the state – if only in setting the terms of her repression – and had given her heart and home to the struggle against militarism. Yet with her family separated and her husband buried beyond the headlands now fading out of sight, it must have been a bittersweet moment. Unfortunately the archives do not help to answer these questions. All the passenger list tells us is that the Weitzel’s country of birth was ‘White Race’. 73

DEAD LETTERS

74

3

3 TO H EL L W ITH TH EM AL L E. Christensen to Ole L. Ottestad, Rovden, PO, Molde, Norway. AD10 Box 11 19/30

Dunedin, New Zealand, June 1919 Mr Ole Ottestad, My last letter to you was dated 23 March and since then I have not had any news from Norway except what I see in our papers, but it is about time I heard from either you or my sister, and I see in to-night’s paper that a big mail is expected in Wednesday night. Possibly I will hear then. No work today as it is the 3rd of June, the king of England’s birthday and how old he is I do not know and do not care, but I will see enough in the paper about him. I am tired of reading about the king of England. Since the war we do not read anything else. I have a lot to tell you but I don’t think I will write much this time as I am not too sure that the Censor has ceased his work. I saw in the paper that the Censor ceased on 30th April last, but very likely it is untrue. You remember the letter I wrote you about Christmas 1917 and you did not get. I will now give you the contents of that letter. The reason I left the wharf was, that every week there were one or two letters in the papers about foreigners on the wharves, so one day the foreman told us that all foreigners working on the wharves and on board ships, must register at the Police station. This was all over New Zealand. You had to tell them where you lived and what your wife was and your parents. In fact there was a whole sheet of paper full of questions to answer. OPPOSITE:

1917 A notice about the Registration of Aliens Act.

EPH-PW-1-110, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Auckland 75

DEAD LETTERS

We were only ten foreigners on the wharf, all Scandinavians and most had been here from ten to twenty years and all married to English women and had families. At the same time it happened that several steamers were lost and foreigners the likes of myself and others, got the blame. We were accused of having some sort of machine in our pockets and when steamers got to sea they were destroyed and lost. What do you think of the narrowminded English? I don’t know if you read in your papers about two German raiders. One was called the ‘Wolf ’ which sunk several steamers on their way from NZ to USA. All these ships belonged to Dunedin and the crews were taken on board the ‘Wolf ’ and together with two or three hundred other prisoners, taken to Germany. We did not know anything out here in New Zealand, but all the blame was put on us poor foreigners. No.2 raider got burnt and the crew got ashore on an island and were taken prisoner and were in prison here for a long time, but they are now with two hundred other prisoners on their way to Germany. About raider no.2 I shall tell you more later. Since the war there has been an ill feeling against foreigners, not alone here but in every English country. A foreigner has no right to be here or any place that is English. I have no time for the English and I hate them ten times more now than before the war, and nobody can judge better than I who has to work and live amongst them, but I rub it in to them when I hear them blow of what they have done in the war. When the war started foreigners were not allowed to join the army, only the English but after two years of war, anything that could walk on feet, yellow, blue, black, yes! The whole world had come to England’s help, and now the war is over England takes all she wants. I could open your eyes if I could speak to you. Here in New Zealand we have thousands of Scandinavians who have lived here between thirty and forty years. Many other nationalities also. There are about 1500 Germans [and] sons of Germans who have fought for them. Many, many sons of Scandinavians from here have been in the war. Fifteen 76

To hell with them all

Scandinavians came back on a steamer a few days ago. Half of our soldiers are Scandinavians or foreigners. When war started there were many letters in the papers not to have Scandinavians in the army, only English, but later they thought they would let them go, and after two years they took them as well as others, whether they wanted to go or not. A poor widow with only one son, they took him. They did as they liked. All kinds of natives from the Islands who could not speak a word of English, were brought to the Military Camps, trained, and then sent on to France. From India, from China, in fact anything that could walk, was taken and sent to France, and then it took them over four years to destroy the Germans. Yes! English soldiers are brave warriors! The soldiers are now coming back by the thousands every week. There are only sixteen thousand left in England and in another two or three months you see them home, but thousands are lying on the battlefields of France who will never return, but that is nothing. They will soon forget that and in a few years we will see a war between England and France, for France is getting a lot of land in this war, on which England has got an eye. All the Islands down here which belonged to Germany have all been taken by England. New Zealand gets some, Australia gets some, Japan takes some, and Norway, after helping England in the war and losing half her ships for nothing, is also losing the rich deposits of Spitzbergen. I always thought Spitzbergen belonged to Norway but with disgust I see the English flag there also. I have two cuttings from our papers about Spitzbergen. I will send you one and perhaps you can find someone in Molde that could read it to you. I see England will do what she can at the Peace Conference about Spitzbergen, and I see it is going to be England’s Arctic Gibraltar. I also see Germany has a piece of it, but England took it and more, nearly all Spitzbergen. I see there is plenty of coal there and Norway pays £16-10-0 a ton for coal when there is plenty in her own country. I see there are 800 Norwegians and Swedes there but they only have a little piece. The English Exploration 77

DEAD LETTERS

Co. 2000 square miles Scottish Spitzbergen Syndicate 1700 miles. Norway 1000 miles, Sweden 400 miles. England has more than all the others put together. Is it to be wondered at, that England has a large fleet when she owns the larger part of the world that is any good? All countries in the Southern Hemisphere are English – Africa, India, Canada – people in Europe have nothing only Europe, and as England will not let foreigners into her countries, where can the people of Europe go? Is it a wonder that Germany went to war? Every year England makes new laws and especially here in New Zealand and Australia, to stop foreigners from coming here to settle. Every week I see letters in the papers about foreigners, but nobody comes here except seamen leaving their ships, and then the Captain must pay a large sum of money. That is what they ought to do in other countries to the English. If I could do as much as I want to do, I would not let one Englishman into Europe. To hell with them all.

***

S

urrounded by the Pacific and Tasman oceans, New Zealand’s coastline was where maritime webs and local enterprise met and entwined. Exports and imports – food, fibre, timber, gold, machinery, clothing, mail or ideas – were funnelled through its ports, which for the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century provided people with the only way in or out, for German settler and British prince alike. Described as gateways, lifelines, nautical nodes and nerve centres, ports were essential to the local economy and a point of intersection with the global accumulation of capital. Because of this they were contested spaces. Control of the wharves was important to the state, to employers, and to the workers who powered them. Nowhere was this more evident than in the word strike itself. The term in English is said to date from 1768, when sailors docked at the port of Thames in London ‘struck up’ their ships’ sails and brought the city’s commerce to a halt.1 78

To hell with them all

Just one year before the outbreak of the First World War, New Zealand ports had been the site of intense class war on an unprecedented scale. The 1913 Great Strike – with its street battles and clashes on the wharves, the blacklisting of militants and the takeover of waterside unions by non-union labour (‘scabs’), its disregard of labour law, and the bold resistance by watersiders to employers and the state – hinged around the issue of control. During the war this struggle continued in different forms – after all, the wharves had not magically changed in August 1914; if anything they had become more important. Troopships now joined the throng of international passenger liners and local vessels, and the commandeer – which was essential to Britain’s survival during the German U-boat offensive on merchant shipping – led to a boom in the transportation of goods and industry. Ten new freezing works, 20 new cheese factories and three Glaxo milk powder factories opened between March 1915 and June 1917. By the end of the war, the commandeer had raised £96 million ($10 billion in today’s money).2 All of these goods passed through the ports and left by sea. Between 1914 and 1917, shares in the Union Steam Ship Company rose in value by 140 per cent.3 Despite the increase in trade and wealth, working conditions for the common labourer changed little. To earn a day’s shift, watersiders still had to gather on the wharf to be selected like cattle at auction, only to work physically exhausting and dangerous jobs. Loading and unloading ships ‘meant lugging heavy, awkward cargoes in poorly lit, badly ventilated and confined spaces’, writes historian Anna Green.4 They battled extremes of heat and cold, dust, dirt, shit and fumes with poor equipment and hampered by inadequate infrastructure. ‘Safety was rarely taken seriously by the employers, nor did the risks of the job acquire the same government concern as those associated, for example, with factory employment.’5 Death and injury were common. In September 1916, 11 wharfies were hideously burnt when a drum of sulphuric acid exploded on the Auckland waterfront. The 79

DEAD LETTERS

Watersider, the newspaper of the wharfies’ union, printed monthly casualty lists – not of their comrades serving in the military but of those on the waterfront ‘wrecked and disabled in the struggle for existence’ (as the headline ran). The paper also carried a regular obituary section. In 1916 Henry Johnson was crushed to death by a falling derrick; in 1917 Albert Hayward was killed after stepping on a defective hatchway  aboard the Manuka and falling 40 feet below into the hold. The government did not keep proper statistics until  1937, but watersiders themselves did. Between August 1916 and July 1917 there were 451 accidents on the Wellington and Lyttelton wharves alone.6 Over half of these were preventable. Yet watersiders knew all too well how much their lives counted to the bosses: Only a lumper, somebody said; Only a wharfie, killed stone dead; Only a derrick and a rotten span; Only the life of a working man.7

The government banned strike action on the waterfront during the war. Despite this, workers on the wharves took wildcat strike action and mastered less visible forms of resistance such as spelling (taking unsanctioned breaks), working to rule and the go-slow. From 29 January until the campaign ended in March 1917 they used these guerrilla tactics with immediate results. The cargo handled in Wellington dropped from 988,700 in 1915 and 1,081,172 tonnes in 1916 to 930,324 tonnes in 1917.8 In Auckland the tonnage cleared dropped from 444,432 in 1916 to 379,747 in 1917.9 The government reacted to this on-the-job action by passing War Regulations that allowed it to take complete control of the wharves (although Allen never took the drastic step of implementing this), and declaring the go-slow seditious. In the end the desire for increased production won out, and the watersiders’ demand for a new industrial agreement was met. 80

To hell with them all

Ports were ‘a catchment of unused labour amid the great machine of the market. A place of misery and possibility’; it was little wonder they influenced the psychology, personality, outlook and way of life of the watersider.10 But this only partially explains the sarcasm and defiance of Even Christensen’s letter to Ole Ottestad. As a watersider Even occupied the frontline of port economies and felt keenly the charge and retreat of capital. As a watersider born in Molde, Norway, he bore the added weight of wartime hysteria despite his naturalisation, his 35-year residence in Dunedin and the neutral stance of his country of birth. In New Zealand’s white settler world, constructing common enemies helped an otherwise bondless, atomised society to cohere.11 These constructions of the enemy within, intensified by wartime conditions, extended to Scandinavians like Even, who put his feelings in writing. ‘LETTERS IN THE PAPERS ABOUT FOREIGNERS’

Even had written his letter from Dunedin, where his working life and the lives of his family revolved around the local wharves. Here the war had taken a particularly severe toll. The once flourishing port had been reduced to a depressed backwater, and in 1919 its fortunes were at a low ebb. Fewer and fewer ships arrived, and those that did were small and elderly. Unmanned cranes towered like tombstones over creaky wharves.12 Development projects to cater for the bigger, heavier steamers of the era lay abandoned or halffinished, having dribbled to a halt in 1916. By Christmas 1917, when Even wrote his first letter to Ole, the port and its opportunities for work were in a sorry state. Despite this, the Port of Otago was still a sinew of war. Regulations shrouded the wharves like a Port Chalmers fog: ‘any boat passing through a defended harbour and reasonably suspected of breaching these regulations can be fired upon’; ‘military authorities can post an armed guard at any building or ship for the purpose of securing 81

DEAD LETTERS

public safety; anyone who approaches and disregards a warning can be fired upon’; ‘no person to enter a seagoing vessel in harbour, other than people on official business or employed on the ship’; ‘gangways are to be guarded’; ‘every person who trespasses on a guarded wharf is guilty of an offence – armed guard may arrest anyone who does without a warrant’; ‘no cargo, baggage, or other goods to be placed on board any ship until examined by an examining officer’; ‘any person who commits an act with the intention of destroying or endangering any ship or cargo, or conspires or incites others to do so, shall be guilty of an indictable offence and liable to the death penalty’.13 The regulations were logical in terms of military security but were based on an exaggerated fear of foreigners said to be sinking ships at will. ‘Speculation about German sabotage and plotting was endemic throughout the British Empire during the First World War’, and was only made worse by government censorship ‘that made it impossible to distinguish between myth, propaganda and fact.’14 ‘Gretchen’, a German woman who supposedly confessed to wrapping a bomb in baby clothes in order to sink an ocean liner in the United States, was a case in point. The story of ‘The baby and the bomb’ was fake news, although it delighted at least one poet: She pays her mysterious visit, Down to the swarming pier; Baby or bomb, which is it, The bundle she carries here? ’Ware how you stoop to pick up The parcel that goes tick-tock; It may be a baby’s hiccup. Or a dreadful dynamite clock.15

New Zealand’s distance from the battlefront did not help matters, as it ‘accentuated ignorance of real facts, facts that would have intruded upon the fantasy world of the imagined enemy’.16 At one public meeting in May 1915, Mr C.N. Scurr claimed Germans 82

To hell with them all

working the Dunedin wharves had ‘the opportunity of firing any ship in the harbour’, and while he admitted that the German wharfie did not openly preach ‘the gospel of hate … he cherishes it in his bosom, and if he dared translate it into action he would’.17 ‘Anonymous’ of Wellington wanted it known that two ‘baby-killing Huns’ working for the Wellington Meat Export Company ‘could easily place an infernal machine [bomb] in a carcass of mutton with serious loss to our men aboard ship’.18 And in a nod to Even Christensen’s experience, the Free Lance believed pro-German foreigners and ‘stealthy rascals’ with ‘anarchical intentions’ were ‘working on and round the wharves calling themselves Swedes’.19 For these writers the maritime incendiary menace was real. The government, which influenced and was influenced by such reports, was also concerned about the enemy within. A high-level memo from Colonel Gibbon revealed that ‘Information has been received that the Germans are now sending infernal machines from Sweden to USA in the form of a preserved meat tin.’ ‘Every precaution should be observed against any attempt to include one of these machines in ships or canteen stores.’20 Other factors were at play. The actions of German raiders and Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare fanned the fear of sabotage, and this led to British directives on waterside workers being implemented in New Zealand. A secret cipher from Bonar Law, secretary of state for the colonies, sent on 22 June 1915, warned of possible foul play in New Zealand and other dominion ports. Having read of the US examples and mistaking the sinking of steamers by U-boat torpedoes and German mines for internal explosions, Bonar Law urged local authorities ‘to pay particular care to the loading and bunkering of vessels whose cargo might invite enemy agents to employ methods of incendiarism’.21 Police Commissioner John Cullen wasted no time in sending a questionnaire to every inspector across the country: ‘Please have enquiries made as to whether there 83

DEAD LETTERS

are any alien enemies, German or Austrian, employed handling cargo on the wharves in your district. Full particulars in respect of each such person so employed are to be furnished.’22 Any enemy aliens not already interned were arrested and handed over to the military – quietly and at a rate of two to three per day so as not to provoke resistance. The cipher from Britain collided with a local debate about naturalisation, one of the most contentious domestic issues for Massey’s administration.23 It was no longer enough for the non British-born to have received a naturalisation certificate: patriotic organisations and anti-German societies demanded harsher action. On the outbreak of war the government suspended all applications for naturalisation and defined an enemy alien as ‘any person who has been naturalised in New Zealand and who would have been an enemy alien had he not been so naturalised, and also includes any person reasonably suspected of being an enemy alien’.24 In some quarters even this was not enough. ‘You cannot put a British heart in a foreigner simply because he remains in New Zealand for twelve months or so, and pays half a crown to be naturalised,’ argued one Christchurch councillor.25 Cullen himself believed that no enemy subjects should be employed on the wharves: ‘I am satisfied that a German who goes through the form of getting naturalised does so merely to enable him to pose as a British subject so as to get employment, whilst he remains a German at heart.’26 War Regulations gazetted in November 1914 had allowed the attorney-general to courtmartial and execute any enemy alien found interfering with military or naval operations. (Franz Wolter, whom we met in the previous chapter, fell victim to this regulation in early 1916 after visiting the Wellington waterfront and chatting harmlessly to some French reservists: accused of being a spy, Wolter was arrested, held for questioning at Mount Cook Barracks and, without any kind of legal trial, was interned on Somes Island for 84

To hell with them all

over three years.)27 From October 1917 both enemy aliens and naturalised aliens were banned from loading or unloading ships or working on the wharves. Around the same time two other laws were passed: the Registration of Aliens Act and the Revocation of Naturalisation Act. Both had an impact on Even Christensen. As his letter notes, once the Registration of Aliens Act became law on 29 September 1917, he and every other alien in New Zealand were given 28 days to register with a registration officer (more often than not a police officer). Their name, place and date of birth, marital status, occupation, date of arrival in New Zealand, height, weight, eye colour, hair colour, scars, tattoos and even information about their children were recorded by the state. Those who could not write were fingerprinted. The data was used across many departments, from customs officers guarding the ports to the government statistician, whose 1917 Register of Aliens is now sought after by eager genealogists. Behind the stats lay heartache, the potential loss of civil and legal rights and – for Even and his family – the loss of an income at a time when finding work as a ‘foreigner’ was harder than ever. ‘SOME SORT OF MACHINE IN OUR POCKETS’

Captain John Jack looked over the charts in the evening light, took a reading, then retired to his cabin. It was 11.55pm on 18 September 1917 and the Port Kembla, which had left Melbourne for Wellington six days earlier, was making good time. Jack was just about to enter his cabin when a massive explosion rocked the ship, throwing both him and his 59 crew into terror. He rushed to the bridge, where he was met by the second officer. ‘A bomb has exploded forward, sir!’ the officer cried. The explosion had ripped through the no. 1 forward hold; it had curled the metal hull like butter, scattered its cargo of meat, wool and frozen rabbits, carried away the wireless aerials and smashed the ship’s compass. Jack ordered the ship to be 85

DEAD LETTERS

steered towards land, but water was rushing in at such a rate that in less than 20 minutes the Port Kembla listed violently to starboard and sank. With his crew already on rafts, Jack and two of his officers remained on board until the last possible moment and then jumped into the sea, where they were plucked from the surging waters. Six hours later the crew were gathered up by the Regulus and put ashore at Nelson. The incident was a national sensation. And with panic about sabotage already rife, the idea of enemy agents at work deepened the collective psychosis.28 Captain Jack was adamant it was sabotage: ‘I fully believe it to have been an internal explosion and have no reason to think that it was external.’29 Minister of Marine George Russell, also believed the explosion was the result of foul play. Less than 24 hours after the sinking and with very little information to hand, he briefed Parliament: ‘The cause of the disaster, I regret to say, was an internal explosion.’30 The country’s newspapers agreed. ‘The Port Kembla disaster is the first instance in which it is definitely known that the casualty was due to the murderous device of setting an infernal machine in the vessel’s hold,’ ran the Star’s editorial.31 The ‘abominable practice’ of laying infernal machines, which was ‘peculiarly Hunnish’, proved to the Evening Post that ‘some form of evil association exists’. It was therefore the duty of the government and every citizen ‘to wage relentless war’ on the most obvious scapegoat: foreigners:32 ‘That the explosion was due to a time-bomb of much power … gives sinister colour to rumours which have long been current on the waterfront about the employment of foreigners on the wharves.’33 This chorus of condemnation was not limited to Germans or Austrians. ‘Massey has told the country that no “naturalised German” is employed on the water-front,’ thundered the Free Lance. ‘But how about the scores, the hundreds of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Dutchmen, who form part of the great army of waterside labour? 86

To hell with them all

Is the Government sure that all these so-called “neutral aliens” or “naturalised neutrals” are what they claim to be?’34 Adamant that ‘the only safe course to pursue is to allow no man to work at loading or unloading cargo or coal who cannot prove himself of British birth’, the paper called for the wharves to be ‘cleared of every worker who is not of proved British birth or extraction’. After all, it noted, ‘we have to consider our own flesh and blood first and foremost’.35 The hysteria around neutrals was so great that Jan Pieterse, a Dutch fireman aboard the Port Kembla, came under intense suspicion after making drunken comments in Nelson about the Kaiser – the result, surely, of the shock from his near-death experience. A week after the Port Kembla explosion an official inquiry was held in the Magistrate’s Court at Wellington. Statements from the crew were heard before a panel of hastily assembled experts. Pencil drawings of the ship were submitted as evidence, and questions were asked about who loaded the ship, what goods it carried and the smells that were noticed during the sinking. After much deliberation they came to the same conclusion as the press. ‘In the opinion of the Court the weight of evidence shows that the explosion was internal and due to the placing of a quantity of high explosive substance in the after part of No. 1 lower fore hold.’36 Even today the Register of Wrecks bears the entry: ‘Cause of disaster, a bomb or infernal machine in forward hold.’ What Captain Jack and the inquiry did not know was that they had actually hit a submerged German mine laid carefully by the raider Wolf three months earlier. Designed to disrupt commercial shipping, the Wolf had begun its highly ambitious and dangerous mission in November 1916, laying mines at numerous ports around New Zealand and beyond and commandeering ships during its 15 long months at sea. Its prey included 29 vessels and 467 prisoners of war, despite the best efforts of patrolling Japanese and British warships. When the raider made 87

DEAD LETTERS

its triumphal return to Germany in February 1918, the Wolf had left a 64,000-mile trail of destruction in its wake. The Port Kembla sinking had an immediate effect on the wharves. It was this event that led to the government introducing the October 1917 Regulations banning all aliens from waterside work, much to the delight of the Free Lance. Yet the tight controls at the Australian port where the Port Kembla was loaded – because of fears of sabotage and an ongoing strike by watersiders – made the internal explosion theory unlikely. It would have been near impossible to smuggle explosives large enough to sink such a steamer past a 24hour armed guard. The Australian Navy said as much when it cabled New Zealand’s head of naval intelligence, Captain Percival HallThompson, after the inquiry released its findings. Hall-Thompson already knew this. He had been following events from his floating office aboard the unseaworthy warship Philomel, docked in Wellington Harbour. He knew that Australian warships were secretly steaming towards New Guinea looking for a suspected German raider. He also knew that the Cumberland, another ship whose explosion was blamed on foreigners, was thought to have hit a mine. And only two weeks earlier he had warned the New Zealand government that a commerce raider could be at large in the Pacific.37 Despite this, Hall-Thompson told Russell, ‘it is very undesirable at present, in the Public Interest, that any details as to the amount and description of the knowledge in the possession of the Naval Authority should be revealed’.38 By dismissing the need for any minesweepers, Hall-Thompson’s delay had tragic consequences. Although warnings of possible minefields were shared and minesweepers were eventually deployed, many captains did not know the true extent of the danger and in some cases ignored the warnings. In June 1918, when Captain Kell of the steamship Wimmera steered too close to Cape Maria van Diemen, he struck another mine laid by the Wolf: 151 passengers and crew made it to safety but Kell himself and 25 others were killed. 88

To hell with them all

‘A FOREIGNER HAS NO RIGHT TO BE HERE’

The thin steel cable, measured in such a way that the Wolf’s mine would float just beneath the water’s surface but would remain invisible to the eye, connected the Port Kembla to Even Christensen. Around the time of the sinking, work on the Dunedin waterfront was so slack that the father of three had taken a labouring job at Logans Quarry. The new regulations now made it even harder for him to return to the wharves. In November he was forced to apply for a formal licence to work the waterfront, and as the Union Steam Ship Company had previously employed him as back fill, he also needed to apply to work as a seaman. Even was granted his licence, but the requirement to register as an alien and apply for a special permit in order to work a job he had held for over 15 years left him bitter. Angry at the state’s intrusion into his life, he wrote to Ole Ottestad of his woes. His private complaints were spotted by Tanner and forwarded to Colonel Gibbon, who ordered careful enquires to be made. A plainclothes constable named William Kelly was given the task of watching Even at his David Street home, questioning his workmates and compiling a report, which he did on 8 February 1918. Kelly was unable to find that Even was ‘in anyway inclined to be sympathetic towards the enemy’ and put his ‘disaffected spirit’ down to the War Regulations. ‘He is looked upon as a very straight man,’ wrote Kelly, but he was very much annoyed at the time he had to make application for a license to work about the wharf, and complained a good deal about having to do so after being naturalised for so long … he is said to be of the opinion that the Regulations regarding Aliens working on the wharves, etc, were useless here, as the few aliens who were working on the wharves were all naturalised and mostly married to British women, and a number of their sons were already serving at the front.39

89

DEAD LETTERS

Kelly had no doubt that Even’s first letter was written in anger, and no further action was taken. A year later Even wrote two more letters, one to Ole Ottestad and another to his sister. Despite wondering whether the ‘censor has ceased his work’ (he had not), Even told Ole of his 1917 letter and expressed his frustrations at the king, the War Regulations, the loss of Norwegian shipping (between 1914 and 1917, 436 ships were sunk and 1150 sailors killed), the imperialism of postwar nations and the British in general. The English ‘skite and blow about what they have done for the world’, he wrote to his sister Marie. ‘They have done nothing … but their time is up. England will get no larger. Our great God in America will see to that.’ The God Even referred to was President Woodrow Wilson: ‘he is now our God. To him we must confess our sins and to him shall all the people send their complaints.’40 This time the authorities were less sympathetic to Even’s own nationalism. ‘Last January I had occasion to bring to the notice of the Chief of the General Staff, a letter written by Even Christensen, 97 David Street, Dunedin’, Tanner wrote to his new superior, MajorGeneral Sir Alfred Robin. ‘Christensen pleaded that he wrote the letter on the spur of the moment, which implied a certain amount of repentance. However I do not think such a defence can hold good in the case I bring to your notice now, as he seems quite deliberate in his antipathy.’ ‘Personally,’ Tanner continued, ‘I think that a man holding such an opinion of the people with whom he is earning his living, would be better out of the country.’41 Robin, who was commandant of the home front military forces during the war and was therefore Gibbon’s boss, was more restrained than the deputy chief postal censor. As the war was practically over he did not think any action could be taken, but he sent the file along the line to Police Commissioner O’Donovan just in case. O’Donovan was more forthcoming. He considered that Even’s letter ‘undoubtedly indicates disloyalty and disaffection’.42 90

To hell with them all

He suggested Even Christensen be detained as a disaffected alien or have his naturalisation revoked. Legal opinion was sought from the solicitor-general, Sir John Salmond. ‘It is clear from this man’s correspondence that he is disloyal and disaffected,’ Salmond replied; but, in a rare moment for the author of the War Regulations, he did not think ‘that at this stage in the War there would be any sufficient justification for internment or prosecution’.43 Instead, for the welfare of the realm and the peace and good government of New Zealand, Salmond advocated that Even’s naturalisation be immediately revoked. Even was about to become stateless. In a world where nationality and identity papers were increasingly inportant, the loss of citizenship was no small matter. As one historian notes, concepts about nationality and belonging, and the fear of the enemy within, popularised the idea that it was necessary to register people by nationality to ensure public safety.44 The 1917 Register of Aliens is an obvious example of this. Another is the passport. Abolished by most European countries before the war, by 1920 passports were firmly re-established internationally. In New Zealand before 1914, single-sheet passports were sometimes issued to British subjects travelling to other parts of the world, but from 1916, anyone over the age of 15 was no longer allowed into the country without a passport or other documents establishing their nationality and identity. Exit permits, previously required only of Chinese, were made universal. During the postwar Red scare a copy of the identity certificate for every alien arriving or departing from New Zealand was forwarded to the Defence Department ‘in order to keep a check on the movements of revolutionary agents and undesirables’.45 The First World War was therefore a turning point in the history of mobility and citizenship, where the aspiration to control finally coincided with the actual ability to control, and once these controls were institutionalised they were not dismantled.46 As B. Traven wrote in The Death Ship, a scathing novel on bureaucratic authority and 91

DEAD LETTERS

nationalism, ‘every age has its Inquisition. Our age has the passport to make up for the torture of medieval times.’47 What did it mean for Even to have his naturalisation revoked? For one, he could no longer obtain a passport, which meant his ability to travel was severely limited. All legal and political rights were forfeited: he could not vote, access any kind of state aid or purchase rural land, and any land he already owned was more likely to be taken for public works than land owned by ‘Britons’. He was barred from working in certain jobs or in certain industries, and if he committed any crime there was a much higher chance of his being deported. More generally, he could no longer claim to be a British subject and was therefore open to further discrimination. No doubt he would have felt vulnerable and insecure. The passage of time did not make the state any more forgiving, either. Ten years later, in December 1929, 21-year-old Eric Even Christensen wrote to the Department of Internal Affairs requesting information on his father’s status. Eric was unsure why Even’s naturalisation had been revoked, and he asked how his father might be able to secure naturalisation again. The under-secretary, G.F. Newton, looked over the Defence Department file on Even and, in bureaucratic fashion, advised the minister of Internal Affairs that ‘I am unable to recommend that consideration should be given to the question of readmitting the father to British nationality.’48 Eric’s efforts on behalf of his father were rebuffed. (Luckily for Eric himself, the fact that he was born in New Zealand gave him British nationality.) Not long after, on 1 June 1930, the 68-year-old Even Christensen, labourer of Dunedin, beloved husband of Jane Gertrude, father of three and so-called disaffected enemy alien, died at his home. A humble headstone can be found at Andersons Bay Cemetery. Were it not for his confiscated letters, the story of his wartime experience would have remained enclosed in his Army Department file; his vital statistics a mere line among many in the 1917 Register of Aliens; 92

To hell with them all

his life’s labour hidden within the wealth of London-based shipping magnates. Wealth that, unlike Even, could cross borders and move freely in and out of ports.

93

DEAD LETTERS

Timothy Brosnan

Courtesy of Veronica O’Grady 94

4

4 F OR DEA RER TH E GRAVE OR THE P RI SO N Tim Brosnan to Margaret McCarthy, Queensland, Australia AD10 Box 10 19/5

Rota Aira Prison Camp Waimarino Post Office 21/4/18 Dear Sister Maggie, Just a few lines hoping it will find you, Mac. & family in the very best of health as this leaves me at present thank God also Molly as I had a letter from her a few days ago I wrote to you also to Norah last October while in detention waiting for my Court martial I also wrote to Norah a few months ago but so far received no answer Mollie have received letters from both of ye but I too want you to drop me a few lines. Well Maggie you know how long ago that I was sentenced to two years hard labour in a New Zealand prison because I would not shame my good parents name or become a traitor to my country, by donning a uniform and taking an oath of allegiance to fight and die for my greatest enemy the oppressor & tyrant of my native land. But Maggie all true Irishmens motto is death before dishonor. It must be also mine as I claim to be a true son of Erin’s isle and needless to tell you I would give all my life in gaol before I would betray my conscience my convictions my faith or my country. God knows it is hard to be separated from a wife whom I love & cherish above anything in this world & she love & cherish me in return. But I thank God she is a faithful wife to me & a faithful daughter of Erin. And it makes it much easier & happier for me because she would not wish me to take any other stand but the one I have taken in this 95

DEAD LETTERS

present war. Therefore she is quite happy & contented under the circumstances until such time as I will be a free man again. She was staying up this way for four or five weeks she was able to visit me three times, five weeks yesterday she was here last & she was looking real well & happy It was as good as six months off my sentence to see her look so well she is staying down at her brothers place while I am in prison she is away at the present time in Napier a town on the east coast with her brother & his wife for a weeks holiday she will be up to see me again before xmas next. She told me Frank got married recently Justin is still away in Thursday Island Harold is a good son although the oldest he is still single & sticking to his mother God will reward him for it. You deserve it for you have been a good mother to them. I had a letter from Mick some weeks ago wife children & himself are well I was pleased to see that Australia settled Billy Hughes’ referendum on the conscription also the result of late Queensland election labor got in again by a bigger majority than ever. Premier Ryan don’t believe in slavery by his action previous and during the referendum I hope someday in the future to cast a vote for him or for one of his party For when I get my liberty from this prison & a passport out of the country I will not delay in shaking the dust of wowser ridden & Tory governed New Zealand from my boots. There are three individuals at the present time in this country who hold the reins of office against the wishes of the people they are running the country to please themselves and their bosom friends. That is the Capitalists and conservatives they do not represent the people as there should be an election in December last but they prolonged their term of office until December nineteen nineteen they can do and they are doing as they like. I only wished the majority of the workers in N.Z. held the convictions of the Russian Bolsheviks. Maggie the result of the Irish convention came to nothing what every Irish man knew it would come to. That convention was not composed of representatives of Ireland it was a packed convention appointed 96

For dearer the grave or the prison

by the crown of England through Lloyd George to try and fool America and their other allies. The Tory & conservative government of England have no notion of giving the Irish people Home rule. But Ireland will get what they are after that is independence and no thanks to John Bull They have passed the conscription act in Ireland but Ireland’s sons will fight at their cabin doors before they will fight in Flanders for their foe. I only wished I was with them. I would write much more but as paper is limited I will finish by saying, For Dearer the Grave or the Prison Illumed by one patriot’s name Than the Trophies of all who have risen On Liberty’s ruin, to fame hoping this will find ye all well write soon to above address also tell Norah send me Marys and Katies address also Nells. Heaps of love to you all from your fond & ever loving brother, Tim Brosnan

***

I

n a short story written by Alice Webb, a young Hawke’s Bay bushman named Jack is interrupted from his work in August 1914 by a postie on horseback. ‘War is declared, Jack!’ beamed the postman. ‘What war?’ asked Jack, ‘civil war in Ireland?’ ‘German war. Fools’ war. Madness, I call it.’1

This fictional encounter was likely based on fact, for local newspapers had been following events in Ireland closely. Erin’s Isle was ablaze as nationalists and republicans sought freedom from the colonial yoke of England. Those who wanted constitutional change, such as John Redmond and the Irish Nationalist Party, pushed for autonomy over Ireland’s domestic affairs while remaining within the 97

DEAD LETTERS

British Empire: this came to be known as home rule after the Home Rule Bill they promoted. At the same time Fenian associations like the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and the Irish Volunteers called for a complete and violent separation from Britain; and revolutionary syndicalists such as James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, a union militia formed after the 1913 Dublin Lockout, advocated social revolution and a workers’ republic. Women, too, were breaking down political and gender norms in the militant Cumann na mBan (Women’s Council). Activists in the wealthier, largely Protestant Northern Ireland ‘vowed to form a rebel provisional government of their own. Quietly supported by Protestant landowners in the rest of Ireland, they set up a militia for which they imported 30,000 rifles.’2 Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book and a staunch imperialist, donated £30,000 to the cause (over $3 million in today’s money). As the threat of civil war grew, the British government – already on edge from labour troubles at home – redeployed the Royal Navy to the region, held an emergency conference at Buckingham Palace and watched with bated breath ‘as local troops opened fire on protesters in Dublin, killing three and wounding many more’.3 When news of the AustroHungarian ultimatum to Serbia reached Winston Churchill in July, he was in the middle of a Cabinet meeting about the Irish crisis. War effectively put the Home Rule Bill, which had been passed but watered down since its introduction, on ice. Hoping to prove their loyalty to empire and to secure home rule in return, various Catholic organisations in both Ireland and New Zealand led recruiting drives in support of the war: 100,000 answered the call in Ireland; and in New Zealand it was claimed that the first Wellington contingent of the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) had 500 Catholics out of 1300 troops.4 A significant group of Irish Catholics, however, hated the idea of fighting for an empire that had so ruthlessly suppressed 98

For dearer the grave or the prison

independence in Ireland. One New Zealand editor declared there was ‘something tragically incongruous’ about Britain claiming to wage a war to defend small nations like Belgium while denying Ireland ‘the unquestionable right of controlling its own purely domestic affairs’.5 Catholic support for the war waned further after the Easter Rising of April 1916. Through patchy reports, New Zealand readers learned of how several hundred armed rebels had proclaimed an Irish Republic from the steps of Dublin’s General Post Office. Only after six days of fierce fighting and the heavy bombardment of rebel strongholds across the city did the British forces quell the rebellion. Mass arrests and internment followed, and 16 of the rebellion’s leaders were executed. For some readers in New Zealand the struggle for Irish independence was seen as a threat to the stability of empire and proof that Irish Catholics were unsuited to become British subjects. ‘For others, particularly the “lace curtain” Catholic bourgeoisie,’ writes historian Seán Brosnahan, events in Ireland were ‘a source of embarrassment, threatening to undermine a carefully cultivated accommodation between Irish ethnic identity, centred on the Catholic Church, and civic respectability amidst New Zealand’s Anglo-Protestant majority population.’6 Nonetheless, for a sizeable number of Irish in New Zealand the rebellion and its aftermath stirred old hopes and revolutionary dreams. The Easter Rising took place at a pivotal time in the war. The failure of the 1915 Gallipoli invasion with its devastating numbers of dead and wounded had left no doubt about the realities of modern warfare. Volunteering had begun to slow. But the New Zealand Division had just landed in France and would soon need reinforcing. Conscription crept ever closer, and when it finally arrived in August 1916, feelings around the Rising were still raw. For Timothy Brosnan and other New Zealand-based advocates of Irish independence, conscription forced their hand. In Australia, 99

DEAD LETTERS

where the question of conscription was put to the public in two referenda, Irish votes were essential to its defeat. In New Zealand, where conscription was not a choice but the law, committed Irish nationalists had few options. Tight control of the wharves made legal (or illegal) travel to Ireland difficult, and sending money on behalf of the struggle was out of the question because of stringent War Regulations. For Tim, the choice was clear: resist conscription, or become a traitor to the cause. ‘A TRUE SON OF ERIN’S ISLE’

Timothy Michael Brosnan was born on 1 May 1882 – International Workers Day – in the small Irish town of Knockeenagowan, County Kerry. He and his five older siblings were raised in a Catholic agricultural household by Timothy senior and Mary. After his parents died he migrated to New Zealand around 1910 in search of work. Like many other Irish migrants he became a navvy, working as a road labourer in Utiku, a small township on the North Island main trunk line set among cleared bush and knobbly hills just south of Taihape. To some observers the motley navvy gang was a drunken, lawless, ungodly and dangerous bunch, a ‘profane rabble’ of common labourers. In reality, Rangitīkei navvy camps were relatively sober and law-abiding: the distance from pubs or other drinking holes making it hard for residents to drink away their sorrows. Their trades and work experiences were also far from common: bootmakers, printers, coachbuilders and other artisans made redundant by technology were a common fixture on the Taihape works.7 For as many days of the year as the weather allowed, Tim laboured with gravel and sand using a large-bladed banjo shovel, laying road foundations through recently cleared bush or gullies. Working in a group of around a dozen men, he and his fellow navvies would accept work on planned sections of road for a pre-agreed fee, to be shared equally among them. Once work began they were relatively 100

For dearer the grave or the prison

independent, but appalling conditions and hard, monotonous work offset any freedoms they had. Rain or injury were often their only reprieve. By day Tim baked in sweat and mud, but come knock-off time he cut a dashing figure in his tailored brown suit and Hibernian Society regalia, a silver medallion worn prominently on his lapel. He stood 5’9” tall and thickset, with thick auburn hair and a ginger moustache, intense blue eyes and a pronouced Irish accent when he spoke. His style was rivalled by that of his wife Mary Ellen Corbett, known as Molly, who wore her own medallion with pride. She was also a farmer’s child from Ireland, born in County Clare seven years after her husband. Molly emigrated some time before Tim and the two met in New Zealand and married in March 1916. After the war they had two children – Timothy junior (born in 1920) and Hannah (1927). Irish companionship and community allowed working-class settlers like Molly and Tim to retain their cultural identity and receive much-needed mutual support. At that time the dominant environment was British Protestantism, and many Irish Catholics, because of their history of dispossession and anti-colonial struggle, forged associations that reflected their values, politics and faith. This was even more pressing after 1911 as Irish migration slowed, ruptures between Catholics and Protestants widened in Ireland and sectarian conflict over religious instruction in New Zealand schools intensified. Tim was a member of the Hibernian Society, a friendly society of Irish Catholics formed in 1869 to raise funds and support each other. For a man working in a trade that did not qualify for accident compensation from the government, the Hibernian Society filled more than just a cultural need – it was often all an injured or disabled navvy could rely on. It also provided a chance to celebrate important dates and milestones in the Irish calendar, to mingle, and to talk politics. It is unlikely that Tim’s time in the 101

DEAD LETTERS

society radicalised him, and formal revolutionary organisations like the IRB did not exist in New Zealand. Still, by 1916, if not earlier, he was a militant supporter of Irish independence. Both he and Molly declared themselves for Sinn Féin, the Irish organisation that had united radicals in the struggle for an Irish republic. Before long Tim’s nationalism gained him a reputation as ‘an Irishman of the sturdy republican order’, and his working experience made him aware of class division and working-class theories of change:8 ‘War is only good for the Capitalists’ who stay at home and reap the reward while ‘the poor plugs’ do the fighting, he wrote to a relative.9 As with Connolly and other revolutionary socialists, this added a sometimes fraught element to the nationalist mix. ‘The Irish people will only be free when they own everything from the plough to the stars,’ declared Connolly. Tim would have no doubt agreed. Midway into the war Tim’s politics found a perfect outlet in the Maoriland Irish Society, a non-sectarian organisation formed in August 1916 as a result of the Easter Rising. Its rich social programme of lectures and music nights attracted many, while its links to the IRB through personal contacts hinted at a deeper involvement with the Irish struggle. In fact the society may have been a local front for the IRB.10 It was certainly an umbrella organisation for those producing the staunchly nationalist newspaper Green Ray, which appeared in late 1916. The feisty monthly was firmly against Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party; it was for Sinn Féin, and an unapologetic defender of the martyred rebels of 1916. The Catholic bourgeoisie and their quest for respectability within Protestant society were also a target, ridiculed as ‘wishy-washy, hand-rubbing, knee-bending, “beggin’-your-pardon” Irishmen – the shoneen [i.e. Anglophile] class’.11 Here the views of Green Ray readers merged with those of the working-class readership of the Maoriland Worker who, of course, were often one and the same (take the labourer Joseph Goss who, as well as decrying Wellington rental rates, thought respectable Catholics lacked moral courage for not ‘discussing this 102

For dearer the grave or the prison

most important matter of a full measure of justice to Ireland’).12 In common with the Green Ray, Tim believed John Redmond to be a traitor who had led thousands of Irish to their deaths in France under England’s false promises. ‘It is a pity the Lord did not taken him out of the world six years ago’ he wrote upon hearing the news of Redmond’s death.13 Indeed, as the muddied slaughterhouse of Europe consumed more and more men, it was clear to the New Zealand government that volunteering was not producing enough recruits. It overcame its fear of working-class resistance, and the first conscription ballot was finally taken on 16 November 1916. It worked like death lotto. Two revolving drums contained numbered marbles, that led to 233 numbered draws. In each draw were 500 cards with the names of reservists compiled from the National Registration of October 1915 – despite a government promise that the information gathered would not be used for conscription. The first marble selected the draw, the second selected the man. This painstaking process was repeated monthly. It was cumbersome but generally accepted as fair. Only one single irregularity was discovered during its operation: a clerk had removed the card of her boyfriend.14 Rather than waste their lives in what many believed was an irrelevant war on the other side of the world, some balloted men resisted their call-up. By the end of the war around 10,000 men (or 5.3 per cent of those eligible for military service) had evaded the state, been convicted or had come under state control. This resistance generally took one or more of four forms. Some men faked illness in order to fail the medical examination, although many attempts were laughably obvious. One conscript described ongoing heart trouble and then fainted on cue; and an alleged epileptic collapsed dramatically to the floor but was easily revived with a bucket of cold water. Others were more successful. Men injected their knees with fluid, purposely contracted sexual diseases, or chewed massive amounts of tobacco to make their 103

DEAD LETTERS

heartbeat irregular.15 Bob Heffron, a socialist and goldminer involved in the 1912 Waihī strike who later became premier of New South Wales, allegedly smoked 12 packs of cigarettes before his medical. A second tactic was to evade the state entirely. Many who were eligible for military service either ignored the call-up, left the country or went into hiding. Some, like Heffron, who was eventually declared fit for active service, were smuggled out of New Zealand in a ship’s coal bunker. Historian Paul Baker notes that by 1918, 1097 of these defaulters had been convicted, and the estimate of those who were never found ranged between 3700 and 6400.16 A third option was to try for an exemption before the appeal boards or to accept non-combatant duties. Over half of the 43,500 men who appealed on grounds of undue hardship or that their service was against the public interest were granted exemption; yet, as Archibald Baxter wrote in We Will Not Cease, ‘the Appeal Boards were farcical as far as objectors were concerned, their members usually ridiculing the objectors who were rash enough to appeal’.17 The fourth form of resistance, and the one most associated with conscientious objection, was to publicly refuse all military service and to defy the process every step of the way. Sometimes this meant evasion but more often than not objectors used the process to give voice to their opposition. This has come to be seen as the most principled type of objection, yet refusing to appear before a board or evading the military was still a conscious – if less visible – act. Whether we label these varied forms of resistance as ‘conscientious’ or not does not change the reality of their stance. Irish resisters were a small but significant portion of these socalled shirkers. As Brosnahan has shown, avoiding military service was the primary expression of Irish resistance in New Zealand. The Green Ray published with approval the efforts of objectors to evade the authorities. In fact it did more than just report the struggle: behind the scenes its editors and other members of the Maoriland Irish Society created an ‘underground railway’ to escape conscription 104

For dearer the grave or the prison

– including John Troy, secretary of the Wellington branch of the society. Aided by figures in the labour movement, the illicit network smuggled objectors out of the country via a network of sympathetic seamen.18 They must have had some success, for the Recruiting Board made regular complaints to Allen about the ‘leakage of men of military age’.19 Even if only a few boats were involved over several years, hundreds may have escaped this way.20 This was no mean feat. Exit permits became compulsory in November 1915, and police ran a fine-tooth comb over every passenger ship leaving the country. Detectives would board every steamer, make all the male passengers line up and then painstakingly check each permit, while constables guarded the gangway in case anyone tried to escape. One way around this was to join the crew and then desert at the first port. In a move some rank-and-file members would have viewed as class betrayal, Seamen’s Union secretary Tom Young wrote to Allen in April 1916 about a group of freezing workers who had joined the union just to reach Sydney. Young was ‘satisfied that a fairly good number of men are now going in the ships for no other purpose than evading their military obligations in this time of conflict between nations, and we have decided not to admit any such other men to the union’.21 Despite this, an international spirit of hydrarchy – the democratic self-organisation of sailors – continued below deck.22 In July 1917, 15 crew members of the Paloona deserted at French Polynesia and again at San Francisco – British, Irish, New Zealand, Australian, Swedish and Swiss heritage united in common cause against both the military and their union official. By late 1918 police searches included checks of the ships’ holds and coal bunkers (much to the annoyance of the shipping companies, who resented the delay). Searches were also conducted at the other end of the voyage. On 21 August 1918, after a threehour search of the passenger ship Manuka, six Irish stowaways were arrested by Sydney police. Most were caught posing as firemen while 105

DEAD LETTERS

another was found hiding in a toilet. They were bundled back to New Zealand and jailed for three months on the charge of leaving the country without a permit. One Irish objector who managed to escape conscription via the underground railway was Dunedin carpenter James Bradley, a founder of Green Ray with personal links to the IRB. After hiding out at Sawyers Bay near Port Chalmers he was smuggled onto a ship bound for conscription-free Australia. John Larkin was another who attempted to escape conscription. Born in New Zealand to Irish parents, the bushman from Kawakawa was called up in 1917, only to desert from Trentham military camp along with his brother Robert and three others. Ten officers and 25 military personnel all armed with revolvers set off on their trail. Three of the absconders were captured at gunpoint in Martinborough. John, after destroying his uniform, stowed away on a ship to Australia under a false name. He was eventually captured and sent to the front in July 1918 but did not see active service. His brother Robert was also captured and sent to the front. He never made it: in Cape Town, South Africa he outwitted the authorities and escaped for good. Other Irish objectors took their chances within the military. Jeremiah Griffin, an Irish immigrant from County Kerry who was a goldminer at Glenhope, near Nelson, was prepared to serve in a non-combatant role. He entered camp at the beginning of May 1917 and went overseas with the 27th Reinforcements in July, but after arriving in Britain he deserted and headed for his country of birth to aid the armed struggle.23 He joined Frederick McKenna, another deserter from the NZEF who was fighting for the nationalist cause. ‘It is quite apparent that the majority of our deserters are hiding in Ireland, where special inducements are offered to them by the Sinn Fein element,’ wrote a frustrated military provost.24 Back in New Zealand other Irish were making hell for the authorities. Prominent were the Codys, a large Irish family based in Southland.25 Five sons of Patrick Cody and four of his brother 106

For dearer the grave or the prison

Laurence’s sons were all eligible for military service. As Brosnahan notes, Patrick’s eldest son Daniel left New Zealand for South America early in the war. Laurence’s sons Walter and Thomas also fled the country after the introduction of conscription.26 The rest went into hiding. Warrants were issued for Luke, Laurence Jnr, Michael, George, Walter and Patrick Cody Jnr (who was president of the Riversdale branch of the Maoriland Irish Society). Laurence and Michael changed their names and headed north, where they were captured and sent to jail. ‘Patrick and John, who had been exempted from service to run the family farms, were called up to take the place of their brothers who had fled. When they refused they were tried at a Trentham military court in August 1917 and sentenced to 11 months’ jail.’27 George and Luke successfully hid out in the bush and evaded police until the war was over. Today, a mountainous area of dense bush near the Mavora Lakes, where they were brought food by their mother driving a horse-drawn wagon, is still referred to as Shirkers Bush. The state was run ragged searching for such objectors. By 1919 O’Donovan declared that demands on police resources were causing indiscipline and neglect, and this was bringing the force close to disaster. At least they had help from censors in Australia, who shared mail such as that of John (surname unknown) writing to his sister in Ireland: ‘I was in Brisbane at Easter and there I met Dannie Butler. You know him, big James Butler’s son of Dongonnell. He escaped from New Zealand during the conscription campaign, come to Sydney and from there to Brisbane, he is working 50 miles up in the Bush.’28 John noted that Dannie was ‘looking well but doesn’t care much about Australia and is going back to New Zealand when things settle down’.29 The censors thought the New Zealand authorities might be able to arrest Dannie on his return, but they would have to wait: it was not until 1921 that the bulk of Irish evaders felt safe enough to return to the country.

107

DEAD LETTERS

‘I WOULD GIVE ALL MY LIFE IN GAOL’

The year 1917 started well for Tim. His marriage to Molly was in its honeymoon period and they would have been talking about starting a family. The backbreaking labour of building roads was almost bearable on jobs like the one he’d taken in Owhango, with its lush bush and views of Mount Ruapehu and Tongariro. Here, the European war really felt a world away. Then, on 13 January 1917, the Wanganui Chronicle brought the war to Tim’s doorstep. Among the columns of names balloted for the 26th Reinforcements was that of Timothy Brosnan. He was required to attend a medical examination in early March. Tim was adamant on his course of action. There was no way he would, in his own words, ‘fight for a country that had prosecuted and murdered my country and my people for hundreds of years, and were doing so today’. Until Ireland was free ‘of the persecuting and tyrannical laws of British misrule’ he would refuse any participation in the war.30 Tim decided to take a job somewhere as far away from home as possible and await the outcome. How Molly truly felt about his decision we can only go by Tim’s words, not her own. Tim’s comrade Denis Mangan, an Irish labourer based at Taumarunui, was also balloted that month. He immediately changed his name to Dennis O’Sullivan and fled the township, possibly with Tim, who had left for the bottom of the South Island. Infused with a hatred of England and determined not to serve on its behalf, the two comrades-in-arms were now on the run from the law. Their evasion lasted five months. Mangan was sprung by a plainclothes constable at an Invercargill boarding house after leading police on a chase across most of New Zealand. Defiant to the end, he refused to submit to the military and was jailed for two years with hard labour. Tim was caught soon after: on 23 August 1917 police surprised him as he laboured in the barren Limehills region near Winton. 108

For dearer the grave or the prison

Did Tim try to run? Did he resist arrest? The files are silent on this and simply record that he was handed over to the military authorities at Invercargill, who transferred him under armed guard to Dunedin. For 26 days he languished in a cell at St Kilda Battery, his time broken only by a short trip to Kensington Drill Hall to be classified fit for military service. He was then sent to Trentham military camp near Wellington, a processing centre for new recruits and dissenters alike. Archibald Baxter, who had been forced to go on the exact same journey six months earlier, wrote of his own arrival in Trentham: ‘The guardroom housed a heterogeneous collection. Drunks, fierce men loudly denouncing the war and the army, but ready in the end to take it on, and others, equally fierce, who said we ought to be shot.’31 Like Archie Baxter, Tim was asked to take an oath of allegiance. He refused. When he was ordered to undertake military work, he refused. Charged with disobeying the command of his superior officer, he was sentenced to 28 days imprisonment at Wellington’s Alexandra Barracks, a stone’s throw from the office of Colonel Gibbon. Tim was committed to resisting the military and so the cold concrete cells of Alexandra Barracks did not alter his stance. Nor did his court martial for refusing to wear a military uniform. From a cell in Trentham he relayed his experience to the editors of Green Ray: I was court-martialled by a Court comprising one major, three lieutenants, Crown Prosecutor, and short-hand taker, all sworn in my presence. What a farce! They asked me would I plead guilty. I told them that I ignored their Conscription Act and their military law, that I did not recognise any man in this camp to be my superior, much less my superior officer, but that it was undoubtedly true that I refused to take the uniform which I was offered, so they put down as pleading not guilty. The President of the Court asked me my reason. I said I was an Irishman, a Sinn Feiner … that I would never fight for John Bull but always fight against him.32 109

DEAD LETTERS

Echoing Patrick Pearse, whose execution after the Easter Rising fit his belief in the nobility of blood sacrifice, Tim wrote: ‘we must show the Bull boys that we cannot get our own restored to us (our liberty and freedom) by peaceable means, we are going to gain it by force. I wish I was in Ireland today with my Sinn Fein comrades. What a glorious death it would be to die side by side with them while fighting for the freedom of our country.’33 Instead, Tim was sentenced to two years’ hard labour at Rotoaira Prison Camp, located deep within the inhospitable Rangipō district south of Lake Taupō. His punishment? Building roads. Rotoaira was originally built for habitual criminals but as more and more wartime objectors were imprisoned it was converted to hold them. The camp was one of many detention centres for objectors set up across the country, derided by imprisoned socialist Robert Gould as ‘Bill’s Boarding Houses’ after William ‘Bill’ Massey. These included prisons in Wellington, Paparua, Invercargill, Dunedin, Kaingaroa, Waikeria and Auckland, a state farm in Weraroa, a detention barracks in Whanganui, and cells at military camps like Trentham, Featherston and Narrow Neck. By 1919, at least 670 objectors had done time within Bill’s Boarding Houses.34 Despite the claims of some patriotic groups, prison life was no picnic. Food was watery and unpalatable, blankets were woefully thin and the inmates were subjected to constant abuse and degrading strip searches. In Waikeria, Kaingaroa and Paparua, inmates went on hunger strike, refused to work or initiated go-slows to improve their conditions. Rotoaira was particularly bleak and desolate. Tim and his fellow objectors spent their days labouring on roads or planting endless rows of trees, exposed to high-altitude winds, before retiring to small wooden huts with little protection from the elements. During the winter of 1918 the camp was buried in deep snow. Tim dubbed it the Siberia of New Zealand. Poor food and conditions took their toll. In January 1919, an extremely unwell objector named William White was transferred 110

For dearer the grave or the prison

from Rotoaira to Mount Eden Prison. Fellow inmates claimed White was not treated until six days after his arrival and was denied his full rations for not being able to work. Labour leader Harry Holland recounted what happened in Armageddon or Calvary: The night before his death, he was heard knocking to attract attention, and some of the prisoners make the charge that no attention was paid to him. In the morning, at 6.45, his breakfast was pushed in. When the warder came back to lock him in at 7.45, White pleaded that the door might be left open, saying that he ‘hadn’t a friend in the world and was feeling very bad.’ The door was not left open. When the other prisoners returned from physical drill, White was rolling about and sweating in agony in his hammock, and there was vomit on the floor of his cell. It is alleged that a little later White was told by an official that if he got out into the fresh air and did some light work he would feel better. Not long after this the doctor came, and at once ordered the man into the prison hospital, where he died almost immediately. His fellow-prisoners complain that when the inquest was held a number of them who could have given important evidence were not called.

Holland’s calls for a magisterial inquiry into the death were brushed aside.35 As bad as this case was, it was not the worst. The Wanganui Detention Barracks had been created in March 1918 to process the most defiant objectors. Its commandant was Lieutenant J.L. Crampton, an invalided officer who had been accused of rape and assault during a short stint in Sāmoa. Crampton believed that strict discipline would turn objectors into soldiers, and set about his task with violent vigour. Paul Baker in his book on First World War conscription notes how ‘prisoners who would not wear the uniform were forcibly dressed’ and ‘pushed, pulled, kicked, and punched around what Crampton called the “slaughter yard.” Some were pulled with a rope round the neck, and repeatedly pushed into 111

DEAD LETTERS

walls until their faces resembled “raw steak”.’36 Thomas Moynihan, an Irish objector and self-employed goldminer from Kumara, was one of them. After refusing to drill, Moynihan was stripped, beaten, forcibly put in uniform and taken to the slaughter yard. A rifle was then tied to his wrist, but as Moynihan refused to hold it the gun kept slipping down. Guards allegedly smashed it several times against the side of his face ‘till the blood was streaming down’.37 It was finally attached to his shoulder and he was forced around the yard for close to an hour, stopping only to have two macabre photographs taken. Unsurprisingly, Moynihan accepted a non-combatant role soon after and was transferred to the Medical Corps at Awanui; he never reached the front. Allegations of mistreatment at the barracks eventually leaked to the press thanks to letters smuggled out of the compound. Allen was concerned, and launched an official inquiry in June. The inquiry collected large numbers of statements from objectors and guards and found the allegations to be true; it concluded that severe punishment had been used.38 The camp was shut down. In some quarters, though, Crampton’s actions were celebrated. The Egmont County Council congratulated him on methods ‘no Britisher would object to’, while the Rangitikei Advocate reminded critics ‘that by its lack of manly civic attributes, such as patriotism, and by its sullen, intractable and pig-headed opposition to authority this type of objector is little better than brutes, and ordinary humane and restrained methods of punishment would have no effect with them’.39 Encouraged, Crampton demanded a military court martial and, with the Returned Services’ Association as his legal counsel, he was found not guilty of 11 charges of ill-treatment. Besides struggling against violent guards and inhumane conditions, the objectors’ mail was subject to censorship. It was near impossible to write anything more than idle chat. Take the case of Paddy Webb, a Member of Parliament who had been jailed as a conscientious objector in 1918. Paddy wrote to Harry Holland: ‘I am 112

For dearer the grave or the prison

not permitted to write anything that reflects on the Government, and must refrain from making any reference to the class war – even the need for its ending. Under no circumstances will I be allowed to express my views on the war or things arising therefrom. AntiConscription views must remain in abeyance until I regain my liberty.’40 His letters, which always ended with ‘Yours for Socialism’, had the word ‘Socialism’ erased by the censor. Green Ray editor Tom Cummins, who had been jailed in mid-1918 for an editorial that compared Britain to a tyrant, also had his prison letters censored with thick sections of dark blue pencil. Remarkably, Tim Brosnan’s letter, written in April 1918, managed to get through. Although he was not allowed to receive his subscription to Green Ray – in any event, the newspaper would shortly be suppressed by O’Donovan and Tanner – the letter shows he was clearly aware that momentous events were taking place back in his homeland, where the British government had finally extended conscription to Ireland. Amid rising tension and increased republican activity, conscription felt like a further attack on Irish self-determination – even if the Irish Convention called by Prime Minister Lloyd George had decided to reintroduce the Home Rule Bill. The introduction of conscription was met with staunch protests: ‘The island’s Catholic bishops, never known for their radicalism, issued a ringing manifesto against conscription; Irish trade unions called a 24-hour general strike, and everywhere (except in the Protestant north) factories, newspaper presses, trains, trolleys, and horse cabs came to a halt. Even the pubs closed.’41 The Irish Convention and conscription heralded the end of a political era in Ireland, Sinn Féin won landslide victories in all but the northeast of Ireland in the December 1918 election, and the bloody war for independence followed soon after. After evading the watchful eye of local censors, Tim’s letter was eventually stopped by censors in Brisbane and sent back to Gibbon. His Australian counterpart believed the letter would inflame the disloyalty rampant in North Queensland, and questioned how well 113

DEAD LETTERS

the New Zealand censors were doing their job. As Tim was already in prison there was not much Gibbon could do, but he confiscated the letter nonetheless. At a time when Tim’s mail was the primary connection to his loved ones, this silencing was punishment enough. Not knowing that his letters were prohibited from reaching their destination, he wrote another letter to his sister pleading to hear from his family. ‘Happy and pleased would I be when I receive a letter from any one of ye … I am not ashamed of but proud of and I know that ye my sisters and brothers in Australia are not ashamed of my actions but proud of them surely then they could answer a letter when I write to them.’42 As Armistice came and went, Tim remained locked in Rotoaira and separated from his wife and family. When the Religious Advisory Board, whose job was to establish which objectors still in prison were considered genuine and who were not, visited on 27 February 1919, Tim and 12 others refused to see them. As a result he was classified as a defiant objector and lost all civil rights until 1927. Because of this, Tim’s time after his release in 1919 or 1920 was never truly free. He continued his work as a navvy and surely cherished being back with Molly, despite not being able to ‘shake the dust of wowser ridden & Tory governed New Zealand’ from his boots. But the road from Rotoaira was not an easy one, and Timothy Brosnan died at Taihape Hospital of pneumonia on 1 October 1929. He was 47 years old. Before then, however, he had become a father. His son Timothy junior was conscripted during the Second World War; his appeal on the grounds of essential home-front work was rejected. Tim’s daughter Hannah trained as a nurse before she met the love of her life and settling in Ōtaki. Whether through choice or by chance, both knew little of their father’s wartime stand – it was something the family acknowledged but rarely talked about. Hannah told her own granddaughter Veronica that she thought Molly had always looked unhappy and that she never spoke of her marriage to Tim or 114

For dearer the grave or the prison

the hardships of war. For Veronica, reading Tim’s confiscated letter – the first time a family member had seen it in close to 100 years – was an incredible revelation. It helped to explain why.

115

DEAD LETTERS

116

5

5 TH E C AMP IN TH E BUSH Frank Burns aka Frank Lonnigan aka Jack Hay to Miss D. Nugent, Melbourne, Australia. AD10 Box 10 19/4

10 Miles From Nowhere 12-3-1918 My Dear Doll, No doubt you will get a surprise when you receive this letter from me, however I know you will forgive me, as position and circumstances which I am under, as you already know, have forbidden me writing previous to this, nevertheless Doll, here I am again having managed to get through a great amount of trouble, which has learnt me a lesson I never will forget. Mag told me she wrote to you and told you about poor old Dad leaving us to join the great majority, it was a terrible shock for me, but not as bad as dear old Mum as she had no chance whatever of seeing him once while he was in the hospital, the police were watching all the time Dad was there, but I was smuggled in, despite the cursed mongrels. By God Doll I didn’t know what a Dad was till getting near the finish, anyhow I have to take Dad’s responsibilities now on my back, and look after Mum and all the family, so I think it will be the Christmas after next, before I can get the opportunity of seeing you again, which I know will not be as much joy as I anticipated when meeting you again, that is if what I hear is true.

A confiscated letter containing a 100-year-old clipping of a West Coast fern. AAYS 8647 AD10 Box 10/19/4, Archives New Zealand OPPOSITE:

117

DEAD LETTERS

Well Doll, rumours are circulating here to the effect that you have undertook to yourself a husband, cannot believe it myself, but if such is the case remember there is a lad here, waiting to serve you in anyway you like to mention also that all the good luck and happiness that is possible to get, be bestowed on you and the hubby. Well Kid, I had an idea you were going to wait for me, Christ knows where I got the notion from, and I haven’t lost it yet. I will wait until your hubby is pushing the daisies up, and then arrive and claim you. I will love you all the more when the silver threads are shining in your dear old barnet-fair. Anyhow Doll I suppose you would have nothing to do with me now, if you wasn’t married. I can’t see you having any time for a military evader or shirker old kid. My God it gave me a bump when I heard you were married, but I’ve got no objections, so go for your life and get all the enjoyment possible to get. Well old dear my Christmas festivities were the most troublesome and disappointing ever I experienced so far, not like the previous one kid, when we got together roaming those hills. The one when you was here was all fun and frolic, and this one all sorrow and sadness, so you can imagine what it was like, just the two extremes. What do you think of those policemen, it tells you what they will do, when they watch a man’s father on his deathbed and also his funeral to try and capture his son for evading and refusing to go and fight their cursed wars. I heard that Johnson (one of your old associates I’m sorry to say) has gone to the war, and I sincerely hope that he gets shot right in the bottle and glass and gets blown right out of existence. Hope you take no offence at the way I explain things, but if you was here, you would probably hear worse than that, the experience I have been through has made my heart hard and bitter against those mongrels of humanity. 118

The camp in the bush

This present position I am obliged to be owing to Gawd’s Own Government could have been avoided in numerous ways, but it seems that fate destined to place me here. You remember me telling you about old Porky applying for my exemption, well he commanded it alright, and a month after, me and the bumptious old buggar had an argument, so I lifted my time and left, like a fool. Well next exemption board they wanted to know my whereabouts, and old Porky told them I was at Waiuta, so that was alright but after finding out I wasn’t there, they issued orders to proceed to camp, which I did, only in the wrong direction, I went to the camp in the bush instead, where I am going to remain for a while yet. Well Kid I wanted to go to Waiuta but Dad said stop here, so the next item was to proceed which I done to perfection. So you can see Doll old darling what the little bit of hot-headedness of mine will do, you know that little bit, you used to always be lecturing me, and giving me advice about. I wish I had of taken a bit of notice of you then, kid, but I never, so you can see the position it partly landed me into today. Say Doll how is poor old Glycerine getting on, has she been wearing those new-fashioned skirts again yet, you know how those ones that is up in the front, and down at back. Did you say you made me God-Dad to that baby of Glyce’s, write and let me know also whether it was a boy or a girl, also give my best of love to Glyce, and tell her I will see her, someday when dreams come true. How is little Sylvia and Minnie getting on when you see them again, give my best love to them, also tell them I received that letter of theirs, and explain to them why I can’t write, but will as soon as possible. Give my best love to your dear old mum, and ask her if she has got another daughter like you she can give me as you are married, if she hasn’t tell her to give your hubby the boot so as to give me another chance. God Bless her dear old Irish 119

DEAD LETTERS

Heart, and tell her I hope that old Ireland never runs short of murphys (spuds). How is brother Pat the champion snap-grabber getting on. Well Doll old darling I’m getting a bit cheeky, when I started this letter I said to myself I won’t put any ‘darlings’ and ‘dears’ in it, because your hubby might see it, but buggar it kid this is the only way I can talk to you (Damn it, you know I love you.) I say kid I received those photos of you and Rose, and by Christ, they were snifters also that Christmas card, and you can just imagine how sorry I was not being able to send you one, anyhow I got all those keepsakes of yours, and I hope you have got mine. Well Doll old darling, you know how I cant mention no names, in case this letter is opened, but the last time I heard from goatgulley everything was pie on the kittens-kidney. I believe young “Bum” is growing in fine stile, and my little horse-rider is well, so things are pretty good as far as health goes. Well Kid this life of mine is getting very monotonous but I’m determined to carry it through, use the utmost discretion when addressing my letters, and don’t put my name on the envelope, and for Christ sake don’t let your hubby see this, burn it, so I will conclude Doll with fondest love From your old has-been. Frank Lonnigan. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Give my best love to all xxxx and mountains for yourself xxxxxxx Sunshine Smile Address my letters this way. Mr Jack Hay Ngakawau, Westport S. Island, New Zealand

120

The camp in the bush

Ngakawau Saturday 7th April 1918 My Dearest Doll, Penning you another letter to inform you I am still in the land of the living also convinced that I will be for a long time yet, owing to my anticipations that I want to enjoy in the future. I am looking forward with great interest and pleasure for the time when we two will meet again, and also for the gladness and reception I will receive when I see my dear old Mother, brothers and sisters again. Well Doll old darling everything is going along very smoothly and quietly with me at present, haven’t seen a picture show since you left, and only one or two dances. But you beggared things altogether going and getting married, you have spoilt one of the most enjoyable expectations I was looking forward to, but never mind old kid we will just have to be a little bit different, and that will be when your hubby is out of sight. Say Doll, what kind of bloke is he, I hope he is not a bloody policeman, if he is, don’t answer this letter, and let me forget you forever, for Christ’s Sake, leave the buggar, separate get a divorce or do anything rather than marry one of those useless, good for nothing mongrels. Half time, turn over. Well my lovely bunch of sun-drops, I have got a little experience I had the other night to relate If you had of been there and seen me, I honestly think you would have laughed until old Nick was pitchforking you into the fire, anyway kid I would be no good there, because I would be too green to burn after the other night’s adventure, the old buggar would die freezing if he waited to get enough heat out of my bones to keep him warm. Well kid here she goes, I was laying in bed very comfortable on Thursday Night 121

DEAD LETTERS

reading one of Jack London’s books, when a bloke that is my next door neighbor rushes in, and tells me to run for the nurse as his missus was going to give birth to a child. I hopped out of bed, pulled on my trousers, never put on any boots, coat, or hat, and away I goes for the lick of my life. You already know what kind of frosts we get here, well this one was a beauty, as cold as the love of an Adelaide prostitute, anyhow I was travelling along the road like a new motor with top speed up going like the wind, when I hit my foot on a little stump right in the middle of the road, I think the bloody thing must have just grown there because I never noticed it before. Well down I goes right on my stomach, and… Hold on a bit till I have a smoke. … gravel-rashed my hands a bit, but when I sat up, I suddenly discovered I left my big toenail hanging on the little stump. Well Doll if you had seen me sitting in the middle of that road nursing my toe I can just imagine the way you would laugh, anyhow I sat there and cursed the bloke, and Nurse, and hoped the woman that was going to have the kid would bloody-well bust. Anyhow after exploding every curse that was in my Profane Language Dictionary I got up and hobbled along to the Nurses Place. This is where the best part of the joke come in, a couple of days previous to this I was talking to the old nurse and was admiring her for looking so fresh and young-looking for a woman of her age. Anyhow I knocked at the door, and out she comes, well of all the ugly old buggars ever you saw, she was the limit, she had no teeth, not a hair on her head, it was as bald as a babies bum. By Christ Doll she must put on a ton and a half of powder and paint to make herself look like she did when I first saw her. Anyhow I told her she was wanted, and she told me to tell them “alright, she would be there in half-an-hour, well Doll old kid I walked away from that place, properly disgusted and said to myself, a thousand of your sort isn’t worth losing a toenail over. Well Doll old Darling this is where the part comes in that I reckon I was green. Well 122

The camp in the bush

in the first place I shouldn’t have been running so fast, but me thinking it was a very serious case and it meant life or death if the nurse wasn’t there quick. I went like the hammers of Christ. Next time anybody comes and asks me to go on one of these errands I will just stroll along steadily and have 4 or 5 smokes on the track. Say Doll if such a thing ever happens to you send your hubby and don’t let any unfortunate buggar like me take on the job. By Christ this toe of mine gives me particular hell when I am working, but I never lost a shift, and is beginning to feel alright again. Give my best love to Glycerine, and for Christs sake don’t show her this. Also keep it well out of sight from your hubby if he is a policeman show it to the buggar and I’ll stand by the consequences. I haven’t had any word since I came down here but I am expecting a letter in the near future, might be two days, and might be 2 years before Mag writes. Well Doll old Darling what do you think of my little experience the other night I reckon it was a snifter. Give my best love to Mum & Rose also Pat and tons for yourself so I will conclude with fondest love From Frank. Your old Has Been. Jack xxxxxxx Good Bye old Darling. DON’T.LET.YOUR.HUBBY.SEE.THIS Write every week and don’t keep me waiting.

***

F

rank must have thought it was a good yarn as he sealed the small, black-edged envelope and addressed it to Mary Nugent, or Dolly as her friends called her. He would have pictured Dolly as he remembered her, at ease behind the piano with the crowd hanging on her every note, her skill the talk of the town. Miss Dolly Nugent, Associate of the London College of Music, star of whatever church event or occasion she performed in and, to Frank’s despair, soon to be a model bride. 123

DEAD LETTERS

Ngākawau seemed a million miles away from Dolly and their past together. Sitting exposed on the Karamea Bight and facing the wild expanse of the Tasman Sea, Ngākawau was a typical mining town in an atypical location. Wooden living quarters, bins of coarse metal and a powerhouse guarded by coal heaps clung desperately to the narrow flat of land between the mineral-rich Buller plateau and the sea. The Ngākawau River separated the town from the neighbouring settlement of Hector, named after the geologist who had studied the 30-kilometre-long coalfield. Around this coalfield grew an industry and a heritage that was once synonymous with the South Island West Coast. From his miners’ quarters Frank could cross the river past the men gathered at the end of the bridge discussing politics, rugby and racing, post his letter at the Ngākawau hotel and sneak a pint of beer in one trip. Not that his job as a trucker at the Stockton Mine left him much time for recreation. There was the odd dance and union meeting, or a game of cricket on the afternoon off. Frank did not like to linger in town, despite being a bit of a ‘warrigal’.1 He knew it was risky to come down from his hideout in the bush, but he hoped Jack Hay’s leave of absence pass would be enough to convince any enquiring officer that he was Jack Hay, a miner given leave from military service because of his work in an essential industry. Frank could also count on the support of his local mining community. It was thanks to the ‘underground railroad’ they had set up for defaulters like him that he had made it this far, having been smuggled into the misty hills of the surrounding area and then into a job at Stockton. Indeed, miners across the West Coast had devised ingenious ways of keeping the ‘bobbies’ at bay. Whenever police searches were planned, sympathisers within the Defence Department or the local telephone exchange would leak the details, triggering a warning system of whistles and other signals.2 Women of the community would leave secret stores of food or hand-deliver treats to keep up the spirits of those on the run from the law. 124

The camp in the bush

Frank was no stranger to mining or its communal networks of support. Born on 24 March 1897 in Allendale, a small goldmining town northwest of Melbourne, the 5’9”, blue-eyed and roguishly handsome Francis Theodore Burns had joined his father in New Zealand as soon as he was able to work, leaving his brothers and sisters behind for the wages of a West Coast miner. Now those wages had claimed his father forever. The head of a party of contractors employed by the Addison Gold Mining Company, in November 1917 Frank senior had sustained severe injuries while working the Murray Creek quartz mine near Reefton. He died two months later, leaving a gap in the union he cherished and a hole in the life of his eldest son. Thrust into that hole was the news of Dolly’s betrothal. Despite the solidarity of his mates and the prospect of a reunion with his mother Charlotte (Lottie), who was travelling from Tasmania to farewell her husband at his soggy Reefton grave, Frank’s letters betray a heartache cloaked in humour. If he overestimated the effect his storytelling would have on his former sweetheart, he underestimated the reach of the law. Dolly never got her letters. Instead, Frank received the cold embrace of a jail cell. ‘IN THE WRONG DIRECTION’

Like Timothy Brosnan, Frank was one of a number of defaulters who chose to evade conscription.3 As we have seen, being smuggled out of the country in a ship’s coal bunker was one way to escape the state. Another was to remain in New Zealand and go into hiding. Some took their chances in urban centres, laying low during the day and venturing out in the evenings. As Paul Baker notes, one man joined the circus; another lived a vagrant’s life around One Tree Hill in Auckland; and one defaulter took flight in his boat around the Waitematā Harbour, staying one wharf ahead of the police for some time.4 Others had support from friends and family despite the consequences of harbouring evaders. When police raided the 125

DEAD LETTERS

Christchurch home of William and Ella Price early one morning in 1918, they found two defaulters hidden between the roof and the ceiling. One was their son, William Price junior, who had been on the run from the military for four months. Eager to make an example of the family, the military had the parents dragged before the court and punished with six months’ imprisonment. However the jailing of a mother for protecting her son ‘troubled even the stoutest of hearts and a mild outcry led to Cabinet remitting her sentence’.5 Most defaulters headed for the country. Some found work with unscrupulous employers who knew they could pay fugitives a pittance; others were helped by sympathetic farmers. Censors regularly came across letters about harbouring men. ‘I was turned down as unfit for service – jolly glad,’ wrote one Nelson farmer. ‘Bill is still in Glaxo camp – not surprised to hear him back out of it any day if they pass him fit, he is not going anyway, he can live out in the camp on my back country, nobody will find him there, I can always take him tucker.’6 Another writer complained that resisters in the Wairarapa were employed at cheap rates in return for clearing bush and general farm work. John Judd, a farmer based in the Manawatū, was caught harbouring defaulters and fined £20.7 Another farmer was jailed for 18 months.8 Hundreds of defaulters went deep into the bush ‘where the danger of detection was replaced by the dangers of isolation and physical hardship’.9 If defaulters were lucky enough, like the Cody brothers whose mother brought them supplies by horse, they could manage reasonably well. Others found the going tough. One defaulter ‘was discovered with long, matted hair and tatty clothes. Another, on the slopes of Mount Egmont [Taranaki], was reportedly going mad, a process the local Defence Officer decided not to interfere with.’10 Some died in the bush. Vincent Carroll, one of three defaulters hiding out between Greymouth and Reefton, was struck by a falling tree and killed; his mates brought out his 126

The camp in the bush

body and were promptly arrested.11 Countless others may have died without anyone ever knowing. Police did their best at locating these covert bush camps, but during the war the police force owned no motorised vehicles, and even if they had, most trails could only be traversed on horseback or by foot. One search party left the Wairarapa town of Masterton for a suspected bushmen’s camp, drove a borrowed car 14 miles before hiking a further nine, only to see all but one of the defaulters escape into the overgrowth.12 A police search in the deep south in late 1918 acquired epic proportions: A group of deserters had masqueraded for some time as surveyors, thereby gaining their supplies, but local suspicions eventually developed and when they came out of the bush in October to hear ‘how the war was progressing’, a station owner telephoned the police. After being arrested, one of the deserters dropped a diary into Lake Wakatipu but it was retrieved and found to indicate the whereabouts some time previously of two other deserters … a police party then spent three weeks tramping some 250 miles, frequently in peat and bog, and in awful conditions, before finding them, and then only by chance.13

Warning signals like the ones used by miners of the West Coast made the going even harder for police. Indeed, the West Coast quickly gained a reputation as a haven for military defaulters, despite a handful of loyalists who were ‘enraged over the subterfuge in their midst’ and who lived ‘in dread of their lives’ because of ‘armed deserters’ camped in the ranges above.14 This was no exaggeration – one cornered, axe-swinging defaulter told police he would ‘give them a go for it’, while others threatened their would-be captors with rifles.15 The rugged and variable terrain of the West Coast was another factor obstructing police searches. One of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of New Zealand, it features towering and 127

DEAD LETTERS

untouched rainforest, wild rivers, frozen glaciers, cascading rockfalls and alpine heights. As Frank’s letters show, there was already a rich tradition of working-class militancy and anti-militarism among miners on the outbreak of war. From the arrival of colliers in the 1870s to some of New Zealand’s biggest strikes, miners have played an active part in the antipodean working-class struggle. As labour historian Len Richardson points out, ‘miners occupy a special place in the history of industrial radicalism in New Zealand’.16 Miners transplanted from the English coalfields to the ‘New World’ often brought with them Methodism and unionism. In 1884 in Denniston, a bleak, highaltitude township south of Ngākawau, miners formed the country’s first miners’ union, and before long they had federated into the larger Miners’ Federation and the Federation of Labour (the ‘Red Feds’). Socialist parties and branches of the IWW also had a strong following among West Coast miners, and are inextricably linked to class conflict on the Coast. Strikes by miners in Blackball and other local mines are the grist of traditional pre-war labour history; war simply added a further ingredient. In 1912, the Buller Plateau company town of Millerton was the only place outside of the main centres to have a branch of the Pacifist League.17 Branches of the Anti-Conscription League and the Passive Resisters Union soon followed, and later federated into the West Coast Federation of Passive Resisters. ‘All wars are a ruse of the capitalist class to set the workers of this country and the workers of other countries at each other’s throats,’ declared these militants. ‘We recognise no enemy except the hereditary enemy of our class – the employers and exploiters of labour in this and other countries.’18 When the government introduced the national registration of military-aged men in 1915, West Coast miners threatened industrial action. Once conscription was introduced a go-slow was put in place – causing Defence Minister Allen to remark that the nation was doomed (see chapter 1). The government promptly assured miners 128

The camp in the bush

that if they were called up their appeals would be favourably heard because of their work in an essential industry. Despite this, miners were refused leave from military service if they left the mining industry or did not put in ‘a fair day’s work’.19 (A West Coast miner called Thomas Irvine had his appeal rejected on account of his goslow. When he tried to stow away aboard the Glaucus in October 1917 he was caught and sent back to New Zealand). In April 1917, miners on the West Coast downed tools and demanded an end to military conscription and a rise in wages. The arrest of their union officials, including two men from Denniston, on sedition charges inflamed the rank and file and led to a compromise on the part of the government: legal action against the strikers would be dropped and miners who had been refused exemption would be reassessed in exchange for a promise of no strike action for the duration of the war. The uneasy compromise lasted for a time; but the government continued to arrest union officials, and miners in the Buller area struck for a 20 per cent pay increase in August 1918. Exactly what caused Frank to evade conscription is open to question. Was it simply the fallout he had with his manager, or his union politics? The influence of his father? A longtime dislike of the state, or of taking orders? Reading one of Jack London’s books? Whatever the reason, when he went bush, probably in the spring of late October or early November 1917, he drew on his mining connections for help. Frank had been working at Murray Creek with his father at the time of his call-up, and made out that he was heading south to Waiuta, where an Irish publican named O’Donnell was said to be part of the underground railroad smuggling resisters out of the country. But the Secret Registry file on Frank suggests the camp may have been west of where he was working, hidden deep within the Victoria Range near the head of the Waitahu River. Even today it is hard to know exactly where it was, as the police never located the hideout. From his camp in the bush, surrounded by beech trees and 129

DEAD LETTERS

native clematis in bloom, Frank lived off the land, visited his dying father, wrote to his sweetheart and received aid from his mining community. He stayed here and there until March 1918, when he emerged from the hills as Jack Hay and into a job at Stockton. Little did he know that his love letters to Dolly would be his undoing. ‘OWING TO GAWD’S OWN GOVERNMENT’

In early May, Colonel Gibbon received two long, neatly-scripted letters with black-edged envelopes and a small cutting of a West Coast fern, forwarded by his counterpart in Australia. Two weeks later, Detective Sergeant Ward of Westport had matched the details of ‘Frank Lonnigan’ (could the name have been inspired by Dolly – Long-to-be-with-you-again?) to Frank Burns, reservist #66384. Ward traced Hay, aka Lonnigan, aka Burns to Stockton Mine, where he confronted the fugitive on 23 May 1918. Frank claimed he was Jack Hay and produced a battered leave of absence pass exempting him from military service, but the detective was having none of it. Frank was arrested, taken to Westport, convicted on a charge of assuming another’s name and giving false information, and sentenced to two months’ hard labour in Westport jail. When he was strip-searched the police found more incriminating documents: a certificate of enrolment under the Military Service Act in the name of Albert Winchester, and a letter from Patrick Tooker received just days earlier. Both worked at Murray Creek. Albert was now serving at the Front, but the letter from Richard Longfield Beare Tooker, aka Patrick Tooker, was a hot find. In it Tooker mentioned the bush camp and indicated that other miners might still be there. ‘Dear Rough’ wrote Pat. ‘A line, although it is a bit belated’: Had a letter from Broncho & Hellfire a couple of days ago, they are working at Nelson Creek and doing fairly well, wages 14/- a day. Bid, Gunner and Dan are again at work at Paparoa and

130

The camp in the bush

everything running smoothly … George is still here. With every chance of a boat shortly his departure will leave the old camp to the mercy of the wind. Well, it served a very good purpose Rough, and in the minds of a few renegades, it will perhaps some day call forth some interesting reminiscences of the time when rebellious youth defied the law.

Sensing they had caught a glimpse of an underground network in action, the police hurriedly launched an investigation. On 27 May Sergeant Ryan and Constable O’Grady visited the real Jack Hay at Murray Creek and intended to search the nearby ranges for ‘George’, but the Waitahu River was too high in flood to be able to cross safely. In their rush, however, the officers neglected to properly interview Jack and, remarkably, did not think to question Patrick Tooker. Angry with the lack of results, their superior sent them back to Murray Creek for a second time. Murray Creek miners and their families woke on Sunday 2 June to a small-scale police raid. The men were stopped and lined up, and every hut was ransacked and searched from end to end. Jack Hay was detained in his hut and questioned. ‘Do you have a C2 pass?’ asked Ryan. ‘Yes’ replied Hay. ‘Will you let me see it?’ Hay went to his bunk and turned over the bedding, but could not find his pass. Ryan then handed him the document taken from Frank on his arrest. ‘I thought it was here all this time,’ smiled Hay, who hazarded a guess that Frank might have taken it during the time they bunked together. Ryan was sure Hay was lying, and asked if he would like to lay charges of theft against Frank. ‘No’ was the reply.20 Patrick Tooker was questioned next. ‘Do you know Frank Burns?’ Ryan asked. ‘Yes.’ ‘Did you write to him?’ 131

DEAD LETTERS

‘Yes, about three months ago.’ ‘Did you ever write to him under the name of Hay?’ ‘No,’ replied Tooker. Ryan then produced the confiscated letter. ‘That is not my letter. I never wrote that letter.’ Again Ryan was not convinced. He made Tooker submit a sample of his handwriting. ‘In my opinion it is the same as the letter,’ he later reported. ‘This man Tooker is a leading Red Fed.’21 But with no hard evidence, no immediate action could be taken. A search of the surrounding bush fared even worse. Police scoured as much of the Waitahu riverbank as possible, but high waters prevented them from reaching the numerous huts and possible hideouts that dotted the vast, beech forest-covered Victoria Range. ‘I am waiting for the Waitahu River to get low enough to ford,’ wrote Ryan, ‘and we will go to a place called Kirwans Claim – there are huts there and good camping places for shirkers.’22 Looking over reports of the day’s events, Greymouth’s police inspector was disappointed. ‘John Hay, who is still working at Murray Creek Mine, no doubt gave his mate Burns his C2 pass to enable Burns to obtain employment and to evade service and arrest – but it is impossible to prove that fact.’23 The increased trafficking of C2 passes and other forged documents had become a problem for police as it made it hard for them to track and arrest defaulting miners. The inspector hoped some action could at least be taken against Tooker. ‘Tooker is a First Division reservist whose appeal is adjourned sine die on the grounds he is employed in an essential industry. Seeing his attitude disclosed in his letter, aiding, abetting, and assisting military shirkers, the military authorities may consider he should be called up and sent to the Front, where he certainly ought to be.’24 The 30-year-old miner does not appear to have been fazed by the unwanted police attention. In a letter to a comrade in Queensland a month after being questioned, Tooker noted,

132

The camp in the bush

the police have been watching me very closely lately. They charged me with harbouring deserters from Military service, and perhaps they were right. They claimed I was feeding no less than four, how awful. They have a letter of mine in custody, but the affair seems to have been dropped – insufficient evidence, I think. They searched the bush all around here, but it failed to reveal the much desired camp.25

‘Don’t mention any names when you write,’ Tooker concluded, ‘as I have very good reason to believe they open some of my letters … I would hate to be the means of providing information to our enemies.’26 Luckily for him, the lack of evidence, coupled with a clerical error while transferring the police file, meant it wasn’t until May 1919 that the military authorities revisited his case. By then there was no front for them to send him to. Meanwhile, as his fellow workers were rounded up and questioned, Frank languished in a Westport jail cell. He was not forgotten, though. Frank’s union, the Ngakawau Coal Miners’ Industrial Union of Workers, wrote to Allen demanding his release. They argued that his work in an essential industry, his skill as a trucker, the dependence of his family now that Frank senior was dead, and the difficulty of finding a replacement at the mine were all valid reasons for granting him leave of absence. Allen was not moved. ‘Very full information is in possession of the authorities with respect to this man, and it shows that this case is one of the worst examples of evasion that has occurred under the Military Service Act. I am unable, therefore, to interfere further in the matter.’27 In June Frank was taken from Westport jail and marched under escort into camp – not the camp in the bush, but a military camp at Trentham. Here he was medically examined and processed as a newly recruited soldier. Whether he accepted the king’s uniform or resisted like Tim Brosnan is unknown, for he was released on leave two months later. His union had continued to push for his release, 133

DEAD LETTERS

with success. The Military Service Board’s ignorance of the full details of the case may have been another factor in his release. Adjutant-General Robert Ward Tate had hesitated in making Frank’s registry file available to the appeal board because of the file’s secretive nature. ‘The file contains certain censored letters and I do not know that they should be produced to anybody,’ wrote Tate; ‘its secrecy must not be violated.’28 It was decided to separate the file and send only parts of it to Trentham – and this caused the clerical error that allowed Patrick Tooker to escape further persecution. Parts of the file were then stuffed in a drawer at Buckle Street HQ and promptly forgotten about, only to be rediscovered during an office clean-up in May 1919. By that time it was too late – Frank was back on the Buller Plateau and working alongside his chums. And on a happier note, considering the nature of the letters that had outed him in the first place, he was also engaged to be married. ‘IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING’

Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Connacher was an 18-year-old woman from Scotland who had arrived in New Zealand with her family in 1912. Her father Peter, a furnace man, had found work among the many mining operations along the Karamea Bight and brought his family with him. Perhaps Lizzie met Frank at one of the local dances. Maybe a letter or two was involved in the romance. On 3 June 1919, Frank and the pregnant Lizzie were married at the nearby Granity Church. Three weeks later, in the opulent surroundings of King Louis XIV’s Hall of Mirrors in Paris, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, bringing an official end to the war with Germany – and some measure of peace to Frank’s wartime experience. However for many, including Marie Weitzel, Even Christensen, Timothy Brosnan and the other writers whose stories appear here, 28 June 1919 was an arbitrary date. The effects of the war lingered on – as did the mining companies on the West Coast. Wartime laws, such as Allen’s Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill, were a 134

The camp in the bush

constant reminder of the cost of the resistance of men like Frank. And as a miner, struggles over the rise and fall of coal prices and the safety of his friends and family (including his brothers, both of whom were miners) were ever present. Nor were the postwar years free of violence. Besides the systematic and ambient violence that stalks daily life – assimilated and preserved, as one theorist put it, within the relationship between employer and employee – overt violence was never far from home.29 The Great Depression arrived on the coalfields as a crisis within a crisis, affecting an industry that was already in decline. With it came a form of small-scale mining known as tributism, a way of working that meant miners took responsibility for working a pit and sold their output to the owner at a pre-agreed price. Miners saw the tribute system as ‘a dangerous form of “speed-up” ’ that threatened their values, their unions, and their very ability to reproduce themselves as labour power. So when the Charming Creek Coal Company at Ngākawau made a third attempt to introduce tributism in May 1931, Buller miners responded vigorously.30 In the near-darkness of early morning, 200 hundred miners marched in single file along a bush tramway running from Ngākawau to the Charming Creek Mine, where they found 15 tribute miners at work. They were marched out of the bush and back to the township, where a fight erupted – windows were broken and debris flung as the tribute miners were shepherded into company cars and escorted out of town by the hopelessly outnumbered police.31 Because of the crises inherent in capitalism, the Buller community and its networks of mutual aid remained crucial to miners, and in 1935, as in 1918, Frank would need to draw on them again. On 2 October 1935 Elizabeth Burns died during childbirth, leaving behind six children and a widowed husband. The eldest daughter Jean was of an age to help her father: she effectively raised her youngest sister Frances and delayed her own marriage until Frances was 15 years old. But Lizzie’s death had hit Frank hard. He was racked with guilt, 135

DEAD LETTERS

the family doctor had warned them that Lizzie was susceptible to bleeding and that having more children was a risk. He shut down in his grief, found solace in alcohol and rambling conversations with the grandfather clock that was their wedding present, and refused to allow her name to be spoken in the home.32 Despite never recovering from Lizzie’s death, within the closeknit mining community of Ngākawau the family persevered. An intelligent man with a gift for wordplay and a fondness for rugby, Frank was proud of his poetic, sporty children and did what he could to support them in their endeavours. Sometimes they even found peace among the hardship. Calling forth images of his father’s camp in the bush, Frank’s son Bill Burns wrote a poem about the place they called home: When the storm clouds had gone And on high the sun shone One could stroll, find the peace we all seek, Scarlet rata in flower, bird songs on the bower Where the river flows down Charming Creek.33

Frank Burns died on 19 April 1961, aged 65, and was buried with Lizzie in Westport. Today their descendants still live and work beside the same railway line and coal heaps of Ngākawau. Their mining heritage and stories of struggle are alive and well, evoking some interesting reminiscences of a time when rebellious youth defied the law, and when wartime loyalty took a radically different form to what was expected of them by King and Country.

136

The camp in the bush

PAR T I II SPIES, SEX AND SUBVERSION

137

DEAD LETTERS

Internees from Somes Island arrive at Featherston Military Camp, December 1918. 13-156/11-47, Masterton District Library and Archive, Masterton

138

6

6 MIGH T IS RIGH T E. Muravleff to Peter Simonoff, Brisbane, Australia AD10 Box 10 19/27

Somes Island, 18/10/1918 Dear Sir, I received your short letter the 15th March alright but seem to have the impression that you do not quite grasp the situation I am in. Surely as a Russian the N.Z. Government is over-riding the international law to intern me just to please their fancy. I am quite sure that if our new Government knows, that besides myself other Russians are interned here, they will find means and ways to get us released or sent home perhaps. To put this point of view before you is my reason to write to you again. I have been wondering all along why no answer from you has come to hand yet I understand you to be our Consul and the power and privilege invested with you to communicate with our Government. Taking this for granted please advise my government of my position, further please advise my father Trafinovitch Muravleff residing in Karsun in the province of Simbirsk of my internment. Pleading to have committed no offence against the law here, I applied to the Minister of Defence here to be released. To this my letter I had dated the First of July, the following reply: ‘You are a suspected alien. There was no necessity to bring you before the Court as you have been legally interned under the War Regulations Act etc etc I regret you cannot be released sign: James Allen Minister of Defence’ 139

DEAD LETTERS

Through this you will see that might is right and not justice. It sounds nice to be told that the N.Z. Gov. is taking care of me, but the living conditions here are simply laughable; the food keeps us alive for a time, even if sufficient in quantity, but its quality leaves much to be desired. You see from month to month the same food, no variety ultimately it leads to indigestion and intestinal troubles. Using a general expression, ‘the food we are getting is about enough to support life at the best and is insufficient to support life at the worst’. I should say through internment the Government has taken up the responsibility to keep us in good health and not as it is doing deliberately to ruin my health and use us here as a reprisal. The sleeping and living accommodation is bad, people here live, eat and sleep in the same rooms, there is no room where they can sit and have a smoke or some other recreations to break the monotony of this life here. Yes rainy or stormy weather they have no other rooms but the bedrooms to sit in all day long. This is the long story in a nutshell and look to you to move on my behalf in the right direction to get me not only released, but compensated for the injustice done to me in the widest sense of the law. Hoping to hear from you soon so to know that you are moving on my behalf. Yours faithfully, E. Muravleff

***

140

Might is right

A

rthur Muravleff was doomed from the start. His troubles began when he rode into the small Northland town of Mangōnui looking foreign, sitting atop a well-groomed, upstanding, dark bay hack with white legs and a white streak down its forehead. It was November 1914, and a woman who preferred not to be named telephoned the nearest detective. She had been watching this stranger for three days: he’d been doing a lot of writing in a large book and after breakfast time at the hotel appeared to be sketching on the verandah.1 He had also asked about the coastline and settlements along its eastern shores. Would the police not be interested in such a man, one who ‘speaks broken English, and avoids any conversation’?2 Arthur was said to be 22 years of age but looked much older, of medium height, squarely built and strong. The residents of Mangōnui noted this young man’s swarthy complexion, heavy jaw, a nose slightly upturned at the point, and his accent, which did not sound French despite his claims. He was clean-shaven and sober but the smell of his fading grey Norfolk suit betrayed him as a heavy smoker. A large leather portmanteau strapped across the back of his saddle added to the town’s curiosity. Who was this scruffy labourer who possessed a stash of foolscap paper? For the anonymous informant who called it in, everything about him screamed ‘spy’. The police were certainly interested. The war was only three months old but the distrust of foreigners that would cause Marie Weitzel and Even Christensen so much strife had already swamped them with similar tip-offs. Some were clearly false, but Arthur seemed to fit the bill. That he claimed to be a writer and friend of the pioneering Russian novelist and playwright Maxim Gorky mattered little. In fact, it was literature that was partly to blame for arousing the township’s suspicions in the first place. ‘THE SITUATION I AM IN’

One morning in March 1906, people making their way to work along Oxford Street in central London were alarmed to see a number 141

DEAD LETTERS

of well-built men wearing Prussian army uniforms and spiked Pickelhaube helmets prowling up and down the pavement and bellowing warnings … that a large army of their countrymen had landed on the east coast of England and was, at that very moment, sweeping westwards, towards the capital.3 To the crowd’s relief the men were part of a publicity stunt for The Invasion of 1910, a novel by William Le Queux. Le Queux believed England was utterly unprepared for a German invasion and his novel, capitalising on a rising fear of vulnerability, was a sensational hit. It became an international bestseller, was translated into 27 languages and catapulted Le Queux into stardom. The Invasion of 1910 was only one of 300 invasion novels published in Britain in the first decade of the century. Themes of invasion, espionage and the enemy within gave voice to the fears of their readers, but as Ian Cobain notes, ‘the blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction began to have a bewildering influence on public life’.4 Before long many Brits genuinely believed that German spies lived among them. When Le Queux followed up his success with another bestseller, Spies of the Kaiser, he was inundated with reports of sightings and encounters with German spies. According to these reports, tourists with cameras were in fact documenting the nation’s defences; foreigners enjoying a beer were actually planning to sabotage bridges; international students in London were studying the evil arts of bomb-making. The clamour was so loud that the British government formed a sub-committee to examine ‘the nature and extent of the foreign espionage that is at present taking place within this country and the danger to which it may expose us’.5 It turned out Germany was preoccupied with Russia and France at that time and had no real spy network to speak of in pre-war Britain. Led by Gustav Steinhauer, an ex-employee of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago, a small group of agents was in fact active in Britain, but their incompetency and meagre resources 142

Might is right

made them practically worthless.6 Nonetheless, the British tabloids continued to publish alarming reports of German spies at work and authors like Le Queux kept pumping out spy novels for the masses. New Zealand was not untouched by this hysteria. Between July and September 1909, thousands of worried people across the country reported sightings of what they believed to be a German Zeppelin airship. Mysterious lights were seen hovering in and out of view on the horizon of the South Otago town of Kaitangata; at nearby Kelso in West Otago, a teacher and two dozen school children swore they saw a Zeppelin-like aircraft swoop low over the town. Police and a local posse set off to find the airship as more and more sightings streamed in. In the neighbouring town of Gore, two mining dredge hands working the night shift watched in amazement as an airship appeared out of the dawn fog, its pilots clearly visible. The last known sighting was on 9 September at the North Island mining town of Waihī. Like the collective psychosis over the Port Kembla sinking, the Zeppelin scare was caused by the hysteria surrounding the great power rivalry between Germany and Britain. A few months prior, Britain had decided to recall some of its naval forces and concentrate them closer to home, a decision that New Zealanders felt left them open to invasion. And as aircraft technology developed there was widespread speculation in local papers about whether German Zeppelins could be used to bomb cities. The author H.G. Wells horrified and thrilled readers with his 1908 novel The War in the Air, in which New York was destroyed by airships raining down bombs from above. Anxious and ready to believe anything, the sightings by the public were a remarkable case of collective delusion. As the public looked skywards, police kept a close watch on foreign visitors to the country. The precedent had been set five years earlier when, in February and March 1904, Premier Richard Seddon ordered trustworthy and discreet officers to tail Prince Bernhard of 143

DEAD LETTERS

Saxe-Weimar during his stay.7 Surveillance was then extended to foreigners frequenting harbour defences or military sites, and by September all foreign travellers were to be monitored by undercover police. A touring journalist from Moscow, an American couple photographing the countryside and a German lieutenant in New Zealand for health reasons all came under scrutiny. Once war was declared in August 1914, the authorities were drowned in a flood of tip-offs from the public. Within weeks there were claims of illegal wireless plants in homes, schools and hotels across the country. Communication centres were alleged to be found deep within the Waikato district; from the Coromandel one local reported a peculiar vibration and humming sound coming from a wire fence 200 feet above sea level. German prospectors working on Mount Holdsworth in the Tararua Range were accused of installing a secret wireless station, while other stations were said to be in place on isolated stretches of the coast and even within the Chinese consul’s office in Wellington. One example among many is telling. On 22 December 1914 Mr Willis of Birkenhead wrote to the Defence Department with some startling news: he had discovered a German spy ring in Auckland. ‘I am in possession of information pointing to a German spy system in operation’ wrote Willis to the minister. Having already visited the Defence Department and the police, Willis was now writing to the top and was prepared to travel to Wellington if necessary.8 The authorities acted swiftly. After interviewing Willis and learning of unauthorised signalling between Birkenhead, Pine Island (now Herald Island) and Kumeu, an investigation was launched. The spy ring turned out to be the lantern of someone visiting his hothouse at night. Like the spy ring foiled by Mr Willis, other reports of alleged signalling turned out to be faulty light switches or flickering candles. In Wellington a machine thought to be a secret communication 144

Might is right

device was actually a unit designed to run a small, four-volt bedroom lamp. Even birds were not free of suspicion. When an exhausted pigeon landed on the verandah of Mr and Mrs Matthews’ Kaitāia home, they glimpsed a note tucked inside its metal tag. Attempts to catch the bird by Mr Matthews and Constable Sefton, who had rushed to the scene, were unsuccessful, but Mrs Matthews managed to grab the note during the scuffle. What they found was believed to be a code made up of tiny pinpricks. The message was sent to Colonel Gibbon, who passed it on to O’Donovan. The commissioner ordered enquiries into pigeon clubs in Masterton, Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as the manifests of local shipping companies. Meanwhile, as officers raced across the country in search of the bird’s owner, Constable Sefton proudly reported that he had captured the offending pigeon and he respectfully asked ‘for any instructions as to forwarding the bird’ to HQ.9 When nothing came of the investigations, the now-desperate police placed anonymous newspaper adverts in the Evening Post, the Auckland Star, the Herald, the Times, the Press, and the Sun asking for the owner of a pigeon with the markings NZD 12-13, 110 to contact the paper. No one wrote in and the case was never solved. What happened to the pigeon is not recorded. In the end, the reported spy rings and secret communications were as fictitious as the novels that spurred them. Documents have since come to light, however, that reveal there were German agents active in New Zealand before the war and that plans to damage the British Empire at its periphery had been floated as early as 1901. The government’s assumption that spying would be carried out by visitors meant they overlooked long-time residents like Carl Seegner, the German consul in Auckland, aka Informant/Confidant #6301. Agents like Seegner provided information to a clandestine section in Sydney, led by an undercover intelligence officer and two businessmen whose respectability covered their activities. Much of 145

DEAD LETTERS

what they shared was already common knowledge and their reports focused on the level of anti-German feeling in their communities. More to the point, one of their tasks was also to measure patriotic sentiment for Germany within the local German population in case a fifth column could be raised in the event of war.10 When war did break out, a pre-invasion force made up of German settlers was about as realistic as a pigeon flying from New Zealand to Germany. But to make sure no rising of the enemy within ever took place, the mail of Germans like Seegner was monitored (the police even confiscated his telephone). Seegner’s association with other Germans, such as one-on-one meetings at Auckland Domain, also worried the authorities: was he supporting the needs of his German constituents or passing on state secrets? The government found nothing that could prove his meetings were disloyal. In early 1916 he was interned as a possible spy regardless. Massey wrote that this precautionary measure was justified as he seemed to be in touch with Germans and Germany itself.11 Seegner was never a danger to the peace and good government of New Zealand. But with the swirling paranoia making it hard to see friend from foe, the situation for anyone foreign was unstable. Into this environment of mistrust and suspicion rode Arthur Muravleff. So began a long, slow dance with the state – a jittery back-and-forth that left a trail of missteps and near misses the length of the North Island, before coming to an unexpected and bitterly ironic end. ‘SUSPECTED’

On Christmas morning in 1915 Constable O’Connor stopped by the Mangonui Hotel to find out if Arthur was naughty or nice. As they talked under the ornate, upper-storey balcony that overlooked the harbour, O’Connor learned that the visiting labourer was a native of Paris, that he had arrived in Wellington after travelling through Melbourne, and was collecting content for a book he hoped to publish someday. In broken English Arthur described how he had 146

Might is right

been working for a farmer named Melsopp near Awanui, and once his work there was done he was heading for Auckland. From Auckland he would catch a vessel to the United States and finally Paris. The young man promised O’Connor that on his way he would call on Constable Sefton (and presumably his pigeon) in Kaitāia. O’Connor was unsure what to make of this fellow. Arthur had told him his last name was Mandel, which was French, but a German storekeeper he had interviewed beforehand was adamant Arthur was a Russian Finn – his command of French was too poor to be authentic. Russia was on the side of the British during the First World War, which made Arthur an ally. Why lie about where he was from? The constable decided to track Arthur’s movements and telegraphed his description to all police stations between Mangōnui and Whāngārei. Reports of his movements streamed in. A foreigner fitting Mandel’s description had enjoyed a New Year’s Day dinner at Hapeta Hotel, a boarding house at Mangamuka. An ‘Arthur Mandle’ was said to be working on the railway line near Kaikohe, his tent full of foolscap paper on which he was always writing. The same man had asked for a map of New Zealand, had no swag on him, and was believed to be a slack worker, as if his mind was elsewhere. Then police received news of a bank clerk named ‘Maurice Maidl’ who had absconded from the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Trieste with precious documents and a sack full of money. The description of the outlaw clerk tallied fairly well with that of Mandel. Were they one and the same? ‘Has he got yellow spots on his neck as noted in the attached description of Maurice Maidl?’ asked Constable O’Connor’s superior. ‘I think it would do well to have his effects examined and get some of his papers translated with the view of getting some reliable information about him.’12 The order to stop and search Arthur’s neck arrived in Auckland a hair too late – he had already left for Wellington. Nonetheless, Detective Scott was happy to report that from an earlier observation of Arthur, he had no yellow spots on his neck but three or four small 147

DEAD LETTERS

warts instead. More useful was the news that Arthur was due back in Auckland sometime soon. This time the police would be ready. They believed that Arthur possessed documents ‘for the purpose of injuring public safety and the interests of His Majesty’ and asked Gibbon to issue a formal search warrant, which he did on 3 March 1916. The warrant instructed police to search Arthur and any rooms he’d stayed in and to seize, by force if necessary, all of the documents he had on him. A crime report was issued to stations across the North Island describing Arthur as a suspected spy. He was now a wanted man. Four months later, Detectives Sweeney and Hammond mingled anonymously among the throng of the crowded Auckland train station. A confidential telegram sent from Te Kūiti that morning had given them a heads up: Arthur Mandel had reappeared and was on his way to the city. Sweeney double-checked the message. They were looking for a man dressed in a grey tweed suit, brown overcoat and a brown Doctor Jim hat, with the brim turned up on one side. As the train steamed in and its passengers stepped onto the platform, Arthur’s satchel and tin trunk gave him away. The two detectives confronted their man and escorted him back to the police station where he was stripped of his correspondence, placed before a stenographer and told to talk. His letters, meanwhile, were whisked away for translation. ‘I am 27 years of age and born at St Petersburg,’ Arthur began. ‘My father was a Frenchman and my mother was born at St Petersburg of Russian parents ... I have never been to Germany, but learned German from the dictionary.’13 Arthur told how, after leaving Russia around 10 years earlier, he had lived in London before moving to Melbourne in 1913. In 1914 he landed in the port of Dunedin with no money. He began a series of jobs – as an engineer at Petone Workshops, a public works labourer at Raetihi, a quarry worker at Te Kūiti and as a general farmhand wherever he could. His true calling, however, was journalism, and although he had no formal identity 148

Might is right

papers to show he was Russian, he revealed that he wrote articles ‘of a Socialistic nature for a Russian newspaper’.14 His story was confirmed by a report from a Te Kūiti music teacher and acquaintance of Arthur’s, Miss Handysides. They had struck up a friendship while speaking Russian together, a language she had learned while living in Russia as a young girl. She knew him as Arthur Muravleff, so when he started calling himself Mandel she asked him why. Arthur claimed he had a right to use both names as his mother had married twice: his father was a Muravleff, but his stepfather was a Mandel. Claiming French heritage came in handy because some years ago he had been mixed up in a rebellion in Moscow and, fearing for his safety, had left Russia. Being French also saved him from the Russophobia that had long thrived in the Antipodes. The report matched what Sweeney had been told, and helped him patch together a picture of Arthur’s past. After fleeing from persecution stemming from the 1905 Russian Revolution, Arthur had embarked on a journey of social investigation and observation. Like Maxim Gorky and Jack London before him, and like George Orwell 20 years later, he recorded his experiences of working-class life from the bottom up (in fact, Gorky’s son Zenobuin Peschkoff had travelled through New Zealand in 1907 with the very same purpose).15 Because of this, Arthur was more interested in the railway and waterside workers than the railways and harbours where they laboured. His translated correspondence confirmed this. There was nothing suspicious in his writing – no inner workings of harbours or secret descriptions of military means – just accounts of his work and the wages he received. Most of his writing was in Lithuanian, apart from letters to his family and to a woman named Belle Barley in Newtown, Wellington, which were in Russian. Despite Sweeney’s concern, Colonel Gibbon let the matter drop. Arthur moved on to a labouring job in the Manawatū and the police moved on, too. There were other, more pressing concerns. Marie 149

DEAD LETTERS

Weitzel had her home raided, Timothy Brosnan was tracked down and arrested for evading conscription, and the Port Kembla sinking focused attention on the waterfront and men like Even Christensen. However, deepening unrest and distrust meant it took only one unfavourable police report, written in October 1917, to reopen Arthur’s case. A number of returned soldiers had taken up land near Raetihi, a central North Island town serving the burgeoning timber trade, and were not happy with Arthur’s presence there. Although he was popular with his fellow workers, the settlers were suspicious. They told Constable McCowan of his frequent day trips and claimed to have seen him sketching the roads, tracks, rivers and trig stations in the area. They even had one of their number greet him in French and claimed that Arthur could barely reply. Meanwhile, Arthur had registered as a reservist under the Military Service Act. On the form he wrote his name as Arthur Mandle and that he was born in France of French parents. It seemed odd to the authorities that Arthur would continue with that line after having declared himself a Russian before Detective Sweeney. Commissioner O’Donovan wanted an explanation and so McCowan was sent to investigate. The result was not in Arthur’s favour. McCowan was adamant Arthur was not giving a true account of himself, and his superiors agreed. On 12 December 1917 McCowan arrested Arthur at O’Neill’s Junction near Raetihi and handed him over to the military authorities at Palmerston North. ‘TO PLEASE THEIR FANCY’

Christmases in New Zealand were proving to be far from festive. As Arthur sat in his cell waiting to be transported to Somes Island, he must have wondered why. What had he done to cause such attention? He’d been straight with police and had even opened up about his work. It wasn’t illegal to write about working life, was it? His writing had been cleared of anything suspicious, and his English was so poor that he could hardly be accused of saying anything seditious. 150

Might is right

His arrival on the island two days later would have confused him further: most of the internees he met were German, yet there he was, a Russian civilian stuck on a windswept and barren island once used to quarantine animals and infectious immigrants. Somes Island Internment Camp sat on Somes Island in the middle of Wellington Harbour – one of the windiest places in the world. The ‘Roaring Forties’ spin uninterrupted from South America and funnel through the 22 kilometre-wide gap that is Cook Strait. For 176 days a year Arthur and the other internees experienced galeforce winds above 60 kilometres per hour. Arthur would surely have recalled Maxim Gorky’s most famous poem, The Song of the Stormy Petrel: Lower, blacker, Hang the storm-clouds On the ocean; Higher dance The waves in frenzy, And leap to meet The blast of thunder. Crash on high! Seas moan wildly Locked in whirlwinds In deadly combat.16

From his cell in a two-storey wooden building on the flat in the middle of the island, he could take comfort in the rest of the poem, a metaphor for revolution and liberation: ‘Not forever will the clouds hide the sunlight – not forever.’17 Arthur wrote a number of letters from the island – to lawyers, to Russian consuls and to the Defence Department. As he waited for a reply he heard from his fellow internees of mistreatment and abuse from the guards. He learned that Walter Moormeister had been stripped of his blankets and thrown down the stairs along from Arthur’s cell, causing a hernia that was not operated on for 151

DEAD LETTERS

17 days. He learned that Bernard Myer was locked in a draughty concrete stable for 26 days and then put on bread-and-water rations for failing to address his punisher as ‘Sir’. He learned that ‘Kultur Bay’, a small, out-of-sight cove at the northern end of the island, was a place best avoided: it was where a handcuffed Fritz Rodtnick had his eyes blackened, teeth knocked out and body smashed by six guards for picking up coal lying about in the yard. Not that the yard was much safer – internees had been forced to leapfrog until they fainted, balance on their hands, limbo under batons or goosestep while taking blows from laughing guards.18 By the time Arthur arrived on Somes Island the worst of the violence had passed. In March 1915, two internees had swum through a storm and three kilometres of choppy ocean to lift the lid on camp conditions. Subsequent visits by the American and Swiss consuls meant the camp’s commandant, Major Dugald Matheson, was forced to rein in his behaviour and that of his guards. That didn’t mean Matheson had to like it: in reams of reports the former schoolteacher passed judgement on those in his ‘care’ and generally made life difficult for those he believed to be unkempt strike agitators or members of the Black Hand, a European secret society that employed violent methods. Thanks to Matheson and his guards, Arthur and the 300 other internees faced a macabre mix of freedom, boredom and insidious repression. On the one hand, internees were able to visit parts of the island freely, read literature, drill, and practise arts and crafts. On the other hand, they were locked in stables, denied their rations, bullied constantly, had their mail and photographs of their loved ones confiscated, and were forced to do unpaid labour – in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention. Arthur’s complaint of poor food was no exaggeration. Between 1915 and 1917, it was claimed there were 19 appendix operations and an even larger number of stomach and bowel disorders.19 When an internee died of appendicitis, Matheson 152

Might is right

put it down to a lack of exercise and a preference for stewed tea. Seven months into Arthur’s detention and sick of the dire conditions, Karl Mertin, William Knab, Alfred Kraut and Hugo Kosel slipped quietly off the island aboard a raft made of three kerosene boxes and empty oil drums. Once they were ashore near Ngauranga, Kosel, who had injured his leg on the island, stayed behind while the others made for Wellington where they hoped to stow away for South America. They were picked up by a taxi driver and taken to Lambton Quay police station instead. Kosel, lying cold and exhausted on the wintry Ngauranga shore, died of exposure. As with the Wanganui Barracks inquiry, a government investigation into island conditions in mid-1918 found evidence of mistreatment. Its report changed little. Complaints were still met with stiff discipline from Matheson, and it was even harder to find sympathy on the mainland. Most of the general public had little time for foreigners who were believed to be having an island holiday while the rest of the world was at war. Those who were sympathetic to the internees’ plight were hard to reach. Visits to the island were strictly limited, internees could write only two letters each per week, and both Matheson and Tanner made sure those letters were closely scrutinised. Writing of Carl Mumme, the German-born anarchist who had been interned in May 1916 for his anti-militarism, Matheson boasted that ‘on more than one occasion, letters sent out by him were destroyed by the censor on account of references hostile to the authorities’.20 The letters in question were to his near-destitute wife Margaret and their five children. Some mail did slip through the cracks, however. Matheson learned that his own guards had been smuggling internees’ letters for cash: for a small fee, a number of corporals were passing mail to a contact at the Carlton Hotel in Willis Street, who would then hand-deliver the letters. This subversive mail service was quickly stopped, and a plot to smuggle to Germany a diary containing 153

DEAD LETTERS

all of Matheson’s speeches was also foiled after an internee-cuminformant revealed the plan. Arthur’s mail was therefore under close watch. His letter to the lawyer and former mayor of Wellington, Thomas William Hislop, was allowed to proceed in early 1918, as was a letter to the Russian consul in Australia, Peter Simonov (aka Simonoff). But Gibbon would not allow letters to reach Allen. ‘I was arrested at Raetihi the 12th December 1917 by order of the Defence authority, no cause, no reason, no trial in court given,’ Arthur wrote to Allen. ‘You just interned me here, ignore my rights as a Russian and force me to look upon your action as a deliberate violation of justice.’21 Arthur stated that he was no enemy of the people or of the government of New Zealand, and he could not see why such drastic action had been taken. He wanted to know what could be done to release him. ‘I do not think the Hon. Minister of Defence should be bothered with correspondence from Prisoners of War’ wrote Gibbon: in his military mind the civilian Arthur was a POW.22 Nonetheless, Arthur kept up his stream of letters, and eventually one was let through to Allen, whose short and unhelpful reply is recorded in the confiscated letter at the start of this chapter. By the later part of 1918 Arthur’s letters to the minister were stopped altogether. ‘Please inform this Prisoner of War that the Defence Department does not feel disposed to furnish him with full particulars for which he was interned,’ Major Osborne-Lilly wrote to Matheson.23 If Arthur wanted to complain, the memo ran, he was free to write to the Russian consul in Australia. The only problem was that the Australian government had just silenced the Russian consul appointed by the new Bolshevik government. Peter Simonov was a vocal opponent of conscription and an active labour organiser, and had attracted police attention for his activities with the IWW and as secretary of the Russian Club in Brisbane. In late September 1918 legislation was used to stop him from speaking in public. An order was also sent to all military 154

Might is right

districts in Australia imposing an unlimited prohibition on  his written work, including his mail. A defiant Simonov embarked on a popular lecture tour and promoted the cause of the Russian Revolution. The  Brisbane  censor, who was intercepting all of Simonov’s correspondence, expressed a mounting concern over the ‘tremendous reception’ he was getting, and in November 1918, the Russian consul was finally arrested and jailed for six months.24 Arthur’s letter to Simonov, therefore, had no chance of reaching him. It was stopped by an Australian censor who believed ‘the complaints made by the writer might be used by Simonoff to create hostility to the government of New Zealand’. The censor sent the letter back to Gibbon; he noted that ‘the government has refused to make any official recognition of Simonoff ’s consular activity’.25 The only official means Arthur had of gaining his release – the Russian consul and the minister of defence – were blocked by military might. ‘MONTH TO MONTH’

In November 1918, almost a year after Arthur Muravleff ’s internment, the sounds of Armistice celebrations drifted lazily across Wellington Harbour. Arthur was still incarcerated on Somes Island, but the occasion brought a rare moment of joy as the internees pondered their release. Their joy quickly turned to despair: the terms of the Armistice meant they would remain prisoners of war until all troops had returned from the front. Arthur was doomed to another Christmas under the watch of the state. It would be a Christmas off the island, however, for Somes was once again needed as a quarantine station. On 14 December 1918, 321 internees were ferried ashore, loaded onto trains and delivered to Featherston Camp, New Zealand’s largest military training facility, where a barbed-wire compound awaited them. The camp commandant at that time was Major John Brunt. If Arthur thought he might have better luck with Brunt than with Matheson, he was sadly mistaken. A new round of letters addressed 155

DEAD LETTERS

to Allen, Simonov and the governor of New Zealand were blocked by the commandant: ‘Please inform Muravleff that the Government has considered his case and has decided that he is to remain in the internment camp until the declaration of Peace.’ When Arthur requested permission to send a six-word cable to Moscow, it was refused. ‘You will desist from making further appeals regarding your present internment’, Brunt ordered. ‘You have had your position clearly explained and no good purpose can be served by proceeding any further. Therefore the matter is closed.’ Time dragged on. Month after month Arthur awoke to parade, stood to attention, received compound order after compound order, was subjected to inspection, refused parole and drilled with the rest of his prison squad, Squad Six. The endless prison routine even after the war had ended must have been utterly frustrating. For some it was too much to bear. In April 1919, Walter Moormeister, Alfred Kraut and four others took matters into their own hands and escaped into the Wairarapa countryside, but were caught soon after. An indication of Arthur’s own bitterness was the new address on his letters: ‘German Concentration Camp’. It was Arthur’s small attempt at calling attention to his Russian nationality. In May 1919, 242 German internees were released from Featherston and repatriated to Germany. Arthur remained. A stream of men trickled out of the camp on long-term parole, ending their wartime ordeal. Still Arthur was not among them. Even the buildings were leaving the compound, uplifted and sold to the highest bidder to become community halls or a source of raw timber. Arthur watched on. ‘Why was I not sent home three months ago?’ he asked in August. ‘I have not been allowed to communicate with my parents or the government where I belong. The prisoners of German origin are at liberty to write to their parents, why not the same law apply to me?’ His letter was not delivered. By March 1920, Arthur was at his wits’ end. He wrote a stormy letter to the NZ Truth, which may have been smuggled past the 156

Might is right

censors. It was published in full under the headline ‘Internment Injustice’: Why cannot they send me away or release me? For what reason do they keep just a few men locked up all day in a small house, without a proper exercise ground, and thus almost drive them mad in this dreadful monotonous place? Why keep up the expenses of a prison camp when the prisoners, who are all harmless fellows, could pay their own way if released?… we are not criminals or mad men who would be dangerous to the country … we are only unfortunate victims of the war.26

‘I send you this,’ concluded Arthur, ‘hoping to save myself and my mates from a physical as well as moral breakdown, and, at the same time, to draw the attention of the public to the wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of the taxpayers’ money.’27 The Defence Department offered a feeble reply that blamed the Russian Revolution and other factors out of their control, when in fact they had callously blocked every attempt by Arthur to contact his government and secure his own release. But by now, any excuses from the state fell on deaf ears. In the early hours of 17 March 1920, Arthur Muravleff and two others pried apart the wooden floorboards of their prison hut and manufactured their own release. They were done waiting. The morning’s roll call discovered the absence of the three internees and sparked a police manhunt. Cables were sent to every police station in the Wairarapa, Wellington and Hawke’s Bay as police scoured the surrounding farmland. Arthur’s description was published in the newspapers: Arthur Ivanoff Muravleff, alias Mandle, a Russian, 29 years of age, 5ft 6in in height, blue eyes, very fair complexion, clean-shaved. According to police memos the authorities were confident of their recapture. Arthur evaded the military for four months. Wandering the countryside on foot, he may have found work on a rural backblock where labour was in short supply and no questions were asked. Or 157

DEAD LETTERS

maybe he reached Wellington and stayed with Belle Barley or other associates. Did he deliver the letter to NZ Truth by hand? Whatever he did, he was never caught. On 20 July the wanted man calmly walked into Defence HQ on Buckle Street and reported his desire for a passage back to Russia. ‘SIMPLY LAUGHABLE’

For someone who had been wanted as a dangerous spy, interned and prevented from returning to Russia, now that the war was over the state did not want anything to do with Arthur. The authorities half-heartedly went through the motions of helping him leave the country but to no avail – the Australian government did not want him. Nor did the New Zealand government wish to keep him. Hislop, the former Wellington lawyer whom Arthur had originally written to for help and who was now the under-secretary of internal affairs, wrote in July 1921 that ‘New Zealand will be well rid of this class of men’ and that he looked forward to seeing the back of him. Finally, in February 1922, the government received Russian emigration forms to help Arthur return home – at his own cost. They also had some bad news. All of Arthur’s confiscated writing, taken from him when he was arrested at Raetihi, had been destroyed by massive fires in March 1918. Whipped up by gale-force winds and dry conditions, fire had swept through the township and gutted the Raetihi police station where the last of Arthur’s possessions were held. Not one scrap of his writing survived. When they tried to deliver this information, however, Arthur could not be found. Mail sent to his last known address of Ohakune Junction was returned unclaimed, and police had no idea of his whereabouts. One of the war’s most wanted ‘spies’ had disappeared. The irony and mystery surrounding the final years of Arthur’s wartime experience is, in many ways, a fitting end to his story. Dehumanised and incarcerated by the state, Arthur became a nobody, a number, a mere trace in a government file – and until now, 158

Might is right

a catalogue listing. Yet with no trace of what happened to him after the war, Arthur’s experience remains incomplete – a stormy petrel in deadly combat with the passage of time.

159

DEAD LETTERS

160

7

7 MY D EAR D OCTOR Katherine Early to Hjelmar Dannevill, Lahmann Home, Miramar AD10 Box 9 17/26

11 Brougham Ave. Wellington 11.11.15 My Dear Doctor, I am very disappointed not to have been able to take advantage of the favour you so readily granted me last night. I have been very unwell all day and a visit to Miramar was quite impossible. Was very sick all night and have had a dreadful headache and backache all day. I have tried to get you several times by phone but your number was always engaged. I have just received a telephone message from Bill Early that my husband will arrive in Wellington tomorrow (Friday) afternoon. I don’t know what the visit means but I feel certain that I shall be called upon to return to Tirau with him. I dread the man intensely and yet for the sake of little Douglas I suppose one more effort must be made and therefore I must go. Will you go with me and help me as you did before? I don’t know whether it will be possible to see you again, I sincerely hope it will for I never wanted you so much as now, but if not please let me say once more from my deepest heart “thank you” for all you have done for me. In spite of the unhappy ending to my stay at Lahmann Home, the three happiest months of my OPPOSITE:

Hjelmar Dannevill

AAYS 8647 AD10 Box 9/17/26, Archives New Zealand 161

DEAD LETTERS

life were spent with you there and I shall be a better woman for having had the joy of knowing you and coming into contact with the uplifting influence of your personality. One last favour I would like to ask and if you love me please grant me this, a picture of yourself. My very much love goes out to you always. Affectionately. Katherine Early

Helene to Hjelmar Dannevill, Lahmann Home, Miramar Original found in possession of Dannevill, 21 May 1917 AD10 Box 9 17/26

Saturday evening 22nd April 1916 Oh my Hjelmar I do want you so, I must let my heart’s love flow out to you in writing it will relieve me. All today you have been more than usually in my mind, and life without you is difficult. How I long to go to you! Perhaps tonight you may be thinking of me, you may be near me in the spirit, as I believe you often are, or I could not at other times feel so content, so happy, so secure in the possession of that treasure. But tonight, though I am fighting against the boredom of everything I feel so restless, so aching for a sight of you. Are you very tired this weekend? Are you longing for the great blue expanses of the ocean? For the illimitable distances of the desert? Would that I could give you your heart’s desire, whatever it may be! Sunday afternoon 23rd April 1916 Let me tell you what I have been doing this week. I have ridden once, and felt alright, it was a cool morning. I went on some downs at the back of his place, with such a view of plain and 162

My Dear Doctor

snowy mountains. The mare being rather fresh, would dance, and not walk steadily so I got off and led her and had a good two mile and a half at quick march. I don’t perspire as much as I used to, at night, or by day. Other parts are working well no indigestion, sleep generally well go to bed 10.00 or 10.30. Read for a while sleep and wake at or near 2 o’clock. I feel very light and able to run and move quickly, thanks to your good treatment. I am afraid my weight is increasing, however. Tonight I am going to walk in through the rain to hear a violinist and his brother, infant prodigies I believe. They are giving a sacred concert (as if all music of the right kind was not sacred). Darling how I long for yours. Every night at the hour I am there, and memory is so keen, I almost hear and see you ah! Why not quite! A cousin is staying here. He has enlisted, he would like so much to come and hear you play when he can get leave from Trentham. May he present himself with that request? I will send a letter of introduction with him. Lissack is the prodigies’ name and they claim to be the gt. grandson of Tchaikovsky. Wednesday 26th April I am posting a letter to Dr Huntley and I will quote what I said with reference to your paying a visit. “I am wondering if you could spare Dr von Dannevill for a run down here, for a few days holiday. There is a matter that might be of benefit to the Lahmann Home If she came down on the Friday 5th May, she could get the weekend, so that she need not be very long away. I hope it could be arranged.” That is all I wrote with reference to that. Now with reference to the Home. There is in Timaru an Electrical Institute, the man Leslie was consulting electrician to the Wellington Hospital. How would it do for the Lahmann to take it as a branch, and put a couple of good people in charge. He is thinking of selling out if his son goes to America. Then if you got 163

DEAD LETTERS

it, you could run down every now and then to inspect?? It might be worth thinking of. Leslie and his wife run the institute and it is his own property they only take doctor’s patients and have not advertised it at all. Send a wire as to the chance of your coming I sent you a reply paid one some time ago, but had no reply. Were you [?] that I did it? “Are you there Hjelmar?” I know you will say “Good God!” when you get this letter ***

S

almond opened the secret dossier titled ‘Dr Von Dannevill’ and read the memorandum from Colonel Gibbon. ‘I should be glad of your advice as to what action, if any, should be taken in regard to this person.’1 This is what they knew: Hjelmar Dannevill had arrived in Wellington in 1911 with an extraordinary past – if what she said was true. Accused as a German spy by an anonymous informant in October 1914, she claimed she was Danish but her credentials were hazy at best. She wore men’s clothing. She preferred the company of women. She appeared to hold sway over all who knew her. And she managed a mysterious health home on Wellington’s Miramar Peninsula whose patients often refused to talk to police. Salmond looked over the handwritten reports and took stock. It was May 1917. Although the peak of anti-German hysteria had passed, an underlying prejudice against anything German was everpresent – not to mention the dominant social views on femininity. For not only was Hjelmar’s nationality suspect, so was her gender. According to Superintendent John Ellison’s report, in March 1911 Hjelmar had come to him and asked for permission to wear men’s clothing: ‘She mentioned that someone had accused her of being a man dressed as a woman, and desired me to give her 164

My Dear Doctor

a memorandum to show that I believed her or knew her to be a woman.’ Ellison refused. ‘Of course I declined and told her very plainly why I could not do so and that I had doubts as well.’ Even after Hjelmar allowed herself to be examined by a woman who was present, Ellison still had a suspicion ‘that Dannevill is a male and an imposter’. He was convinced she was ‘a thorough humbug and fraud. She is just the sort of person who would take up such a job as a political spy or pimp.’2 Even more disturbing to Salmond was the report of Detective Sergeant Rawle, who had caught wind of an incident involving Hjelmar and the Lahmann Health Home where she worked. A disgruntled vicar named Edward Bond claimed that his wife, Mary Blanche Oliphant Bond, had been lured away by Hjelmar. Mary was the youngest daughter of John Tiffin Stewart, a well-known civil engineer and surveyor, and Frances Ann Stewart, a social activist and the first woman in New Zealand to sit on a hospital board. Suffering from a severe nervous breakdown, Mary had moved to the home on her doctor’s advice in 1915. But eight months later she no longer wanted anything to do with her husband; whenever he visited Mary refused to see him. Reverend Bond believed that Hjelmar was after his wife’s inheritance of £4000 – a considerable sum of money at that time. Reading between the lines, however, there are hints that Mary had escaped from an unhappy marriage. When asked by Hjelmar if he had ever been unfaithful to his wife, Bond denied it and added, ‘if such had been the case I would deny it for my children’s sake’. Hjelmar pressed further: she told Bond that his wife’s condition was based on her suspicion that he had been unfaithful. Bond then revealed the truth: ‘Thinking that my admission of an indiscretion 5 years previously might do away with my wife’s anxiety, I then told Dannevill that I had been quietly on one occasion.’3 He also gave Hjelmar the woman’s name and details of the affair. The next day, Hjelmar gave him Mary’s summons for a divorce.4 165

DEAD LETTERS

Salmond must have read these reports with horror. Here was evidence of a masculine, cross-dressing woman meddling with a man’s wife and shamelessly subverting gender norms. Not only that, she was a suspected enemy alien. Her actions seemed to fit the prevailing anti-German attitude and its vision of barbarians vandalising the fruits of European civilisation.5 For the brisk, obdurate Salmond, this case combined the worst of both prejudices. ‘There is grave ground for suspicion that this person is a mischievous and dangerous imposter’ he wrote, someone ‘who ought in the public interest to be interned during the war. Her identity is wholly mysterious.’ Salmond was apparently unsure ‘whether she is a man or a woman. She is very masculine in appearance and habits. There is much reason to suspect that she may be a man masquerading as a woman.’ Besides, her actions in the conduct of the Lahmann Home give rise to the gravest suspicion as to her bona fides. She there acquires extraordinary personal influence over her patients, especially women, and the Police report as to the case of Mrs Bond gives much ground for the suggestion that she uses undue influence over weak-minded patients with respect to their property.6

His advice to Gibbon and O’Donovan was to arrest Dr von Dannevill as a dangerous alien, find out her sex, nationality and history, and then consider the case further. Until then she was to be interned at Somes Island. ‘A VISIT TO MIRAMAR’

On 21 May 1917, Police Matron Beck and Detectives Boddam and Cox left the tram and made their way towards the Lahmann Home’s impressive entrance. Built in 1907 by the director of a short-lived amusement park called Wonderland, the grand wooden building had been purchased in 1911 by Dr Edith Huntley, a well-known advocate of women’s health and the first woman councillor of 166

My Dear Doctor

Miramar. Hjelmar Dannevill answered the door. She was dressed in her distinctive style – collar, shirt and waistcoat, an immaculately tailored jacket adorned with a pocket watch, and a long skirt that reached to her leather boots. Hjelmar was known to have smoked a pipe, but did not do so on this occasion. Once inside, the detectives found a picturesque foyer with dark red walls and stained wooden panels. Great bowls of scarlet gladioli and vases of feathery-looking ixia dotted the space, and Boddam noted the staircase that led to the home’s second floor and its exterior balconies. ‘After informing her who we were,’ wrote Boddam, ‘I requested her to accompany us at once to the office of the Commissioner of Police, who desired to interview her.’7 The police confiscated a bag of letters, books and other papers. Hjelmar went quietly, saving Boddam the task of using the warrant for her arrest. As Hjelmar boarded the tram surrounded by police she must have pondered her sudden change in fortune. Five years earlier she and Dr Huntley had been hosts to over 200 women of high society. The December 1912 opening of the Lahmann Home was a grand affair. Guests toured the grounds with cups of tea accompanied by the music of the Miramar Band, while those inside were treated to performances on the grand piano. It was a chance to rub shoulders with Wellington’s elite, including the prime minister himself. Earlier that afternoon Massey had announced his pleasure at opening the home which, he believed, was: ‘the first of its type in the British Dominion and the first in all the world to be entirely conducted by women’. It was a place where those ‘suffering from chronic disease or permanent weakness might be afforded all the relief possible’, a place where ‘business men, professional men, or even politicians, if they happened to be overworked, could be given an opportunity of recuperating someday’, joked Massey, ‘it might be necessary 167

DEAD LETTERS

for me to come to the home, but, as you can all gather from appearances, that time is not yet.’ (Laughter and ‘hear, hear!’).8

If Massey had ever checked in to the Home he would have experienced the relatively novel treatment of naturopathy, an alternative medicine that was on the rise. Modelled on the teachings of German physician Heinrich Lahmann, the Miramar retreat offered a natural care system of massage, hydrotherapy, a vegetarian diet and plenty of fresh air. Lahmann himself was a staunch advocate of animal rights, and refused to use them in laboratory experiments. The home was probably equipped with air baths as per Lahmann’s teachings. It also provided less ‘natural’ cures such as electrical therapy (a form of shock treatment, which some brave guests were ‘treated’ to on open days). A central-city office on Willis Street offered electrical treatment for those pressed for time. Hjelmar and the Lahmann Home seem to have been an accepted part of the Wellington community. She hosted a number of talks, known as ‘At Homes’, where women gathered at the retreat for music and more tea. ‘Dr Edith Huntley wore a dress of shot violet and green velvet with trimming to match. Dr von Dannevill was in navy blue,’ reported the social page of one weekly.9 Well into 1915 she spoke publicly at women’s events, such as the Moral and Physical Health Society’s annual lecture, or to the Pioneer Club, whose upper-class audience included Anne Salmond, the wife of the solicitor-general. She was equally at ease on stage or behind the grand piano. Apparently no one cared about – or cared to mention – Hjelmar’s masculine attire. By 1917 attitudes against difference had hardened and not even Hjelmar’s high-society friends could save her from the police, spurred on by Reverend Edward Bond’s complaints. She now found herself at the Lambton Quay Police Station and face-to-face with the commissioner of police. 168

My Dear Doctor

O’Donovan interrogated her at length about her past, her nationality and her gender, hoping to find holes in a story that even today seems impossible to corroborate. The transcript – neatly typed and amended with question marks and notes such as ‘long pause’ – fills most of the Army Department file. It reads like a Bruce Chatwin novel, dancing across European cities to New York, then south to Brazil, Argentina and Chile before sidestepping over to the African continent. India, Russia, China, Canada – almost every major country featured in Hjelmar’s travels. ‘What were you doing in all these places?’ asked O’Donovan. ‘Teaching anything I could, music, languages, first-aid, anatomy,’ she replied, and she added that she had trained as a musician in Leipzig before attending Zurich University to study medicine. ‘I got recommendations from one place to another. I also began doing journalistic work for various papers.’10 O’Donovan questioned her over which papers, which newspaper agents, and in what languages she had written these articles, before eventually discovering the nature of her later work – the study of venereal disease. Hjelmar said that around 1890 she had made the acquaintance of a man named Hugo Fischer: He was very wealthy and had lost his only son by syphilis. I had heard that he was keen, by this disastrous loss, to make investigations all over the world to find out the present state of venereal diseases amongst civilised nations as well as the more primitive races and savages even. He intended these investigations to equip about 7 or 8 people to travel over the globe to make investigations into these diseases. After I met him he began to give instructions in what he wanted carried out. He gave credit to draw on his finances to a very high extent and made a written appointment about the matter we had to send in to him. We had also to promise not to make any copies of any notes, as it naturally concerned a great many intimate affairs of people and the discovery of gambling places etc.11 169

DEAD LETTERS

Using assumed names, Hjelmar mingled with hospital orderlies, clergymen, police officers and women across the globe, gathering information on the taboo subject. Employing false names ‘was part of the instructions we had from Mr Fischer … he was afraid the leading power in Austria, the Order of Jesuits, would get hold of [their work].’12 This was also one of the reasons why she wore men’s clothing – entering seedy dens and asking questions as a woman was not an option, she explained. O’Donovan was clearly as much thrown by her gender variance as Ellison and Salmond had been, and repeatedly dwelt on it during the interrogation. ‘Were you dressed as you are now?’ he asked. ‘I was not dressed in the same clothing.’ ‘You were wearing a man’s hat and coat and an ordinary vest and collar of a man?’ ‘Yes I think so, and a skirt.’ ‘Did any question arise between you and Mr Ellison as regards whether you were a man or a woman?’ ‘He said there was no objections to my wearing men’s clothing so long as he knew I was a woman.’13 And later: ‘Did you ask Mr Ellison to certify that you were a woman?’ ‘You mean in writing? No.’ ‘If Mr Ellison said you were anxious to get a written document from him to say you were a woman would you say that was incorrect?’ ‘I did not ask him for a document. I simply asked him for his advice. Dr Huntley thought perhaps it would be best to have a paper in order to identify myself when I came into touch with a rude crowd or investigating policemen and so on, as I had before, to be protected.’14 As a result O’Donovan asked Hjelmer if she would submit to a medical examination, and she agreed. ‘I hereby certify that I have 170

My Dear Doctor

this day examined Dr H.W. Dannevill, and that the anatomical configuration shows that she is of the female sex’ reads the dispassionate medical note. Hjelmar’s sex was now recorded but O’Donovan was still not convinced of her nationality. Although she claimed to have been born somewhere near Copenhagen in 1862, she could not recall the name of the town nor produce any documentation. She did, however, possess documents of a different kind: the confiscated letters shared at the start of this chapter. The file contains no further information on the letters or their writers. They were found among Hjelmar’s papers, which were eventually returned to her apart from four letters, including the two above. Three are from women and, in a possible explanation for why they were detained, hint at sexual activity between women. ‘I NEVER WANTED YOU SO MUCH AS NOW’

Many scholars have argued that contemporary notions of lesbian identity do not map neatly onto the experience of earlier eras. Lesbian identity is a late twentieth-century concept, and the historical past was a very different sexual place. Women who loved and/or had sex with women, cross-dressed or resisted heterosexuality did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves.15 Yet these letters – and their wider context centred on Hjelmar and the Lahmann Home – point strongly to lesbian sexuality. Besides some of the suggestive language, Katherine’s letter suggests that, like Mary Bond, she abhorred the thought of her husband visiting her (‘I dread the man intensely’). Could it be that her sexual desire was non-heterosexual? Was she one of many women whose sexuality had been suppressed by Victorian social mores?16 Helene of Timaru also expresses her affection in her letter. Its cramped script matches that of the letter reproduced at the start of this chapter, but as it is undated and on different paper it was 171

DEAD LETTERS

probably written at a different time. Remarkably, it contains a dictated letter from a toddler in the care of Helene, named William Stewart – who was none other than the son of Mary Bond. In the letter written on behalf of William, Helene notes how much he is like his mother and recounts how he calls Dannevill ‘Docket’: What about the boat Docket? On Wednesday carried the boat down + cleaned it out, and put it in the water. I did get in the boat Docket see!! Mrs Peuko put me on the boat. What shall I tell Docket? Kisses the paper (I kiss Docket!) … when are you coming down mummy + Docket to Peuko’s house? I good boy + do a lot every day.

He then signed off, in his own writing, with ‘William Stewart. I love you Docket.’17 In her second letter Helene longs for the company of Hjelmar. ‘It always comforts me to read your dear loving words and to recall their sweet accompaniments,’ she wrote. ‘I wish you were here now, how I long to lay my head against your shoulder and feel the thrill of spirit answering spirit. I do call you at night and early in the morning. I can sometimes feel that I am in your arms.’ In what could be suggestive prose or code, Helene recalls how she liked ‘to think of the iris buds opening … Think of me as they do, my most precious one.’18 Her letter highlights the kinship felt between these women, when she asks, Do you feel bound to spend your Christmas at Miramar, or could you not bring Molly and well as Mary Stewart and come here for a fortnight? Or as long as you like. Molly could have a tent and a verandah bed. Do answer this question Dear one! Will you! Sit down at the cocoa interval and send me a line. And I hope it will be yes if not, as soon after as possible. You must have a holiday and I do want you so! And we could make you comfortable and happy. My love to Mary Stewart.19 172

My Dear Doctor

Are these letters evidence of sexual relationships between women or simply an example of romantic friendships? Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century letters between women could be used to convey loving feelings or to discuss plans and fantasies, without necessarily meaning a sexual relationship. The power and intensity of love between women could be portrayed strongly in words, which sometimes included expressions of sensual and physical affection.20 Feminist historian Leila Rupp suggests there are three behavioural features or characteristics of lesbian historical evidence: romantic love between women, transgender identities and sexual acts. Hjelmar’s letters and her non-binary gender seem to lean towards such evidence, but there is little consistency in historians’ understandings of women’s cross-dressing and its links with lesbian sexuality.21 Regardless of what label is placed on Hjelmar’s lived reality, there were many ways in which gender crossing and same-sex relationships were policed before, during and after the First World War. The New Zealand government did not criminalise lesbian sex acts, writes historian Alison Laurie, but constrained lesbian lives through a complex web of regulations and strategies. The state could punish women who transgressed against gender codes by crossdressing or those with unacceptable sexual behaviours by connecting lesbianism with promiscuity, vagrancy and prostitution. In doing so, ‘the law contained and controlled women’s access to public spaces and to self-determined sexual expression … Where these methods proved inadequate on their own, lesbianism was contained by the medical profession who from the earliest times classified it as a disorder.’22 Wartime simply added fuel to the flames. ‘Imperialism, while extolling the self-sacrificing single man who gave his life to tame some remote part of the empire, called for women to return to their traditional roles… independent women were accused of sex hatred and pilloried for preferring their own sex to men.’23 173

DEAD LETTERS

Not long after Hjelmar’s arrest, such a stance was taken to the extreme in Britain when MP Noel Billing claimed that Germany possessed a ‘Black Book’ of ‘forty-seven-thousand English men and women’ involved in lesbianism and other so-called deviant acts. According to Billing, the British Empire was about to collapse from within—one blackmail at a time. Billing argued that ‘in lesbian ecstasy the most sacred secrets of State were threatened’.24 This was the sociolegal setting in which Hjelmar’s letters were detained, and that she challenged with every collar or waistcoat she wore. Indeed, clothing itself was crucial to how gender was read by others. Victorianism expected women to demonstrate a meticulous personal daintiness. Their gestures were to be free of any sign of masculinity and their clothes and hair were to have ‘a precarious fragility’.25 From the late nineteenth century the plainer, more masculine style worn by ‘new women’ such as students, teachers and office workers had begun to challenge this view. But when gender variance intersected with male-defined ideas of sexuality, it was seen as a potential enemy of heterosexuality, gender order and the nation itself.26 In a patriarchal society, such cases had to be controlled. The war had facilitated a deep intrusion by the state into Hjelmar’s personal relationships, and what it found unsettled Salmond. ‘Although the question of sex has now been settled by medical examination, the further information received and now submitted to me in no way alters the opinion which I formerly expressed, but rather confirms it’. After speaking with Gibbon, he ordered the immediate internment of Hjelmar. She was formally arrested as an enemy alien on 26 May 1917 and escorted under guard to Somes Island. She was one of the few women to be interned in New Zealand during the First World War. A number of newspapers reported the mild sensation of her arrest and usually finished with a comment on her attire. ‘The internment of Dr Hjelmar von Dannevill, which was effected yesterday, did not surprise the Wellington people,’ according to the Evening Star. ‘The 174

My Dear Doctor

voice of gossip has insisted for a long time past that this lady, who claimed to be of Danish nationality, would find more congenial company on Somes Island.’27 Her ‘eccentricities’ included wearing ‘her hair short’, a ‘hat, coat, vest, collar’, and ‘boots of a masculine pattern with a woman’s skirt’.28 The Northern Advocate quipped that the ‘quaint little figure’ who ‘would have passed for a boy easily were it not that she announced her sex by wearing one of the most characteristic garments of woman – a skirt’ would be missed.29 Mr J.A. Fothergill of Dunedin felt compelled to write in support of Hjelmar: he noted with regret that the reporting on her internment ‘hardly does the citizens of Wellington justice … there must be hundreds of grateful patients (of whom I am one) throughout New Zealand who owe the doctor thanks for unwearied skilled attention and deep sympathy’; that she wore ‘a masculine style of dress is merely a proof that her mind had risen superior to and emancipated from, the tyranny and vanity of fashion’.30 Hjelmar was interviewed again – this time by the military – but no personal file of her time on Somes Island has survived. This may be due to the short period of time she spent in the camp. Two months into her internment she is said to have suffered a severe nervous breakdown. Ironically, with the permission of Defence Minister Allen she was transferred to the Lahmann Home to recuperate. NZ Truth was bemused and ridiculed the government for interning her in the first place. Rumour had it that her arrest was due to her losing a handbag ‘alleged to have contained incriminating correspondence with Europe’, the story read.31 In the end, the rumour was not too far from the truth. ‘THE ILLIMITABLE DISTANCES OF THE DESERT?’

The case of Hjelmar Dannevill is remarkable for many reasons, and many elements in it remain obscure. Are these letters evidence of a lesbian network? Was Hjelmar the ‘lady husband’ of Mary? And why did she dress the way she did – was it linked to sexual desire, 175

DEAD LETTERS

for ease of travel, an attempt at being a masterless woman, or simply because she wanted to?32 Whatever the reasons, it is clear Hjelmar’s overall relationship orientation was to women, and that her companionship with Mary (and her child) was obviously more than just a therapist/client one. Her multiple friendships, her class, education, and profession all suggest that Hjelmar was able to make lesbian expression the organising principle of her life.33 None of these relationships were illegal. Yet Hjelmar’s community of women, as well her non-binary gender, challenged ideas of dependency and male dominance. Salmond’s questioning of her work and the nature of the Lahmann Home itself also shows how sexual deviance could be conflated with economic deviance. In doing so, non-normative expressions of gender and sexuality were linked to broader notions of economic and social disorder.34 After Edward Bond aired his complaints to police, Salmond used Hjelmar’s questionable citizenship status as a convenient way to criminalise her work and her lived reality.35 But it did not break it. Less than a year after her internment, NZ Truth reported that she had been spotted in Timaru (was she visiting Helene?)36 Then in August 1918, its ‘Sassiety Spice’ column told how ‘the people of Geraldine have been up in arms at the presence of Dr von Danneville, who had been released from the island on parole’.37 The Anti-German League, which had also hounded Marie Weitzel, took on the case and requested that the Defence Department banish her from the town. It is not clear whether they were successful in their modernday witch-hunt, or whether she simply returned to the Lahmann Home. That year the military finally accepted Dr Huntley’s offer to turn the retreat into a convalescent home for returning soldiers. It did not last long – the military cancelled its lease in March 1920.38 The Home was eventually bought by the Education Department and became the Miramar Girls’ Home (the building still stands at 8 Weka Street, opposite Weta Studios). By this time Hjelmar had left 176

My Dear Doctor

the country. And with her was her companion of five years, Mary Bond. Local newspaper reports of Hjelmar’s movements end in May 1920, when she and Mary left Sydney for Suva.39 Eventually they settled together in San Francisco – Hjelmar dropped the ‘von’ from her name, made her living as a physician and remained a companion of Mary and her three children. In a city that would later become famous for its queer pride, Hjelmar fought for and won the right to wear men’s clothing in public.

177

DEAD LETTERS

178

8

8 YOURS F OR D IRECT ACTI O N

J Sweeny to Philip Josephs, Wellington AD10 Box 9 19/16

Blenheim Nov 3rd 1915 Dear Comrade Peter I have been in the back country for the last 10 weeks had 4 inches of snow in two days in camp had to clear a track from the tents to cook house had very rotten Hash mouse dung in the flour and sugar I have enclosed P.O. Notes for 8/- 5/- one year Mother Earth and 1 year the Spur I hope you have plenty of by now Remember me to the Direct Action Rebels in Wellington I am yours for Direct Action No Political Dope J Sweeny

***

O

n first glance this humble letter does not say much. Nor is it particularly seditious. But for a censor reading it in November 1915, there was cause for alarm. ‘Comrade Peter’ was a marked man; Mother Earth, despite its homely title, was an anarchist newspaper, as was the Spur; and considering the story that had broken two months OPPOSITE:

Auckland city viewed from the Grand Hotel, c.1910.

1/1-002804-G, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington 179

DEAD LETTERS

earlier, ‘yours for Direct Action’ screamed sabotage, dynamite plots and industrial warfare. It was confiscated by Tanner and forwarded to Gibbon, who added it to the growing file on Philip Josephs, aka Comrade Peter. Sweeny’s letter to the Wellington-based anarchist arrived near the tail end of a police sting that had begun quietly in July, gathered momentum in September and climaxed with raids and arrests in October. From then on the importation of IWW literature was banned in New Zealand and its members were targeted relentlessly. What the IWW stood for, and what threatened those in power, is clear from the memorable preamble to the organisation’s constitution: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, and abolish the wage system.

Its members believed in ‘One Big Union’ open to workers regardless of skill, race, gender or nation, and that unions based narrowly on trade kept the working class divided and powerless. They advocated direct action in the workplace rather than putting false hope in the ballot box, and rejected parliamentary politics as mere distraction. They were champions of rank-and-file control and placed great importance on how struggles were fought. They aimed to build a new world ‘within the shell of the old’. They shunned employment contracts in favour of workers’ power and the tactical use of the strike. And their goal was to abolish capitalism and replace it with a ‘co-operative commonwealth’. Founded in Chicago in 1905, the IWW took root around the world thanks, in part, to itinerant workers who ‘jumped from land to land 180

Yours for Direct Action

and from continent to continent with as little care as some crossed the street’.1 New Zealand’s first branch was formed in Wellington on 31 December 1907, and although the IWW never grew big enough in New Zealand to form its own mass union, the labour movement would never be the same again. By 1913 there were official IWW Locals in Auckland and Christchurch and branches in Wellington, Huntly, Waihī, Gisborne and Denniston, while footloose radicals roamed the countryside spreading the gospel of class struggle and the mantra ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’. As well as fighting for better conditions and shorter hours, the IWW fostered education, internationalism and a radical workingclass counterculture. At a time when many workers, especially the so-called unskilled, were beginning to challenge traditional union strategies and New Zealand’s labour laws, the IWW’s call for class solidarity and industrial unionism had a broad appeal. ‘It gave coherent expression to the logic of their every-day working experience,’ as labour historian Erik Olssen explains.2 To their detractors the IWW and its members, known as Wobblies, were un-British apostles of violence and irresponsible idealists. In their eyes the IWW stood for ‘I Won’t Work’, and during the war its members were labelled ‘Hirelings of the Hun’ and ‘German-born children of the devil’. New Zealand’s crown prosecutor repeatedly stressed the distinction between sincere objectors ‘and “parasites”, “anarchists” and other IWW types’.3 Their literature was said to be poisonous, blasphemous, obnoxious, mischievous and a public evil, advocating violence, anarchy and sedition. The modernisation of postal shipping lines gave the distribution of IWW literature an important boost. Stickers, songbooks and penny pamphlets had a wide distribution in pre-war New Zealand, where they arrived in bundles by post or carried by seamen. ‘All boats from America were met by one or more of us wearing our IWW badge in case there should be a Wobbly on board with the 181

DEAD LETTERS

appropriate swag,’ recalled Alec Holdsworth of the Auckland IWW.4 Despite this, the Wellington branch of the NZSP complained that it could not keep up with demand. And when Auckland Wobblies began printing their own newspaper, the Industrial Unionist, thousands of copies would be sold at open-air meetings and then shared or read aloud, magnifying its reach many times over. If a keen worker missed out on a copy they could always contact the Latvian-born Jewish tailor, Philip Josephs, whose Wellington shop doubled as a bookstore and social centre. A key player in the formative years of the NZSP, ‘Comrade Peter’ had arrived from Glasgow in 1904. With him came a new level of anarchist organising; for, despite a scattering of sympathetic individuals, anarchism in New Zealand was more of a mood than a movement. Josephs spoke publicly on his anarchist beliefs, on the tumultuous 1905 Revolution that had caused Arthur Muravleff to flee Russia, and to large crowds at Wellington’s Post Office Square during the 1913 Great Strike. That year he also formed the first official anarchist collective in New Zealand, the Freedom Group. He was connected to many international anarchists through the post and maintained a popular mail-order network of radical material across the country. At his peak Josephs had distribution agents in Auckland, Christchurch and Invercargill; it had subscribers like Robert Semple and Paddy Webb, and placed advertisements in the Maoriland Worker listing over 90 titles for purchase.5 With the outbreak of war and the jingoistic environment that followed, the distribution of literature became the main activity of pacifists such as Charles Mackie, who, like Josephs, kept a lively mail-order network. But Mackie’s fear of being prosecuted under the War Regulations was so great that he refused to compose or print pamphlets under the National Peace Council banner. To get around this he instead distributed pacifist material from the London-based Union of Democratic Control (UDC). Unfortunately, Mackie was on Tanner’s watchlist and, in November 1915, Tanner confiscated 182

Yours for Direct Action

a carton of 500 leaflets from the British Stop the War Committee, a batch of suffragist material, the Anti-Slavery Reporter and other items of interest.6 Mackie’s own letters were stopped and his correspondents, such as Harry Holland, were earmarked as suspects to be watched. Charles Mackie wasn’t the only one ordering pacifist literature from Britain. William Ensom, a rationalist and secretary of the Christchurch branch of the Fabian Society, wrote regularly to Edmund Morel, a distinguished investigative journalist. Adam Hochschild describes Morel as ‘the moving spirit of the century’s first great international human rights campaign, against the forced labour system King Leopold II of Belgium had used to draw profits from the Congo’.7 He was also the founder of the UDC, whose 650,000 members called for an end to the war through a negotiated peace. Aware that Morel had just been arrested for his anti-war activities, Ensom wrote to Arthur Ponsonby, a member of the British Parliament and a UDC colleague of Morel’s. ‘Some of us have been trying to get literature circulated and have had some hundreds of the UDC pamphlets sent out … we are deeply grateful for the work you have been doing in the House of Commons, Yourself, Snowdon, McAnderson, McDonald and others – Please convey our gratitude to Mr Morel – we trust his health will not suffer from his confinement.’8 Ensom’s letter was stopped by London censors and brought to the attention of Gibbon. But the censors here considered him a crank who carried ‘no weight in any matter he is connected with’ – although they noted that his wife was a Quaker, his daughter had married the son of a naturalised German and that his correspondents were monitored.9 And since the spread of pacifist literature had been stymied by arrests and censorship, in the scheme of things, Mackie and Ensom’s middle-class pacifism was small-fry. The real concern of the state lay elsewhere.

183

DEAD LETTERS

‘NO POLITICAL DOPE’

Late in July 1915, members of the Auckland Employers’ Federation gathered for their annual general meeting. The federation’s president, Joseph James Craig, was said to have few, if any, equals among his fellow capitalists. The rotund and lavishly bearded businessman owned one of the country’s largest and most industrious enterprises. He counted his mines and limeworks as a philatelist counts stamps, boasted his own fleet of trading vessels, and won almost every lucrative government contract for coal, lime, cement and carting in the north. Not only that, he literally controlled movement on the Auckland wharves. Between 1885 and 1930, practically every piece of cargo that was unloaded at the Port of Auckland was carted to its final destination by a J.J. Craig vehicle. Craig had some sobering news. A Direct Action group had established its headquarters in Auckland and was openly advocating scientific sabotage. At a time when the export of goods to Britain was crucial to the federation’s profits, Craig wanted his fellow businessmen to be aware of the presence of such pernicious individuals. The Wobblies were back. Craig and the Employers’ Federation thought that the IWW had died with the 1913 Strike, when most of its leading advocates had fled overseas to avoid victimisation. But the rank and file remained active, agitating wherever they were working or by keeping prestrike branches alive. The passage of time, and the Wobblies’ desire to change the world rather than archive it, has obscured many of their names. Yet down in the holds, around the sheds and on the wharves, the ideas of the Wobblies simmered quietly until they found an outlet in the strikes and go-slows of 1916 and 1917. Ports had always been a site of workers’ education – John A. Lee described the waterfront as a political university – as webs of action and interaction crisscrossed the ocean, carrying radicals, rituals, literature and modes of struggle. One of the IWW’s most successful branches, the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union, linked 184

Yours for Direct Action

Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington and Auckland into a global network of ports – among them, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Canton (Guangzhou), Shanghai, Manila, Rangoon (Yangon), Yokohama and San Francisco. This had a direct impact on labour organising in all of these cities.10 Unsurprisingly, the IWW was strong in the port city of Auckland thanks to its transient, working-class subculture. Over 100,000 migrants, mainly single men in their twenties, arrived from Britain and Australia in the decade before 1914. Restless and resistant to bourgeois morals, they patronised the boarding houses, brothels, pubs and gambling dens lining the stretch between Newton Gully and the waterfront. On Saturdays they attended the races, shunned rugby union for rugby league, and ate at one of the many Chinese restaurants. In the evening, wearing their worn, going-out suits and hats, they gathered in Queen Street to listen to street orators or to cheer on drunks.11 Any overzealous police officers attempting to make arrests were abused, sometimes physically. The well-to-do and pious were subjected to ‘larrikinism’. Unlike other cities, the strike that gripped the country in 1913 developed into a general strike in Auckland. On 8 November 1913, close to 10,000 workers brought the city to a standstill. ‘Hotel guests were cooking their own meals. There were parades and mass meetings. Strikers assembling at Victoria Park gave a huge cheer to marching waitresses – the cheering, though, was nothing compared to that for the striking newspaper delivery boys.’12 An anxious Craig urged the Employers’ Federation to ‘stand together and give Labour and these foreign agitators, who are paid to create these troubles, a final lesson … the only thing to do now is to make a fight of it to the bitter end.’13 They demanded the state become more draconian.14 The state answered the call. Strike leaders were rounded up and charged with sedition. Watersiders were chased through the streets and beaten by special constables wielding batons carved with the words ‘Society combats anarchy brutality 185

DEAD LETTERS

syndicalists’.15 The government sent in the British warship Pyramus: its massive searchlight was trained on Queen Street while the crew drilled with fixed bayonets on wharves lined with barbed wire. In the face of such odds, workers drifted back to their jobs and the strike was called off two weeks after it had begun. The strike scattered the Wobblies far and wide and almost killed the once-vibrant Auckland branch. Some went inland to organise rural workers, with some success. Others, like the American Jim ‘Gun’ Sullivan, headed south and found like-minded company among miners on the West Coast. Then in mid-1914, the Auckland branch was given a new lease of life as the Wobblies returned from the countryside. An attempt to revive the Industrial Unionist failed, but a core group refused to lose faith.16 Literature from Australia, where Wobblies had founded the newspaper Direct Action, was sent across the Tasman and sold to willing readers. The Wellington branch reformed in mid-1914 and met every Tuesday and Friday night, although they had to curtail their activities when the war broke out: ‘Plugs prefer to hang around the Evening Ghost [Evening Post] office and read the war junk stuck up on the board.’17 They faced an uphill battle keeping the branch alive, and in 1915 renamed their group the Industrialist Club because of the wartime hysteria that surrounded the IWW. Before the Free Speech campaign that led to Sidney Fournier, William Parker and other comrades of Marie Weitzel’s being charged with sedition, the main work of the club was to spread mental dynamite in the form of IWW literature. In December 1914 an Auckland IWW flyer titled ‘War and the Workers’, aimed at convincing soldiers they were being used as tools for big business, appeared outside the army’s Buckle Street Drill Hall, to the disgust of Salmond. In 1915 the club brought the Supreme Court to a stop by decorating the courthouse with an anti-war poster, ‘To Arms!’, which called on ‘Capitalists, Parsons, Politicians, Landlords, Newspaper Editors and other Stay-At-Home-Patriots’ to fight their own wars. 186

Yours for Direct Action

Affronted at such mischief, the judge suspended the court until the offending posters were removed.18 The NZSP complained that IWW stickers bearing pithy slogans like ‘Fast Workers Die Young’ and ‘Why Dabble in Arbitration Courts When You Have Sabotage?’ were being plastered all over the Socialist Hall: a party member was delegated to speak to the Wobblies and ask them to use the noticeboard instead.19 The stickers were also stuck onto National Registration posters and all around the Wellington waterfront. These actions were a far cry from the mass meetings of 1913, but Wobblies like Auckland watersider Jack O’Brien were not ready to give up on the One Big Union. A noted orator, in November 1913 O’Brien preached class war to a crowd of thousands at Victoria Park. Six months later and in very different circumstances, he leased a room at King’s Chambers, a two-storeyed collection of offices on the corner of Commerce and Fort Street. O’Brien told the landlord it was needed for a reading club. Impressed that one of his offices might help struggling labourers better themselves through education, the landlord gave him a cheaper rate. He wasn’t too bothered that they gathered at all hours of the night, or on Sunday – the Sabbath – to read, play cards and debate. He was amazed at the commitment of the 30 to 40 regulars who, although they were ‘rough, unkempt, fellows’, seemed ‘extremely intelligent and well read’.20 Not long afterwards a small, single-sided flyer entitled ‘The Workers’ University Direct Action Group’ made an appearance. ‘Revolutionaries have decided to form the above named group’ to ‘educate the mentally lazy and those who, by over-work, are shamefully robbed of that nerve force or energy so necessary for educational advancement’ ran the flyer. ‘Our educational scheme will deal with ECONOMICS, BIOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, Social Democrat fallacies and illusions, State Ownership, alias State Capitalism fakes, Law and Authority Bluff, the Anarchist doctrines of “Total Abstention” – also SCIENTIFIC SABOTAGE (etc., etc.), the most potent weapon of the intelligent militant minority.’ The 187

DEAD LETTERS

remarkable document asked that ‘Spittoon philosophers and gasbags anchor outside. We want no wet blankets. Don’t whine like a millionaire’s lady lap-dog.’ Social democrats, ‘official authoritarians or parliamentary suckers’, were not welcome. The flyer was signed ‘Yours for Economic and Intellectual Freedom, W. BULL, J. NEITZ, J. FILLOP’ and bore the Sydney IWW’s imprint. In July 1915 the landlord, the Employers’ Federation and the New Zealand police put two and two together. Room 26, King’s Chambers – the Workers’ University – was the mailing address of the Auckland IWW. Constable Gourley was asked to furnish a report on the group and its distribution of literature. A long-time harasser of radicals, Gourley believed most of its members had been blacklisted from the waterfront after the strike – King’s Chambers was a mere 400 metres from the wharves – and confirmed that the flyers were drawn up in Auckland, printed by the IWW Local in Sydney and then shipped back to New Zealand along with copies of Direct Action. As to its authors, Bull, Neitz and Fillop were actually William Bell, Oscar Neitzhert and George Phillips. ‘They have decided to send Bell to the chief centres in New Zealand, to organise the Direct Action Group,’ reported Gourley. ‘If allowed to grow, there is no doubt that this group will be able to do a great deal of damage in the near future.’21 Craig was naturally alarmed. He needn’t have feared for his personal safety, however, for sabotage in Wobbly terms was aimed at his wallet. ‘Sabotage absolutely does not imply personal violence,’ the Industrial Unionist explained. ‘We emphasise that statement, for the arch-lie levelled against the IWW is that we have no respect for life and limb. We have every respect, which is more than we can truthfully say for many members of the employing class.’ Sabotage ‘does not aim for the destruction of a thing, but at the profits of an industry through the hampering of production. Simply, it is a form of strike which precludes starvation and the blackleg.’22 Working 188

Yours for Direct Action

exactly to the rules or by working as slowly as possible – in other words, the collective withdrawal of workplace efficiency – was how better conditions and shorter hours could be won. As the Direct Action Group put it, ‘Moneybag’s soul-case lies in his bank-book. Hit him there and he squeals like hell!’ ‘Moneybags’ was not impressed, and made sure his speech to the Employers’ Federation was reported by the press. The story sent waves of outrage throughout the country’s newsstands. The editor of the Otago Daily Times was livid: The stuff is poisonous – to a degree revolutionary and even blasphemous … in a time such as this, when the struggle in which the nation is engaged emphasises the vital importance of harmony and efficiency in all the operations of the machinery of our laboriously built-up social system, the blatant proclamation of pestilential revolutionary doctrines such as the I.W.W. preaches is little removed from treason.23

Under increasing pressure to lift their blacklist of 1913 strikers, Craig and the Employers’ Federation milked the story for all it was worth. ‘Can any sane being expect an employer to retain in his service any man who, whether from ignorance, bigotry, or selfish motives, is deliberately pledged to  sabotage,  limitation of output, and other unfair and destructive doctrines encouraged by the I.W.W. and kindred organisations?’ read the newspaper ads taken out by the Employers’ Federation. ‘You might as well ask a peaceful householder to give accommodation to an avowed burglar.’24 Meanwhile, the police launched an operation to stop the IWW in its tracks. On 3 September 1915, Commissioner Cullen wrote to his minister and close friend, Alexander Herdman, recommending that all IWW literature be prohibited. With Bonar Law’s cipher on incendiarism fresh in his mind, and taking the meaning of sabotage literally, Cullen believed IWW material ‘should not be allowed to come into this Dominion to be sold and distributed among 189

DEAD LETTERS

men who by reading such a publication may start on a career of sabotage, which might result in great loss of life and property in the Dominion or on board the ocean-going steamers trading to and from New Zealand’.25 Herdman was no friend of the worker. Cold in appearance and in temperament and with a reputation for putting order before law, Herdman gave Cullen the green light. Neitzhert was to be arrested or interned as an enemy alien, as were any of his associates. And Salmond would draw up the required laws to silence the IWW. Events now moved quickly. On 16 September Salmond drafted a warrant for Neitzhert’s arrest. It was sent to Gibbon on 20 September. On that very day Salmond’s amendment to the War Regulations was published. The authorities could now arrest and detain at their pleasure any alien suspected of being disaffected and dangerous, and no person could incite lawlessness or violence or possess any document that advocated the same. An Order of Council amending the 1913 Customs Act was also passed that day, prohibiting ‘the importation into New Zealand of the newspapers called Direct Action and Solidarity, and all other printed matter published or printed purporting to be published or printed by or on behalf of the society known as “The Industrial Workers of the World”.’26 None of this legislation was run by Parliament. ‘DIRECT ACTION REBELS’

Fort Street was once Auckland’s shoreline. Running along the waterfront of Commercial Bay and ending at the pōhutukawa-lined cliffs of Britomart Point, it was originally known as Fore Street due to its proximity to the foreshore. By the 1880s, reclamation of the harbour placed the street four blocks inland. Its alleys, rickety leantos and shadowy warehouses made it a popular haunt of prostitutes, who battled the rotten stench and a failing economy to sell their bodies to a willing male clientele. Here, the street and its sex workers acted as ‘a pressure-valve for the seething mass of frustrated men 190

Yours for Direct Action

that was colonial Auckland’.27 Policemen, wary of the fumes and filth, stayed away. But in 1915 they arrived at the corner of Fort Street hard and fast. Passersby scattered as the commandeered taxi pulled up outside King’s Chambers. Fearing the worst, the detectives left the vehicle and climbed the poky stairs to room no. 26 as a group. They smashed down the office door and found a near-empty room: all that remained of the Workers’ University was scraps of literature, an old saw, two chairs and a table. The Wobblies had suspected something was awry and had secretly moved to another location. At the same time, police also swooped on Oscar Neitzhert, who Salmond believed was the leader of ‘the criminal organisation’.28 Neitzhert was a 48-year-old American farmer of German heritage, with greying hair and distinctive tattoos on his forearms. He was arrested on 30 September 1915 at his wood cabin in Putaruru, south of Auckland. Every possession he owned was recorded, from his four enamel stewpots and three garden rakes to his slide trombone and 13 chooks. Neitzhert was transported under armed guard to Wellington, where he was interned on Somes Island. Somehow, between his arrest and his internment, he managed to slip a note to the American consul in Auckland, Alfred Winslow. Winslow, fresh from his debate with Allen over Harold Ebey and the opening of US Consulate mail, questioned why an American citizen was being held without trial. Allen replied that the War Regulations allowed him to detain Neitzhert based on his German ancestry, but that the true reason was ‘his connection with the organisation known as the Industrial Workers of the World and his public advocacy in certain recent publications, of sabotage and violence’.29 Winslow sent the news of Neitzhert’s arrest to his superiors in Washington, unaware that New Zealand censors were secretly reading his cables and the replies from Washington.30 By spying on the United States government, Allen, Salmond and co. learned of their Allies’ intention in advance: to secure a trial for Neitzhert, or his immediate release. 191

DEAD LETTERS

This was not to be. After a year of bureaucratic wrangling, Neitzhert was released from internment and deported to the United States in early 1917. Meanwhile, police followed up the distribution network of Direct Action. It had become clear that Philip Josephs was the go-to man in Wellington; and Tanner, of his own accord, had stopped a letter from Josephs destined for the iconic anarchist and founder of Mother Earth, Emma Goldman. On 8 October the police made their move. Josephs’ office and home were raided and he was thrown into a jail cell while officers confiscated everything they could lay their hands on. Letters, account books, 40 magazines and books in foreign print, 11 newspapers in foreign print (including anarchist flyers in Chinese) and over 50 books were taken. Police also found an IWW membership book, rubber stamps, copies of Direct Action and the now-infamous Direct Action Group flyer. They had struck red gold: Josephs’ Cuba Street shop was the headquarters of the Wellington IWW.31 Salmond was desperate to jail Josephs but worried there was not enough evidence that was dated later than the War Regulations of 20 September. If the well-known figure and family man was perceived to have been unjustly arrested, ‘questions might afterwards arise as to whether the military authorities had been justified in taking such a course’.32 Josephs was freed, but his mail was held. Hoping to build a stronger case against him, Salmond ordered all of his correspondence to be stopped and examined: ‘It may be that such examination will show that Josephs is an active agent of the IWW or other anarchist and criminal organisations, and that on this evidence steps could be taken either for his prosecution or for his internment.’33 Josephs moved to rural Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North, and then to Sydney, before they could do so. Other members of the Direct Action Group were less fortunate. George Phillips, aka J. FILLOP, was the son of Waihī striker Ted Patrick. In 1912, at 16 years of age, Phillips joined the Auckland 192

Yours for Direct Action

IWW and made an immediate impact with his youthful energy. It was Phillips who patiently canvassed the crowds that would mingle before lectures, selling copies of Direct Action and handing out the Direct Action Group flyer. Although he was not arrested in October 1915, he was balloted for military service and spent 18 months in prison for refusing to serve – he may have been captured on the West Coast as his name is among the radicals said to have been active there. On his release he trained as an electrician. In early 1920 he sparked a revival of the IWW, this time as the One Big Union Council. In an uncanny resemblance to the Wellington scene, the group met in the back of a tailor shop owned by Peter Serbin, a Russian who had seen four years of active service in the NZEF. Members pored over revolutionary works, held street meetings and distributed what little literature they could smuggle in.34 Although they were derided by one Marxist as being too focused on anarcho-syndicalism, the group eventually morphed into Auckland’s first branch of the Communist Party. George Phillips died a life-long radical in 1971. Berthold Charles Richard Matzke was another Auckland watersider and Direct Action Group member. Prominent during the 1913 Strike he was a friend of Oscar Neitzhert and was active on the waterfront despite being blacklisted from the pro-employer unions. His vocal opposition to conscription and his German heritage made him a favourite target of Constable Gourley, who regarded Matzke as a successful agitator who won a sympathetic hearing wherever he worked. Gourley also suspected him of being responsible for an explosion aboard the SS Makura after he had loaded coal in its hold. (No evidence of foul play was ever found; in fact, the explosions were caused by coal being left for too long aboard the ships and not being ‘worked’ out, leading to spontaneous combustion. It was the shipping companies’ desire to cut costs that were to blame, not the Wobblies.) Matzke was interned on Somes Island where he no doubt met Arthur Muravleff, Carl Mumme and other radicals-cum-prisoners of war. He was denied his freedom despite being dangerously unwell, and 193

DEAD LETTERS

he died of pneumonia at Featherston Camp on 16 June 1919. His wife Florence was ‘lucky’ enough to make it to the funeral. The Direct Action Group’s organiser in 1915, William John Bell (W. BULL), managed to avoid prosecution for close to two years. A bookkeeper who walked with crutches, Bell was the son of John ‘Jack the Rigger’ Bell, who Salmond believed was ‘one of the greatest agitators Auckland has known’. Bell had been ‘an agitator ever since his boyhood’, and at 40 years of age had matured into a master of the vernacular.35 Labour leaders were ‘snide-sneaks’, the military were ‘pimps’ and the mayor of Auckland was a ‘truculent tyrant’ who spoke ‘vomit and dribble’.36 He saved his best for Arthur Rosser, a Labour Party man on the Auckland Military Service Board. In May 1917 Bell mailed Rosser a pamphlet written by J.B. Murray that described the abuse and deaths of those detained in British concentration camps during the South African War. Bell had added his own comments to the pamphlet: Biologically and psychologically, spiritually and morally, British brutes are by nature and training mental prostitutes, dollar-souled castrates, mongrelly curs, human vipers, whited sepulchres, pious hypocrites, double-faced wowsers, Mammon worshippers, and often syphilitic and beer-soaked degenerates … how can such creatures, half wolf and half snake, with Jingoism, superstition and falsehood vomiting out of their ears and mouth, be expected to possess any finer feelings when judged from the standpoint of justice or humanitarianism?37

It turned out Bell had sent over 1000 of these pamphlets, some with personalised notes, to prominent figures around Auckland. Once he was identified as the source he was arrested, his house raided and he was put on the stand, where it was shown that he had also tried to set up a dummy address to avoid censorship. ‘The Johns and military pimps are on the lookout for the correspondence of men known in our movement,’ he wrote in a letter that never reached its 194

Yours for Direct Action

destination. To sidestep the censor he tried to set up a new mailbox ‘for the purposes of ordering leaflets without an imprint for secret distribution at this end of New Zealand’, as he put it in a letter to a comrade at Te Teko, Bay of Plenty.38 ‘We are compelled to work very cautiously as we are undoubtedly being shadowed by police spies … I have suggested to a man returning to Sydney that if the spotting out tactics of the police and their pimps should become too dangerous, as many of our men as possible should join a Holy Ghost crowd for a cloak and work sabotage.’ The letter also described plans for a ‘private meeting of picked trusted militants this week at my bach’ to campaign for the release of the Sydney Twelve, a group of IWW agitators who had been jailed for treason in Australia.39 Bell conducted his own defence: he accused the military service boards of hypocrisy, claimed the Kaiser was intellectually superior to King George and said the Huntly mine disaster of 12 September 1914 in which 43 miners were killed would not have happened if the mine owners had heeded the men’s complaints. There were cheers and applause from the audience, but the judge was far from sympathetic. Bell was declared ‘mentally warped and dangerous’ with ‘a want of balance’, and sentenced to 11 months’ imprisonment.40 Unlike the Australian government, the New Zealand authorities never declared the IWW an illegal organisation (although the War Regulations essentially made it so). But as in Australia, they did not hesitate to use wartime legislation to deport Wobblies. In 1917 MP Vernon Reed asked Massey to consider the provisions of the Unlawful Associations Amendment Bill introduced in Australia, which aimed at ‘the destruction of the IWW and kindred institutions, and providing for the deportation of undesirables’.41 Massey stated that a law was under consideration. The result was the 1919 Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Act, which gave the attorney-general power to single-handedly deport anyone whom he deemed ‘disaffected or 195

DEAD LETTERS

disloyal, or of such a character that his presence would be injurious to the peace, order, and good Government’ of New Zealand.42 The ink had hardly dried on this legislation before it was used to deport Moses Baritz, a touring lecturer from the British Socialist Party. Packed off to Sydney, Baritz was one of many deported from New Zealand during the 1920s. (In reality the 1919 Act merely formalised powers already available under the War Regulations. In late 1917, for example, John Gallagher and Walter Ghalore, two Australian slaughtermen, were convicted and deported for being dangerous to the peace and good government of New Zealand.) One Wobbly who was deported as a result of the content of his mail was Henry Aloysius Murphy, a gristly Australian labourer and veteran of the anti-conscription fight in Queensland. Writing from Auckland in April 1919, Murphy told a comrade that prohibition ‘overshadows everything else, but I am not going 2 be hoodwinked by same. The landlord is a greater menace and foe of democracy than the brewer, the private owner of the machinery of production is of greater menace than all …They talk of Doomsday!’ he joked. ‘They forget as Emerson well said that Doomsday is every day for the workers.’ The censors were more interested in Murphy’s knowledge of military defaulters. ‘Deserters are being picked up here every day. Mostly married men who have been hiding and working out in the bush and naturally they are anxious to come back home.’ He noted that Constables Hammond and Gourley (the officer who had investigated the Direct Acton Group) ‘run the rule over all passengers’ – so much so that the master of the Monowai complained about the hold-up. Nonetheless, Murphy wrote that two Wobblies, Nugget and Scotty, had been turned away at the wharves. The Russian Revolution also got a mention: ‘I seem 2 have doubts at times about the futility of industrial and political action especially after whats happened in Europe’; and, despite himself, Henry wrote about work: ‘I hate to talk about work it’s the most degrading thing that I know of ... things have slackened up here on the wharves (but) 196

Yours for Direct Action

seven home boats expected in next month that ought to gladden the heart of bone headed bastards that’s all they want (plenty work) I would work them 2 death if I had my way!’43 The letter was intercepted by an Australian censor and sent back to Tanner. ‘Murphy appears to be a dangerous character of the IWW type,’ noted the censor. ‘He is an admirer of the Bolsheviks and is gradually drifting towards anarchy, revolution and outrage … his hatred of work is one of the traits of the IWW character.’44 Tanner saw that Murphy was hauled before the court for failing to register as a reservist under the Military Service Act. In court Murphy declared that ‘anti-militarists have done more for democracy than all the soldiers who went to Europe’.45 He was sentenced to 14 days’ hard labour and was due to be deported, but agreed to leave New Zealand ‘voluntarily’.46 ‘REMEMBER ME’

For J. Sweeny, who was working in the backblocks of Marlborough, the repression of his fellow Wobblies passed him by. Whether he knew about the police sting is uncertain. In fact, there is little information for the biographer of Sweeny – we do not even know his first name, let alone what he thought of the urban struggles that were taking place. However some aspects of his life can be reconstructed, such as his work as a rural labourer, the mouse dung in his flour, and his desire for anarchist reading material. In doing so we muddy the divide between town and country. Like Oscar Neitzhert, who was a farmer and not the stereotype of a militant urban Wobbly, Sweeny toiled in windswept farm sheds and warmed himself with inflammatory literature usually associated with the factory or port. Sweeny was one of the many ‘forgotten workers’ of the labour movement – the rural proletariat. By focusing on towns and cities, the importance of rurally based class struggle – the war in the sheds – has tended to be overlooked by historians.47 Here insecure workers were up against employers who were largely free of government 197

DEAD LETTERS

legislation or union agreements. Overt class conflict around primitive working conditions and pay was a common feature of the rural labourer’s experience. Because food and accommodation were included in their wage, rural workers like Sweeny were at the mercy of their boss, whose ostentatious way of life was often in stark contrast to their own.48 Sweeny’s letter makes this all too clear. He was living in a snow-covered tent with rotten, inadequate food and with little enjoyment other than the newspaper subscriptions or the company of his co-workers. Isolation and hardship were the norm. Rural labourers had often turned towards collective solutions such as strike action or forming unions. And at the very moment the Workers’ University was raided by police, Sweeny and his comrades were well on their way towards forming the One Big Union themselves. The Shearers Union had stayed out of the 1913 Great Strike but its members were nonetheless radicalised by the strike action and by those who had fled inland to avoid victimisation. By 1914, Wobblies and other militants were active among harvesters, threshers, shearers and general farmhands. George Bruce, a Wobbly and ex-watersider, organised in Otago and Southland, while Edward ‘Billy Banjo’ Hunter, a blacklisted miner who at one time was the secretary of the Denniston IWW, was active in the Wairarapa.49 In 1915 their seeds bore fruit when the old guard of the Shearers Union was replaced by advocates of the One Big Union – radicals like Charles Grayndler and Arthur Cook. ‘Workers will gain more in one day by job action than can be gained in a hundred years by political action,’ Cook claimed.50 They joined forces with the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Labourers Union to form the New Zealand Workers’ Union (NZWU), and deregistered from the Arbitration Act so that they were free to take strike action. The NZWU became one of the country’s largest unions, covering shearers, flax millers, timber millers, forestry workers, general labourers and farmhands, and virtually every Public Works employee. 198

Yours for Direct Action

Sweeny would have been pleased. He had been advocating for the One Big Union since 1911, when the Maoriland Worker published his call for ‘IWW clubs in the four large centres’ to ‘organise and educate the workers of New Zealand’.51 In 1920 he was working in Bulls near Palmerston North and no doubt supported the efforts of John B. Williams, a Wobbly on a mission to set up branches of the Australian One Big Union (essentially the Australian IWW but under a different name to avoid illegal status). After a whirlwind tour of New Zealand by Williams, an Auckland branch was formed in 1921, led by Andrew O’Neill, secretary of the General Labourers Union. By the end of the year Williams was a full-time organiser for the NZWU, and in 1927 he led a strike at the Arapuni Power Station, the first government-built hydroelectric station on the Waikato River. The IWW and its belief in the One Big Union proved harder to kill, despite its mail being censored, its literature banned, its leading lights arrested and its advocates deported. Sweeny, however, never did get those newspapers he had ordered.

199

DEAD LETTERS

A police mugshot of Henry Murphy, 1919. AAAJ 5803 W5609 Box 41, Archives New Zealand

200

9

9 PAT RIOTISM WIL L N OT PAY M Y B I L L S

‘Von Der Boch’ to Harry Duggan, Brisbane, Australia AD10 Box 10 19/10

‘Crawlers Land’ Jan 13th 1918 Dear Harry, Your welcome letter duly came to hand, and as you may guess I was very pleased to get it, and to know that at least you are all allowed to live in these strenuous times. Your description of Ryansland was highly amusing, it certainly must be a contrast to this government ridden country. I quite understand he riles patriots over there, as here. Hate the likes of us with an undying hatred. In any case, I was, I can assure you, quite delighted that their calculations had been upset. But wait a while Harry they will, I am convinced, come round to our way of thinking yet. The reaction, even over here, has undoubtedly set in and people are beginning to realise that war is one part glory & 99 parts diarrhoea and that it’s a mug’s game. Anyway, its their funeral. I see our mutual friend Hughes has got another lease of life. I can only hope it will be short and sweet or bitter, as the case may be. I enclose you a cutting from one of our ‘Rags’, and for the first part of the paragraph you can vouch as to its truth, for the latter part I can safely assert its absolutely true, spite of their assertions to the contrary, but it goes to show you to what length the Jingoes will go to make good their case. Like you Harry I am still getting it hot and strong, no matter where I go to try and earn a crust of dry bread my footsteps are dogged and its only a matter of a few days or hours that I get the order or the sack right in the neck. With regard to your news, send it along but do not put any 201

DEAD LETTERS

address or where the letter comes from just date, no more. I shall observe your address, and you notify me of a change. Now for the War, I do not know what your news may be, but this I do know that unless peace is concluded very shortly the British are in for some very strenuous times, especially on the Western Front. We may skite and blow, bounce and blather, make speeches, as our public men are doing every hour out of the 24, but that will not avail us. If we imagine we are going to attain our end with our mouths, well, the sooner we disabuse our minds of that the better it will be for those interested in the attaining of that object. As for myself, well my troubles, as it’s their troubles about me or mine, or yours, we can starve and be damned for all they care. Patriotism, as understood in these times, is for those who live out of it or through it, for me and you and thousands like us, it’s a meaningless word. Patriotism will not pay my bills, feed me, clothe me, set me above the reach of want. I am not a crawler, the country does nothing for me, I owe it nothing. I could starve or die in the gutter for all the country cared. Then why should I, or you, sacrifice ourselves for such a callous monster, only help to fill the ditch with our bodies, to help the favoured few. Not I, not you on your life, Harry, if we must retain our sanity and manhood. But these, our sanity and manliness, and must I say womanliness, are all in the melting pot. These days, it is reserved for the lick-spittles and crawlers the [illegible] and Jingoes to do all these things that you and I, and men of our kidney, object to doing, because it’s their nature to. Well, I repeat, it’s their funeral. With regard to your decision about returning to this country, I think, if only for the sake of health and comfort it’s the right thing to do. All I hope is, Harry my boy, I shall be pleased to see you once again, and mind this, you are to come up, right here, if it’s my last crust I share with you. Am sending along ‘Auckland Weekly’, don’t know what else to send. With Kindest regards from us all here. Yours, Von der boch. Write again soon Harry always glad to hear *** 202

Patriotism will not pay my bills

A

s another year of war ended inconclusively and 1918 dawned, war weariness had taken hold in homes around the country. The war had cost more men and more money than anybody in August 1914 had ever imagined. More than 88,000 men had been shipped to the front, of whom over 11,000 had died and 14,000 were so badly wounded or sick that they were no longer worth anything to the army.1 A single day of fighting in Belgium on 12 October 1917 caused over 3000 New Zealand casualties. Still, with the memory of Passchendaele fading like a horrible nightmare, a poet in the Free Lance was able to look back on 1917 and some of its cast with humour: As Commissioner, all can attest That O’Donovan’s one of the best. He has run the Police With a smooth axle-grease, But I don’t want a spell as his guest. Jimmy Allen is now a Sir James, But in spite of these titles and names He’s as fitted as any And more fit than many To bust Kaiser Bill and his games. Doctor Dannevill, tell me I pray! Why it was they interned you one day? Is it true that you took A bent pin for a hook And went jagging the fish in the bay? Paddy Webb went to Greymouth, alas! And was bogged in a verbal morass. Now he’s bound for the trenches His work on the Benches Should make him at home where there’s gas.

203

DEAD LETTERS

Chief-of-Staff Colonel Gibbon, the Colonel  Who looks after sundry internal Affairs in this war, Won’t have much time to snore Till we’ve caught Kaiser Bill the Infernal.2

Gibbon had indeed been busy. The colonel’s duties required his frequent presence at Featherston and Trentham military camps, where he would inspect the men and advise on camp conditions. His grubby, travel-stained Ford motorcar (‘Tin Lizzie’) was a common sight on Hutt Road or ‘over the hill’ – it is said that he and Tin Lizzie crossed the Rimutaka Range nearly 700 times, in all weathers and at all times of the day. When he wasn’t between camps he was back in his office, immersed in paperwork and ever ready to dismiss timewasters with little more than a gaze. In recognition of his efforts Gibbon was one of four military men to receive a New Year’s honour, the Companion of St Michael and St George. He could not have known that his workload as chief censor would double in 1918. In February 1918 he was occupied with the Motuihe Inquiry, which was tasked with determining blame for the sensational escape of German Navy captain Felix Graf von Luckner from Motuihe internment camp near Auckland. The plucky officer and a dedicated core of followers had gathered supplies and crafted a sextant – all props for a Christmas play, they claimed; they snuck past the guards, stole a ship, the Pearl, stole a bigger ship, the Moa, and evaded the authorities for eight days before being recaptured off the Kermadec Islands. When Gibbon returned from his scheduled appearance on the stand, the four-page letter of ‘Von der boch’ with its enclosed newspaper clippings sat waiting on his desk, having been turned back at the Australian border. He sent it on to O’Donovan with a request to find out who Von der boch really was: ‘The handwriting may assist to discover the identity.’3 204

Patriotism will not pay my bills

Stamps showed that the letter had been posted from Waitara, a town on the Taranaki coast that was steeped in history and conflict. In fact, Taranaki had already provided some headaches for the military censors. Hundreds of newly balloted men in New Plymouth, Hāwera and Whanganui had been receiving anonymous letters run off on a simple duplicating machine, with the aim of inciting resistance to conscription. Quoting Jack London’s A Good Soldier (‘a good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine’), the letters claimed war was ‘nothing but a money making concern for the rich man and the poor man is forced to fight for him by a government which is trying to make itself big by butchering the people’.4 To the contempt of the Taranaki group commander, the letters asked the balloted men to join the crowd that were defying Allen and Massey and to appeal on grounds of conscience. Was Von der boch also the author of these deviant letters? The job was passed down the line to the officer in charge at Waitara, Constable Lapouple. After some gentle probing and securing handwriting samples on false pretences, Lapouple believed Von der boch was Herman Lund, a Danish land agent ‘well known to possess socialistic views’. Lund was ‘one of the very few residents of Waitara who could write such a closely punctuated letter’.5 Dismissed from his job at New Zealand Railways for fraud, Lund was said to be bitter towards all governments but ultimately harmless. Lapouple’s report, however, suggests the constable was struggling with the investigation: ‘The words “Land” and “Jan” (the abbreviation for January) bear striking similarity, the latter being rather an unusual abbreviation. On the other hand, some of the words do not appear to be in any way similar. The signature “von der boch” is no doubt anonymous.’6 To be fair, this was an era when scientific detection methods such as fingerprinting or handwriting analysis were new or nonexistent. Even O’Donovan was unsure about Lund – he had made his own 205

DEAD LETTERS

comparisons of the handwriting and admitted many of the formations were not alike. What’s more, the line ‘I am still getting it hot and strong no matter where I go’ was hardly typical of a person running a business. It implied ‘the writer is a person who moves about a lot or at least changes his employment’.7 When the file was returned to Gibbon, the colonel was eager to show his Australian counterpart that progress had been made. ‘It has been ascertained that the writer of the letter was a man named H.M Lund, of Waitara.’8 The matter seemed resolved. Less than a fortnight later, though, more letters addressed to Harry Duggan in ‘Ryansland’ (a reference to Queensland’s Labour Premier, Thomas Joseph Ryan) arrived from the Australian censors. ‘Anonymous’, writing from ‘somewhere in the land of scabs’, relayed that ‘all the men that done twelve months for speaking against conscription are all working in full swing … with this mail I am sending a full account of Paddy Webb’s military arrest & court martial I have sent it in an envelope because it would never reach you if it went in a newspaper.’9 Keen to remain anonymous, the writer told Harry, ‘please when you write don’t write direct to me; write to me through the “desert walker”, otherwise you will land me.’10 The New Zealand authorities were stumped. This did not sound like Lund – the language was working-class through and through. And who was the desert walker? They managed a feeble reply of acknowledgement to their Australian counterparts, who then rubbed salt in their wounds with another letter for Harry in June: ‘In continuation of my 28727 of 11th. April, I beg to enclose for your information the original letter Q.R. 281 addressed by “Nauseaticus”, “Somewhere in Hell”, Waitara, New Zealand.’11 Nauseaticus was true to form: Harry boy. There is no labour market for me here or any man of my type and principles, they would shoot or hang me tomorrow if they could summon up sufficient moral or physical courage

206

Patriotism will not pay my bills

to do so … but I keep a loaded revolver under my pillow and intend to give anyone who interferes with me a very warm reception. For who cares. I don’t. Life for me has lost all charm, if it were not for the poor old wife I’d be in gaol tomorrow … I am a wanted man and a suspect, and the time is fast approaching when my correspondence will be opened at the local office … but enough of myself Harry, this will only bore you. I want to say this, that I hold the working classes of this and most other countries so much in contempt that if it were possible I’d flog them with a forty fathom whip.12

Here was a writer thoroughly disillusioned with the war, his fellow workers and working life in general. For the second time Gibbon forwarded the file to O’Donovan in order to find out who this disaffected and ‘somewhat dangerous’ writer was.13 And for the second time O’Donovan passed it down the line to Constable Lapouple. Lapouple got to work. He made the rounds of the waterfront. He spoke to the neighbours of potential suspects. He visited the owner of the Evening Mail and studied the letters to the editor. He looked into rumours of disloyalty. By the end of the week, he felt he had cracked the case. ‘I respectfully report that I have ascertained beyond all reasonable doubt that the writer of the enclosed letter, and also the letter headed “Crawlers Land” and signed “Von der boch” … is a labourer residing in Leslie Street.’14 Von der boch, aka Nauseaticus, was none other than Joseph Goss. ‘I AM NOT A CRAWLER’

Joseph may have been many things but a coward he was not. Armed with his marriage certificate and a desire to squash any rumours once and for all, he sought out Lapouple at the Waitara police station. It was late 1917. Questions about his heritage had been raised. And while he was not always proud to be a British subject he felt beholden to prove his country of birth.15 Lapouple had no idea that the labourer standing before him, stout despite his 60 years and 207

DEAD LETTERS

clean-shaven except for a greying moustache, was the ‘Von der boch’ who would later cause him so much trouble. Joseph, meanwhile, probably knew that his views would see him and Lapouple collide sometime in the future – but he did not know it would come so soon. Lapouple vaguely knew of Joseph Goss. The watersider and manual labourer had left the Whanganui wharves for Waitara around 1914. Although Joseph called Waitara home, his precarious working situation meant he often moved about for work. Further research soon uncovered his reputation as an opinionated socialist. A prolific letter-writer, he did not hesitate to put his thoughts down on paper and share them with whatever newspaper would print them. He was vocal on the subject of working-class tenants like the Weitzels having to take on boarders to make ends meet. To the Wanganui Herald he sent congratulations for covering the plight of Indian coolies (‘may your powerful pen … continue to be wielded on the side of humanity, commonsense and justice’), and the Evening Post had published his denunciation of the Wellington City Council for failing to locate a suitable site for a market.16 When a cheap night at the Wanganui Opera House for those ‘without a superfluity of cash’ turned into an overcrowded debacle, Joseph complained that just ‘because some of the people are not blessed with a large amount of cash they are not necessarily cattle … No wonder revolt is in our midst in the shape of Redfedism, Socialism, Revolution, and all the other isms when people, because of their being poor and perhaps honest, are treated like beasts.’17 A recurring theme of Joseph’s letters was his condemnation of those he believed lacked moral courage. In 1904, after a low turnout to a meeting on the labour situation in South Africa, he wondered if the people of Wellington imagined it savoured too much of proBoerism, and to give countenance to such would be the height of disloyalty. If my surmise is correct I am sorry for the want of moral courage shown by the residents of Wellington, for if ever

208

Patriotism will not pay my bills

a question warranted their attendance it was this, and I must say the moral courage shown by the Premier is highly commendable … although I know the Premier was strongly opposed to any one like myself – viz., men or women who were not in favour of the war.18

It was a brave thing to openly question the South African War (1899– 1902), especially when thousands had volunteered for military service. It is telling that Joseph’s opposition to the First World War had such deep roots. Joseph also had opinions on the struggle for Irish independence that had seen Timothy Brosnan and other Irish republicans jailed for their beliefs. He lamented that ‘in the little place in which I vegetate, they won’t discuss the question, or if they do, it is with bated breath, as if they were fearful of being dubbed disloyal or unpatriotic … The Catholics here have displayed, and do now display, a lamentable lack of that grand attribute, moral courage.’19 His courage in speaking out against the status quo, despite losing respectability in the process, placed him alongside a group that was not short on moral courage, the IWW. In fact, as a casual labourer who earned his crust wherever he could find it, Joseph knew Wobblies like the watersider Carl Erickson, a subscriber to Direct Action and a close friend of our anarchist bookseller Philip Josephs.20 According to Lapouple’s informant and Joseph Goss’s former neighbour, Joseph himself was definitely ‘an I.W.W. man’.21 It is impossible to know whether Joseph fully subscribed to the ideas of the IWW. But like Henry Murphy and other Wobblies, he viewed waged work as dead time rather than a source of dignity or the pillar of social value. The struggle for and against work is a recurring theme in his letters. At 60 he was one of many ageing labourers on the edge of the cash economy, trying to pick up jobs where he could.22 He wrote that there was no work for him or any man of his ‘type and principles’; he figured that for over four years he had not averaged more than 10 shillings a week. In 1918, that bought 209

DEAD LETTERS

around 25 loaves of bread or two large bags of flour. It was certainly not enough to climb the social ladder – in fact, it barely paid the rent. ‘Since I last wrote I have had a job for a fortnight in the cooling chamber, and a couple of days out at the Kersone Sheds. I have been able to square up with Room money, so I am alright for a short while.’23 The cash did not last. ‘As for your financial position, I am pleased to know things are going so well with you. Wish I could say the same for myself,’ he wrote three months later. ‘Would have sent you papers oftener from this side, but could not afford the stamps.’24 The French word travail, toil, comes from the Latin tripalium or ‘instrument of torture’. There is a rich vein of working-class struggle against toil – those who believed in liberation from work rather than liberation through work. Yet resistance to work during the twentieth century has often been underestimated by labour historians. More often than not work has been viewed as creation rather than coercion, and workers as producers rather than resisters who must be constantly disciplined or seduced to accept work.25 Traditional yardsticks of working-class militancy are therefore measured in organisational or ideological terms. But something interesting happens if resistance to work, rather than party or union membership, is taken as a measure of class consciousness. Not only does it widen the terrain of study, it gives ordinary workers like Marie Weitzel, Frank Burns and Joseph Goss agency in the making of their own history. It moves ‘the self-activity of the working class to centre stage’, even if that activity was rooted in self-preservation.26 And it shines a light on those who could not or would not mount the soapbox, lead the strike or join the union. As Joseph wrote, ‘it’s not necessary for a man or woman to stand at a street corner and harangue the crowd … to be a so-called Socialist’.27 For workers in his position, unions and their membership fees were out of reach. Unions were also based on the world of paid work – something Joseph both struggled to find or ultimately abhorred. Stevan Eldred-Grigg was not exaggerating when he 210

Patriotism will not pay my bills

wrote of the workers who ‘saw their work as something actually distasteful, boring, depressing and tedious. The dislike they felt for their work was one of the most fundamental limitations of the union movement.’28 The mystical cult of work promoted by employers, teachers, the clergy, respectable socialists and most union leaders was far from accepted by all workers. Some among New Zealand’s working class were more likely to sympathise with Paul Lafargue’s The Right to Be Lazy, with its defence of idleness, than the proud workers portrayed in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards. For writers like ‘A Man’ in the Evening Post, it was the disdain for wage slavery that proved socialists were of ‘the reptile class, who prey upon the disorders of society, or foster and foment any chance of profiting by such; men who watch for any discontent, however unreasonable, in order to be forward on the wave and so get carried to the shore of wealth’.29 Ignoring the social relations of production that kept workers like Joseph in near-poverty, the writer believed ‘a substantial fraction of the men whose position in life is that of labourers’ were incapable of the sacrifices and self-denial which lead to a higher position … what answer can you give to a weakling who feels too lazy or self-indulgent to raise himself, if his pet political leader and his parson combine to persuade him that he has only to vote for the proper agitator and so enter into possession of the savings and makings of the early settler, who faced dangers and privations of which he could not dream?30

Joseph could not let such nonsense go unanswered. ‘Let us stop this canting, hypocritical humbug, this tweedledum and tweedledee, and get down to bedrock facts,’ he replied. We all know, or every thinking right-minded person should, that from time memorial the many have been exploited for the benefit of the few … that to be successful, from a worldly point of view, it is necessary, in nine cases out of ten, for one to be a sycophant, 211

DEAD LETTERS

or hypocrite, to be gifted, otherwise, with those essential qualities necessary to those who desire to accumulate wealth, viz., a selfish, sordid disposition; a worshipper of wealth and wealthy people.31

For Joseph it was greed and the pursuit of wealth that led to social and moral decay, not socialism. He challenged ‘A Man’ to open his eyes and see the exploitation that was at the root of modern life. ‘We are sick to death of bringing children into the world to be made slaves of. We are sick to death of seeing the privileged few enjoying all the good things of this earth, and we intend to assert ourselves as men and women.’32 ‘THE REACTION, EVEN OVER HERE, HAS UNDOUBTEDLY SET IN’

The only problem, of course, was that there was a war on. Assertions contrary to those the government allowed had been dissuaded by prison sentences or the threat of them, and in 1918 it was even worse.33 Never for a minute did the state consider easing its application of the War Regulations, for worldwide unrest, coupled with local resistance, demanded the constant suppression of anything that might encourage the development of large-scale protest. Unsurprisingly, people were still being charged with sedition. The Wanganui Detention Barracks opened that year. More literature was banned; censorship increased. And with the German Spring Offensive weighing down on the minds of the authorities, and Australia’s shock rejection of conscription still fresh, the government believed the swift and steady application of War Regulations was the only way to prevent ‘turmoil and upheaval’.34 For the authorities it must have felt as if the future conduct of the war lay precariously in the balance. In working-class households across the land, war-weariness and the rising cost of living gave rise to further unrest and disgust ‘with the whole horrible business’ of 212

Patriotism will not pay my bills

war. ‘Efficiency Boards, Board of Trade or any other old board, are manipulated and coerced by the ungodly rich’ wrote one woman, ‘and the general public is left in the lurch.’ ‘The country is said to be prosperous,’ another wrote, ‘but are we benefiting? No.’35 As Joseph wrote in his letter, ‘the reaction, even over here, has undoubtedly set in and people are beginning to realise that war is one part glory & 99 parts diarrhoea.’ There were bolder calls for a reduction in New Zealand’s commitment to the war, and Labour politicians won more votes in local byelections. Joseph told Harry of the closely fought byelection in Wellington North, where the mayor and Reform candidate John ‘old scabby sponge cakes’ Luke held off Harry Holland by a mere 420 votes. Conservatives were shocked, for Holland had campaigned on the grounds of opposing conscription and wartime profiteering. Speaking to the crowd after Luke’s narrow victory, a relieved Prime Minister Massey was jeered at and pelted with eggs and rotten fruit. Massey lost his temper, thumbed his nose at the crowd and stormed off stage – an act later lampooned in a cartoon. The government was also under fire from the Second Division League, an organisation of married men and their supporters that formed in 1917 after they learned of their impending conscription. They demanded more information on when they were to be conscripted; that all single men of the First Division should go before them; and that pay, pensions and separation allowances should be increased. While their loyalty was never in doubt, tensions between the league’s working-class membership and its middle-class leadership were rife, especially in Christchurch. There the branch was prominently anti-conscription in make-up and included the very women who had caused Massey to thump the table in disgust two years earlier. On 28 April 1918, the day before the balloted married men were due to mobilise, over 1600 women and men attended a monster public meeting organised by the 213

DEAD LETTERS

league and chaired by the Christchurch mayor. ‘We won’t go into camp!’ men cried from the floor. Labour politician James McCombs was cheered when he accused the rich of having grown richer thanks to the war.36 An outburst of cheering and laughter greeted another speaker who wondered whether they might have the good luck of an enemy torpedo sending Massey and Joseph Ward, then on their way to Europe, to the bottom of the ocean.37 A flustered official at the podium ‘moved that the meeting insist that the government grant its demands immediately.’ But then Edward Langley and John Flood, both watersiders, jumped to their feet and moved that ‘no Second Division man shall leave for camp until the demands of the League are acceded to’.38 The audience went wild. ‘Stand out! Stand out!’ they yelled. ‘Don’t go to camp!’ The mood the next day in Christchurch was electric as over 5000 people, most of them women with babies and children in hand, gathered at King Edward Barracks to prevent the mobilisation. What followed next has been described by one historian as one of the greatest episodes of civil unrest in wartime New Zealand – alongside the anti-German riots in Whanganui and Gisborne and the police raid on Rua Kēnana at Maungapōhatu.39 Army officers were jeered, and when they attempted to march out some of the conscripts, the crowd became even more unruly. The mayor, who was spotted watching proceedings from an upper-storey balcony, received a wave of clenched fists and threats. Fights broke out as police tried to make arrests and, after they dragged one fellow into the barracks, 300 people rushed it en masse to ‘de-arrest’ their comrade. The police were said to have had ‘a distinctly bad quarter of an hour. One was beaten by a woman with an umbrella.’40 Thanks to the women’s direct action, half the men present could not be processed. Patriots raged against the so-called rioting and mutiny. The Press demanded ‘vigorous steps to put down anything in the shape of sedition’ so the ‘Bolshevists would not bring Christchurch to 214

Patriotism will not pay my bills

disgrace’.41 Langley and Flood, who had moved the incendiary motion, were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for sedition and the seconder, city councillor Hiram Hunter, was given three months. There were calls for their sentences to be remitted – after all, they had surely acted in the heat of the moment and had no seditious intentions. However, the government had intercepted a letter from Langley and knew the motion had been premeditated: Allen believed it had been set up by ‘some of the IWWs and antimilitarists’.42 In order to diffuse the situation their sentences were eventually quashed, much to the contempt of the loyalists.43 As tensions grew over the conscription of married men, the government toyed with the conscription of manpower and the direct running of industry. Schemes for a national registration of labour and the suspension of industrial awards had been put forward in 1917, but Allen was cautious – militants saw industrial conscription as ‘the ultimate capitalist onslaught on unionism and its achievements, for which military conscription had merely been a preparation’.44 They were partly justified in such a view: the Employers’ Federation had quietly suggested to the government that ‘to prevent strikes and the exploitation of employers, workers in dispute with management should be reduced to military pay and imprisoned if they refused to work’.45 In July 1918 a labour conference representing 200 unions and 100,000 workers emphatically opposed industrial conscription. But as there was no serious labour shortage and industries were generally running smoothly, Allen dropped the idea. If you were Dalmatian, however, things were different. Nearly 2000 Dalmatians (also known as Croatians or Yugoslavs) had worked the barren gumfields of the Far North since the 1880s. Their homelands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was now at war with the British Empire; and despite their indifference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were suspected by some in New Zealand as potential subversives and were prevented from serving 215

DEAD LETTERS

in the NZEF. So patriots demanded some other form of sacrifice instead. The favoured suggestion was to compel them to labour on public works at soldiers’ pay, and to intern them if they refused.46 From January 1918 over 600 Dalmatians were forced into labouring on government works such as swamp drainage, railway construction and road building. John Cullen, former police commissioner and now commissioner of aliens, believed that as Dalmatians had worked in wet and difficult conditions as gumdiggers they would be happy to do forced labour on behalf of the state. He was wrong. In June 1918 strikes erupted on the Okahukura railway works and the swamps near Kaitāia–Awanui. Dalmatians downed tools at the Waihou riverworks, and others used the goslow to great effect. Cullen wrote to Allen that ‘a large number of them are anarchists by conviction, and openly avow themselves as Bolshevicks [sic] … I am convinced that of late Jugoslavs are hand in glove with the Red Feds.’47 The reality was a resistance to work that only grew after Cullen continued to detain them postArmistice – leaving the Dalmatians with bitter memories and anger for years to come. ‘THEIR CALCULATIONS HAD BEEN UPSET’

It was in this context of national and international unrest that Joseph’s letters were confiscated. Looking through Lapouple’s report, Gibbon learned that Joseph possessed numerous anti-war books and newspaper clippings, and had the reputation of being pro-German (although Lapouple wrote that this label, which was almost always thrown at those critical of the war, could not be proven). As well as letters to Harry, Joseph was said to be writing to Thomas Henry Free, a Waitara shearer serving in the NZEF. Lapouple thought that intercepting these letters might produce more evidence of disloyalty. Unbeknown to Lapoule, the shearer– soldier had just deserted from his unit in England and was never heard from again. 216

Patriotism will not pay my bills

The police may have had better luck intercepting mail sent to Joseph’s son Albert Goss, a former shipping clerk turned soldier who was serving with the NZEF in Europe. We do not know what Joseph felt about his own son’s participation in a war he detested. To confirm that Von der boch was Joseph, police visited a number of newspaper offices in New Plymouth and obtained more samples of his handwriting. Joseph had written letters to the editor about a report of a German socialist becoming president of the Reichstag, which claimed he had bowed his knee to Baal – in other words, sold out his class for power. ‘Try and be consistent,’ wrote a cynical Joseph, for British socialists had performed the same feat in New Zealand, Australia and Britain.48 ‘One glance at the writing on the censored letter and on the note signed J Goss is sufficient to see that both were written by one and the same person,’ the investigating officer noted.49 Gibbon was pleased. He could finally assure his colleagues across the Tasman that he was on top of things, and on 14 August 1918 he ordered Tanner to stop and examine any future correspondence to and from Joseph. Less than three months later, the war was over. In the end, the very unrest feared by governments worldwide had, in part, brought the conflict to a halt. Hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike in Vienna in Austria–Hungary in 1918, and Slovene, Serbian, Czech and Hungarian troops in the armed forces mutinied. In February a naval mutiny broke out at Kotor and sailors shot their officers. The rebellious troops were dealt with harshly – 400 were imprisoned and four were executed. The repression only caused resentment to fester, and in October it burst into the open. The Austro-Hungarian army promptly collapsed. Soon afterwards a mutiny by German sailors at Kiel escalated into a full-scale rebellion against the imperial state, sparking the Kaiser’s abdication and the proclamation of a republic in Berlin on 9 November 1918.50 Common people like Joseph Goss had taken power 217

DEAD LETTERS

into their own hands, formed workers’ councils, commandeered naval vessels, occupied the ports, factories and city halls and forced the military hierarchy into submission. The Allies, preferring peace to full-scale revolution, agreed to an armistice two days later. Armistice was signed at 5am on 11 November 1918, to go into effect six hours later. Before the guns fell silent, Allied attacks continued throughout the morning, tragically leaving 2738 men from both sides dead and over 8000 maimed, disfigured or disabled.51 They joined the staggering 40 million casualties caused by the war. More were to follow. The influenza pandemic that swept the world for close to two years and took 50–100 million lives (three to five per cent of the world’s population) was directly connected to conditions in military training camps. Troops who had survived gas, shellshock and the horror of war were struck down and killed by the flu. Another killer was post-traumatic stress. Returned servicemen struggled with the terrors they had seen and committed, and suicide rates increased: at least 333 New Zealand veterans took their own lives in the postwar period. The sudden end to the war, coupled with the influenza pandemic, threw the New Zealand military and its discipline into confusion. Two weeks after Armistice Gibbon found himself rushing over the Rimutaka Range in Tin Lizzie one final time. The troops at Featherston were mutinous – 5000 men had staged a demonstration in front of camp headquarters and presented a list of demands to the commandant. Gibbon and Defence Minister Allen faced a stormy confrontation with the men’s delegates. The Armistice had loosened camp discipline like a valve and, in the face of mass protest, Gibbon and Allen gave in to some of the demands around demobilisation. By December, as Arthur Muravleff was being marched in, soldiers were marching out of Featherston at the rapid rate of 500 a day.52 And what of Joseph Goss? His file, too, comes to a sudden halt in late 1918. There is no indication of what happened as a result of him being identified. Tanner confiscated no further letters and there 218

Patriotism will not pay my bills

is no record of any arrest being made. Of course Joseph was well over military conscription age, and his expressions of dissent were relatively private when compared to soapbox orators like Robert Semple or Joseph Herbert Jones. Perhaps a confrontation took place between Goss and Lapouple, for 1919 electoral rolls place Joseph in Waitomo in the Waikato. After his wife Mary died in 1923 he eked out a living as a gardener in Napier. He no doubt agreed with the town’s military namesake, Sir Charles Napier, who wrote that war was a scourge and a curse whose ‘horrors alight upon the poor, upon the miserable, upon the unhappy, upon those who feel the expense and the suffering, but have not the glory’.53 It was in this port town that Joseph died on 26 March 1934. He was 76 years old. Joseph’s wartime experience and the interest shown in him by the authorities illustrate the reach of postal censorship in the First World War. The lengths the state went to in order to disrupt the lives of those who were often remarkable for being unremarkable seem incredible in hindsight. On his own, Joseph was never a threat to economic or military interests, but in mid-1918, no one knew that the war would end a few months later. And from the perspective of power, Joseph’s anonymous letters contained seeds that, if allowed to spread, could have sown resistance to the war effort and the social relations that maintained it. Authority figures, be they the prime minister or the union official, were to be respected, work was to be worshipped and the myth of the dignity of labour preserved. Echoing longstanding concerns over vagrants – those who failed or refused to internalise capitalist values of work, industry and respectability – the state linked Joseph’s letters to criminality and social threat.54 How fitting, then, that in March 1934, the month that Joseph died, wildcat go-slows took hold on the Napier and Wellington waterfronts, and deepened as the year went on. After a life of toil for the very same shipping companies and harbour boards, Joseph would surely have been delighted that, as he put it, their calculations had been upset. 219

DEAD LETTERS

Cartoon by William Blomfield. NZ Observer, 11 January 1919 220

10

10 A NEW F ORM OF GOVER N ME N T Laura Anderson to Sara Bakkely, Rystrup per Nyborg, Denmark AD10 Box 9 17/30

Mrs C.A. Anderson Swanson Auckland, NZ April 27th 1919 My dear Cousin Sara, I have often intended writing to you; and now that I have at last started you might hear from me more often than you desire. When I was at Thames last year Father showed me some photos of you and your family; which certainly does you great credit. I could notice in the photo the result of your industry and that of your husband’s everywhere; What a nice comfortable home you have got! I shall send you a photo of our home, which is typical of a New Zealand bush home; but it has not got that solid and comfortable appearance of a Danish one. We have been living here in Swanson for eleven years now; and we have had a hard struggle as the land is very poor and 2/3 of it is covered with native bush. However our prospects are brighter and there are better times ahead of us, at least I think so. I suppose Father has told you that we have no family; but we are happy all the same. Still I should be pleased to have some dear little children like yours look in the photograph. My husband comes from Linkoping, Sweden, so perhaps when we sell out here, we shall take a trip to Sweden, and you may depend I shall come to see you. Wouldn’t we be able to talk about old times when you and I lived in Thames! 221

DEAD LETTERS

Mother has been staying with me for 10 days and went home yesterday. She walked to the Railway Station a distance of 4 miles but we had to rest many times on the way. She looks very old and frail now; so does poor Father; but it is wonderful the way he still works and gets about. I believe you have suffered much in Denmark through the war; and no doubt you all rejoice that it has come to an end; though Peace and Goodwill to Men looks far away yet. We are both very much interested in the Bolshevik movement in Europe; but there are so many contradictory reports in our newspapers that it is hard to know what to believe. No doubt you get more reliable news on account of living in a neutral and democratic country, and I would very much like to hear your opinion of the Bolshevik Governments. My husband (who I shall call Carl to you in future) has written a poem about “Bolshevism” and we would like to send it to Lenin or Trotsky, but on account of the strict censorship we are unable to do so from here. If I sent the poem on to you; would you be able to address it and send it on to either of them at Moscow. Bolshevism is gaining ground in Australia and it has many sympathisers here; the world certainly needs a new form of government; as the old and present system has failed to alleviate the sufferings of the lower classes; and it looks doubtful whether even the “League of Nations” will prevent wars; when they are scarcely able to agree among themselves. President Wilson is the only one of the four that puts greed aside and aims for the Highest Ideals. I shall be looking forward to a letter from you; and if it is easier for you to write in Danish, do so, as Carl will translate it for me; but perhaps you prefer to keep up your English. We are living at an altitude of 1000 feet, and have a very fine view of Auckland and Onehunga harbour and also the Tasman Sea. Our nearest neighbour is over a mile away, so you can guess that it is very quiet here, except in the holiday season when we generally have visitors staying with us, and a good many people pass by here. We are milking 15 cows and send our cream to a Factory in 222

A new form of government

Auckland. Our greatest difficulty is the road into here, which is so steep that it is impossible to get in or out with a cart. Now I must say adieu my dear Cousin. With love and Best Wishes to you and yours. I remain Your loving Cousin Laura Anderson

***

S

ome distance below the Andersons’ partially cleared section and about a mile from the Swanson Railway Station stood the camp of Don Buck. Here, among the wild goats, fruit trees, raupō huts and ramshackle shanties, ‘the ner’er-do-wells, incorrigibles, down-andouts, remittance men and waifs and strays’ of Auckland made their world anew.1 Every fortnight Don Buck would ride into town on his black stallion and collect the vagabonds and unemployed from the Magistrate’s Court. Often they had been given the choice between a stint in Mount Eden Prison or the semi-haven that was his camp. Most chose the camp. Others were given a one-way train ticket out of the city and told to head west. Between the late 1890s and the end of the war, the rough sanctuary provided by Don Buck served as a valuable outlet for those unwanted by society. This was no Lahmann Home, however. In exchange for a spade and a roof over their heads, recruits were expected to work the local gumfields and to sell anything they produced to Buck. Rent was low but was still demanded for the rude shanties. Violence was rife. An abundance of homemade rough wine inflamed disputes that sometimes ended in stabbings and death. On a visit to the camp in early 1912, Constable Waugh found an elderly worker named George Fry lying unconscious in a pool 223

DEAD LETTERS

of blood, his jagged wounds the handiwork of a broken bottle. Waugh then came across Jack Denny, aka ‘Maori Jack’, lying metres away and bleeding from a neck wound. Denny’s explanation that he had fallen down and hurt himself fooled nobody, and Waugh soon discovered that Fry had tried to break up a fight by taking a tomahawk to Denny – not the smartest of choices.2 Then there was the case of ex-bootmaker William Harry Whitesides, an eight-year resident of the camp who was found dead after an all-night drinking session. The coroner’s inquest revealed that Whitesides, Mary Ann Gibbs, Barbara Craig and others had let loose with wine laced with spirits. In the wee hours of the morning Whitesides fell face down on the floor and never woke up – he had suffocated under his own weight. No one noticed until sunrise, when Craig tripped over his body in her morning haze. To some locals the camp was pure evil: its idle and disorderly tenants were said to pollute the safety of the district. Buck was at best an opportunist, at worst a dangerous rogue whose parasitical character fed off the thieves in his care. But mixed up with rumours of drunken orgies and unhinged revelry are tales of communal meals, mutual aid and freedom. For the men and women who sheltered there, the camp was both a home and a community. It was an alternative society where class discipline and conformity could be washed away with a mug of firewater. To this day, the true nature of Don Buck’s labour camp remains clouded by moral judgement and a lack of primary sources. Despite the protests of surrounding residents, police not only tolerated the camp, they made regular visits to ‘keep the spirit of anarchy within reasonable bounds’.3 Vagrancy, if it had to exist at all, was best confined to the remote outskirts. As a result the camp had more trouble from district health officers than constables. Yet when two nearby dairy farmers penned a poem to Bolshevism, it was as if the world had been turned upside down.

224

A new form of government

‘BOLSHEVISM IS GAINING GROUND’

It started with women. On 23 February 1917 (or 8 March in the Gregorian calendar then in use in Russia – now International Women’s Day), thousands of housewives and factory workers defied the appeals of their male leaders: they poured into the Petrograd streets and sparked one of the most profound moments in history. Enraged at the dire shortages caused by the war and by having to queue for hours in the freezing cold to buy bread, they shouted ‘Down with high prices’, ‘Down with hunger’, and called on their male comrades to join them. By the next day 200,000 workers were on strike. Their demands became overtly political with revolutionary slogans like ‘Down with the Tsar’ and ‘Down with the war’. Soldiers of the Petrograd garrison defied orders to suppress the rebellion and went over to the rebels’ side. In the face of mass subversion, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.4 The Russian Revolution was under way. Peasants seized land. The army collapsed. Sailors took over their ships. Democratic assemblies sprang up in every major town or centre. The hundreds of shop and factory committees, workers’ soviets, workers’ councils and councils of elders expressed the human desire to direct their own affairs. In some cases workers took over the factories after their owners fled; in others, the bosses who stayed put were forced to accept demands from the shop floor. The provisional government formed during this time tried to undermine the factory committees, but was powerless to impose its laws. The Bolsheviks would prove more successful, however. As Laura wrote to her cousin, news of what was happening in Russia was patchy and unreliable. It was clear some kind of profound change had taken place and, on the surface at least, it appeared that the downtrodden had altered forever the concrete reality of their lives. For many on the left the Russian Revolution served as a living example of what the working class could do, and gave hope to those struggling against militarism and censorship around the world. Its 225

DEAD LETTERS

effects are evident in the letters of Timothy Brosnan, Henry Murphy, and Laura’s letter to her cousin Sara. That the dictatorship of the proletariat was really the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party over all aspects of economic and political life took much longer to sink in, despite the warnings of anarchists and dissident communists. The tragedy of the Russian Revolution was that, despite the genuine groundswell of popular revolt, one set of rulers had been exchanged for another. That an exchange had taken place at all frightened the capitalist class everywhere. Anti-radical and anti-immigrant hysteria was whipped up by governments across the globe, fuelled by the hypernationalism of the war and a never-ending fear of militant labour. Repressive legislation from the war years was extended or strengthened. In the United States in 1919, for example, mass arrests and the deportation of radicals and migrants became the norm. New Zealand’s Red scare was a smaller affair, but was driven by the same insecurities over the changing social and political environment. Between 1900 and 1921 New Zealand’s population had doubled to over 1.2 million people.5 The cost of living had also doubled during the war, but wages had not kept pace. At the same time returned servicemen were arriving home in the thousands. All of this fed into a mood of unrest and militancy. The number of labour disputes rose from 40 in 1918 to 77 in 1920. Tensions previously held in check by a sense of wartime austerity could no longer be suppressed. Many people had worked extremely long hours and not taken leave, believing their toil was for the national good. When wartime conditions continued into peacetime, pent-up anger exploded like a rifle shot.6 At the time Laura’s letter was working its way through the Auckland postal system and into the hands of Deputy Chief Censor Walter Tanner, a second wave of syndicalism swept through the labour movement, giving rise to mass organisations such as the Alliance of Labour. Formed in 1919 to promote class solidarity 226

A new form of government

between watersiders, seamen, miners and railway workers, the Alliance of Labour was condemned by the Reform government as nothing less than the IWW in disguise. The government, faced with the ongoing spectre of the One Big Union and the rise of political opposition in the form of the New Zealand Labour Party (and, from 1921, the Communist Party of New Zealand), believed that a revolutionary general strike could spell doom at any moment. Even the loyalty of rank-and-file police officers was questioned. One detective worried that although the older men were keeping the younger ones quiet, the authorities ‘might find them aligned with the revolutionaries if trouble did break out’.7 As a result, the entire police force was promptly given a pay rise. Postwar agitation spread into traditionally conservative parts of the union movement, such as state railway employees and the civil service. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, one of the country’s largest unions, affiliated to the Alliance of Labour; and the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association also tried to join. Businessmen were outraged: could public servants be relied on to protect the secret communications that passed through their hands during a dispute with their employer – the government? The government refused to allow the affiliation.8 Disturbed at the spread of ‘Bolshevitis’, Red scare rhetoric came to dominate the public sphere. Massey urged his Reform Party faithful to ‘secure good men to stem the tide of Anarchy and Bolshevism’; this radical tide was ‘worse than folly … the matter must be taken in hand and stopped’.9 The Employers’ Federation lamented the ‘lawless tendency on the part of Extreme labour’, and Reverend Howard Elliott of the Protestant Political Association vowed to oppose ‘Bolshevism and “IWWism” in every shape and form’.10 Vigilante groups formed to deal with the perceived threat to the state and the interests it stood for. A conservative organisation, the New Zealand Welfare League, was established in July 1919 to curb the activities of revolutionary labour, IWW doctrines and Bolshevism. 227

DEAD LETTERS

Although the league was not as menacing as similar groups in Australia that led to the Red Flag riots and other witch hunts, the league’s active press campaign featured full-page newspaper advertisements on the IWW and their so-called criminal attitudes to work, property and state authority. The Red scare allowed the state to extend its wartime grip into peacetime. Allen believed ‘there was so much lawlessness in the country that the only thing that could save [it] from going to damnation was the drill sergeant’.11 The 1920 War Regulations Continuance Act provided for just that; the Act was not repealed until 1947, a second world war later and three years after Laura’s death. Under the Act, anyone gazetted in May 1919 as a military defaulter was barred from voting and blacklisted from the public sector until 1927.12 Distributing revolutionary pamphlets remained a seditious activity (as Hettie Weitzel found out the hard way). Firearm laws were introduced – especially as many former soldiers now had experience in using them. Indeed, the fear of armed rioters and strikers was clearly laid out in the 1920 Arms Act, which made it easier to stop the use of weapons and allowed the state to clamp down on geographical areas, such as whole working-class neighbourhoods. To keep out undesirables, defaulters like Bob Heffron and the Cody brothers, who had escaped conscription by leaving the country, were denied re-entry to New Zealand, while radicals who were still in the country were deported under the Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Act of 1919. Sedition laws continued to be enforced. In 1922, Catholic Bishop James Liston was targeted for his comments on the Irish Rebellion and the Maoriland Worker was charged with blasphemy – the first and, to date, the only time this charge had been laid in New Zealand (both cases were unsuccessful). And as we know, censors such as Walter Tanner were kept busy with private mail, forever on the lookout for disaffection and disorder.

228

A new form of government

The most long-lasting development of the postwar years, however – and one that is often overlooked when discussing the First World War – was the strengthening of the apparatus of state surveillance. Both the New Zealand Police and the Defence Department used their wartime experience to better organise their intelligence networks. We saw earlier that no central special intelligence bureau was established in New Zealand, but Gibbon and the military were very interested in acquiring such powers now that the war was coming to a close. Massey had paid a visit to MI5 while in Europe and links were strengthened with the imperial authorities (although he did need an explanation of the difference between espionage and counter-espionage). Gibbon thought his careful record-keeping would form the nucleus of an excellent intelligence network, and so the military put out feelers to the police. Shouldn’t their hard work during the war be formalised, using the Secret Registry files as a solid foundation? After all, the files contained police reports, extensive case files and valuable insights gained from confiscated letters. The invitation was not taken up. Institutional jealousy and the desire for police autonomy thwarted any moves towards a joint surveillance branch. Commissioner O’Donovan believed the role of his force was to defend constitutional authority, and in January 1919 took his own steps to monitor what he saw as two overlapping threats: industrial unrest and Bolshevism.13 Sensitive to employers’ fears that the secret goal of the Alliance of Labour was to form the One Big Union and take control of industry, O’Donovan appointed individual detectives in the four main centres solely to monitor agitators.14 They attended meetings and encouraged members to turn informant, compiled massive alphabetical lists of potential subversives and produced fortnightly reports. Personal files on hundreds of radicals, separate from those held by the Defence Department, were opened and indexed. In time these became the New Zealand Police Special Branch records – boxes and boxes of files that now live at Archives New Zealand. 229

DEAD LETTERS

The professionalisation of surveillance in the postwar period echoed the work of the police in Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. By shunning requests from the Defence Department for joint surveillance activity, O’Donovan ensured that the police became the dominant player in surveillance work from 1919 until 1956, when the New Zealand Security Service – the forerunner of the modern-day New Zealand Security Intelligence Service – was established. O’Donovan’s wartime work with Gibbon, and the role of the police during the First World War, laid the groundwork for all future spy agencies in New Zealand.15 ‘IT IS HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE’

A poem on Bolshevism was therefore not opportune in April 1919. Less than two weeks after Laura posted her letter, Tanner had opened it in Wellington and was judging its contents. ‘Bolshevik tendencies’, he wrote to Gibbon. ‘I should judge that the husband is a Bolshevik sympathiser.’16 Gibbon sent the letter on to O’Donovan who, as usual, had enquiries made. Police could find little information on Carl and Laura Anderson. Living in such a remote location meant they were isolated from the usual circles under surveillance, and it appeared to O’Donovan that they lived a secluded life. Swanson at the time was a rural district 20 kilometres west of Auckland, nestled at the foot of the majestic kauri forest of the Waitakere Ranges. Carl and Laura had arrived on clay roads around 1908 and settled even further west, on the slopes of Pukematekeo. Their homestead, at 300 metres above sea level, commanded views of both the Tasman Sea and Waitematā Harbour. Mānuka, pittosporum and māhoe were their closest neighbours and their house, with its steep pointed roof and jagged angles, could not escape vines that crept silently along its frame. A nearby stream provided fresh water and a hidden cave was a larder for milk and butter (and possibly a secret whisky still, if the equipment unearthed years later is to be believed). Friends and 230

A new form of government

family visited via the steep trail now called Andersons Track. Those who made the journey recall waking to the chorus of birdsong, the chime of cowbells and the smoky smell from the cookhouse.17 Photographs of Laura at Pukematekeo show a contained, confident woman, shy of a full smile but obviously happy in her surroundings. She had made sacrifices to be there. Before marrying Carl in 1907, Laura had passed her civil service examinations with exemplary marks and had worked as a clerk and typist in Auckland. She had given up a city life and now juggled dairying and the unpaid labour of housework with work for cash, sometimes far away from home. On top of this, she often made the trek to hand-deliver their cream to suppliers in Auckland. It was, as she wrote to Sara, a hard struggle. In 1925 Laura and Carl sold their section to the Auckland City Council, which incorporated it into the Waitakere Scenic Reserve. Today, the area is known as Cascade Kauri Regional Park. All that remains of their house is a small clearing framed by two large pine trees and a mass of rambling vegetation, including an evergreen hedge run riot.18 Still, it is easy to imagine Laura and Carl back in the homestead, unwinding from their labours by reading poetry or news of the wider world. Laura’s thirst for information on revolution abroad may have come from her working experience, which began during a period of middle-class liberalism and the fight for women’s suffrage. More likely, though, it came from her family. She was born at Thames on 4 July 1880, the seventh child of Johan Ernst (John Ernest) Hansen and Louisa Lorenzen.19 Johan had escaped conscription in Denmark in his teens and set off to seek fortune on the goldfields of Australia. From there, he followed the rush to Gabriel’s Gully and met Louisa on the Bendigo goldfields. He never struck it rich, but Louisa’s wedding ring contained a small gold nugget found during his diggings. Both Johan and Louisa were deeply involved in their community; Laura’s mother was a lively, colourful character who had signed the 1893 231

DEAD LETTERS

Women’s Suffrage Petition that helped win the vote for women. Laura’s parents were known to further any cause that would benefit those in need, so the children were raised with a strong sympathy for those less fortunate than themselves. The Hansen family revolved around the mecca that was Johan and Louisa’s impressive home on Hauraki Terrace in Thames, a large wooden house with a distinctive tower and looping verandah. It was here that Laura and her siblings would have been party to philosophy, debate and a spirit of inquiry. This experience proved formative. For Laura it led to a life-long solidarity with the workingclass and a revolution that had given them hope. For her older brother Waldemar – a beekeeper, vegetarian and freethinker – the family’s desire for a better world was shared with his own children. In 1927 Waldemar’s two sons, Ray and Allan Hansen, formed the remarkable, long-running intentional community known as Beeville. For over 40 years Beeville experimented with consensus decisionmaking, communalism and new ways to be free. Its members were pacifists, anti-militarists, vegetarians and nudists years before such ideas were popularised by hippie culture. From its humble roots Beeville had an immense impact on New Zealand’s counterculture movement and was the model for a number of later experiments in communal living, such as Riverside near Nelson and Wilderland in the Coromandel.20 Beeville also influenced communes and communities around the globe. Ray Hansen corresponded with inspired radicals the world over, from members of the Catholic Worker Movement and the Theosophical Society to anarchists such as Guy Aldred, publisher of The Spur – the newspaper ordered (but never received) by Blenheim labourer J. Sweeny. Thinkers such as Jiddu Krishnamurti, who believed in psychological revolution and spiritual awakenings, also received letters from Ray, interested as he was in universal brotherhood and aspects of Eastern religions. 232

A new form of government

The Hansen family were no strangers to spiritual awakenings. Laura’s husband Carl was known as the ‘Mystic of the Waitakeres’ – a farmer–poet who claimed he could channel cosmic forces to reveal the future of the human race.21 What Gibbon and O’Donovan would have made of this, had they known, is anyone’s guess. But it is clear that Carl and Laura were no ordinary dairy farmers. Born in Sweden on 29 January 1864, Carl went to sea as a ship’s boy at age 15. After surviving a shipwreck off Riga and a stint in the Swedish army, he travelled the world as a sailor, interpreter, housepainter and manager of a theatrical troupe before ending up in Australia. Poverty-stricken and desperately tired of roving, he is said to have fallen to his knees and prayed for a place to find peace. That night a vision came to him in his sleep: he dreamed of a farmhouse set in the hills and surrounded by bush. Elated, he moved to New Zealand, where he found work on the Auckland wharves and eventually met Laura. But he was still restless. Struck by news of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Carl was looking into passage to the United States when an excited Laura, back from a visit to the Waitakere Ranges, told him of a section for sale on Pukematekeo. According to a newspaper article on Carl, he could describe the site in every detail despite having never been there. Scraping together what cash they could, Carl and Laura bought the section. His vision was fulfilled. It was at Pukematekeo that his true awakening was said to have happened. On 3 October 1917, as soviets and factory committees were emerging out of tsarist darkness, Carl claimed to have had ‘visions of revelation’.22 In a dream, scrolls of poetry fell at his feet so vividly that in the morning he felt compelled to write them down. However, the verses in his dream were in English, and because his knowledge of the language was poor and Laura was away, he could not record them. As the day went on he claimed he became feverish – his body was racked by vibrations and, in an emotional state, he tried vainly to work on the farm. Sentences began to flow through 233

DEAD LETTERS

his mind, and he heard voices telling him to sell his cows and to share his dream. That night Carl supposedly found himself outside of his body and looking down on himself from above. Panicked and confused, he was calmed by a spiritual being who showed him ‘the mystery of our solar universe and the future of the earth planet’.23 From then on Carl claimed he could understand ancient and modern languages, and despite his difficulty with English, could now recite flowing poetry full of advanced vocabulary. Prominent in his vision was the date 13 July 1970 – the date, Carl claimed, that ‘humanity had completed its freedom and finalised in a practical form the essential unity of all nations.’24 He described this aspect of his revelation in verse: Oh what joy there is in being When the shades of night are fleeing – When God’s hat in creation Is obeyed by every nation At that Great Emancipation When Justice shall be done.25

Carl was a better poet than prophet. On 13 July 1970, amid violent state repression of African-American liberation struggles in the United States, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover named the  Black Panther Party  as the most dangerous terrorist group in existence; and in the same month both France and the Soviet Union carried out nuclear tests. What did Laura make of Carl’s revelations? How did it affect their relationship? It’s clear she was a loyal scribe, for it was Laura who wrote out reams of Carl’s poetry into bound volumes that survive to this day (though the poem on Bolshevism is not among them). Did her liberal upbringing make her receptive to his visions? Did it help that her father Johan was a spiritualist, her brother a freethinker? Was she playing her role as a faithful wife, as was expected of her, or was Laura a fellow traveller – and not just in the communist sense? 234

A new form of government

Her confiscated letter is tantalisingly silent on the matter. She must have had faith in Carl, though, for Laura agreed to sell the bulk of their cows. The proceeds, along with the savings from her work, left them financially secure. They paid off their mortgage, sold the farm to the local council and moved to Te Atatu. From their new home Laura and Carl visited the Beeville community and, between visits, Ray wrote and sent them letters and poems. In 1930 he sent Laura his poem ‘All Together’, which dealt with the Indian struggle for independence. ‘Uncle thinks you have the seeds of an eminent poet in you,’ replied Laura, ‘and he hopes you preserve all that you write.’ Like Ray, Laura was following the Indian independence struggle closely. ‘The reports I read of late make my heart ache for poor Gandhi and his followers, and all the poor Indians who are suffering because they ask for a better government,’ she wrote. ‘It always seems that many have to suffer to bring about a better state of things.’26 Laura’s letter to Ray echoed the desire for change she had shared with Sara 11 years earlier. Both are a remarkable record of the views of a woman dairy farmer during the postwar period. Her letters also connect us to three experiments in new forms of government: Don Buck camp, Beeville, and Bolshevism. Laura may not have judged the first example as such, and her death in 1944 meant she did not witness the next 30 years of Beeville’s existence. Yet in 1919, from her home on Pukematekeo, it seemed to her that Bolshevism might be the answer to the suffering of the working class. She was not alone in such a view. And for that reason, the Prince of Wales came to New Zealand. ‘THE OLD AND PRESENT SYSTEM HAS FAILED’

On the face of it, Prince Edward VIII was here to thank New Zealand for its contribution to the First World War. The real motive, however, was working-class unrest. By 1920 the British Empire was in turmoil. Alongside imperialist fears of anti-colonial struggle unravelling 235

DEAD LETTERS

imperial rule was an anxiety of class unrest: the very interest in Bolshevism shown by people like Carl and Laura was at the heart of ruling-class fear of revolution. In response, the popular prince was despatched on a world tour. His job was to spread imperial propaganda and to promote loyalty to the empire with all the pomp and patriotism he could muster. According to his military secretary and publicist, it was vital that the prince’s speeches were ‘directed to showing his appreciation of the political institutions of the empire and of the vital place which the Crown takes as the nodus of the whole web’.27 Prime Minister Massey was keen to exploit the visit as well – the Reform Party had won the 1919 election but its share of the popular vote had collapsed. Massey organised royal stops in as many Reform Party heartlands as possible. The prince spent four weeks travelling the country aboard a lavishly appointed royal train and motor coach, and in 29 days he visited at least 42 places. In Wellington, red, white and blue lights lit up parliament and government offices, and the building shared by the Evening Post and the PPA was lit up with a Union Jack and a huge ‘Loyal Greetings’ sign.28 Children waved flags they had been supplied with, sang patriotic songs and saluted everywhere the prince went: the Union Jack was forever etched into their consciousness. Parts of the labour movement felt differently. The Maoriland Worker mocked those who ‘grovel with one accord at the chariot wheels of a decadent royalty, a royalty with its teeth drawn, led around like a dancing bear at a fair’, and in Christchurch the Labour Representation Committee issued a manifesto calling for ‘all classconscious workers and all lovers of social justice’ not to take part in any official welcomes.29 Despite a railway strike that held up the royal train and fears that radicals like Marie Weitzel could put the prince in danger, the trip was an outstanding success. Massey and the establishment he represented were very pleased. ‘The Empire is more solidly united 236

A new form of government

to-day than ever in the past,’ Massey beamed at one royal event, ‘united under one King, one throne, one flag.’ The good government of Empire was the answer to ‘unrest in every quarter of the world’.30 The prince himself had doubts. The 26-year-old was more interested in women and a playboy lifestyle, and his depressive moods and intense self-pity threw a shadow over the entire venture.31 In numerous letters to his lover Freda Dudley Ward he revealed his distaste for the trip, the shrieking crowds and the endless reviews of returned soldiers. ‘Half the men are overflowing with Scotch’ and the women ‘get on my nerves & none of them can dance for nuts’.32 As the journey ground on, the prince even began to question his own existence, and wrote a letter that betrayed the very cause he was meant to be promoting. ‘Every day I long more and more to chuck this job & be out of it & free for you sweetie,’ he wrote. ‘The more I think of it all the more certain I am … the day for Kings and Princes is past monarchies are out of date tho I know it’s a rotten thing to say & sounds Bolshevik!’33 Of course, the only eyes prying into the prince’s mail were those of his lover. His private thoughts remained private, his ‘Bolshevik tendencies’ stayed between him and Freda. For Laura and thousands of others, First World War postal censorship prevented such a luxury.

237

DEAD LETTERS

Auckland watersider Berthold Charles Richard Matzke, interned for his political views, died in Featherston Camp (see p. 193). His wife Florence commissioned a headstone for him but the couple had no offspring to maintain it. In April 2018 my family and I found the moss-covered and barely readable headstone at Featherston Cemetery, cleaned it and did our best to make their names visible. Author photograph

238

Postscript

P O S TS C R I P T When first we are launched on the tide of this world We start out in life with our sails unfurled And though some may be wrecked ere the harbour they gain We all get a share both of pleasure and pain. When life’s course is run, it won’t matter a pin Whether in this world we’ve been beggar or king Though the distance seems great twist the prince and the slave They are equal at last when they meet at the grave. — From Louis McLachlan, The Working Man, c.1880s1

L

ouis ‘Backwoodsman’ McLachlan was a farmhand from Rangitīkei whose poetry described his working life and the lives of those around him. The levelling instinct of his poem The Working Man shares a commonality with the confiscated letters of the Secret Registry. Through them we are able to balance the narratives that are told about New Zealand society in the First World War. From Marie Weitzel to the Prince of Wales, from J. Sweeny to Sir John Salmond, our cast have equal value and equal worth. However, this is a history from below, so naturally those at the bottom received more of my ‘pleasure and pain’ than the Allens, O’Donovans and Tanners. I hope I am forgiven for putting the slave before the prince. Nonetheless, it is important to note that wartime censorship affected some people very differently from others. A single person’s experience can never claim to be fully representative. For some, censorship hardly touched their lives at all. For others, it took away all that they held dear. One hundred years later, in a world still haunted by the wars’ burdens and bestowals, it is appropriate to ask why. 239

DEAD LETTERS

In 1917, Labour MP and ferocious debater James McCombs made his opinion of wartime censorship known in Parliament. ‘When the history of what has taken place in New Zealand during the last few months comes to be written, it will be a history of liberty flouted by Ministers of the Crown … no tyranny has been held up more strongly to scorn, and more deserves that scorn, than the tyranny which aims at the destruction of the liberty of free speech.’2 Tyranny is a stretch too far, yet for McCombs and many others, the evil of censorship was that it gave a small number of officials the power to limit what could or couldn’t be said. As abhorrent as this was to McCombs, the reasons for political censorship went much deeper. The First World War was more than a conflict of armies – it was a conflict of societies. Failure on the home front could lead to defeat on the battlefront.3 As a result, public opinion during wartime acquired a new and lasting significance. War psychology had arrived.4 Historian Tania Rose notes that in Britain ‘the apparatus of censorship’ was devised ‘to defend the state from criticism’, resulting in the erosion of parliamentary accountability and an increase in government secrecy. Writing of the withholding of information, British Prime Minister Lloyd George noted that ‘if people really knew, the war would be stopped tomorrow’.5 Professor Eberhard Demm put it more bluntly: Censorship was an indispensable war weapon: its task was to keep the people in an atmosphere of utter ignorance and unshaken confidence in the authorities, and to allow their boundless indoctrination so that they would, despite terrible losses and privations, accept holding on until the bitter end and the complete ‘knockout’ (Lloyd George) of the enemy.6

John Anderson also believed censorship was ‘a weapon in the armoury of authority’.7 His 1952 thesis remains the only in-depth study of First World War censorship and its impact on the New 240

Postscript

Zealand home front. His message is clear: censorship was all about control. Writing half-a-century later, Richard S. Hill argues that the increased power of the state to control and censor was part of a systemic effort to buttress commitment to the war, dampen social radicalisation, and prevent those against the war from capitalising on a broader social disenchantment.8 But why? Why would Allen, Salmond and co pour so much time and resource into controlling private mail? Why did they want to prevent the spread of social disenchantment so badly? One reason censorship was so useful to those in power was its ability to ‘see’ its citizens. The state needs to be able to see its populace in order to control it, which is why censorship and surveillance go hand in hand. Prying into people’s mail was one way the state made the population ‘legible.’ The second, and more fundamental, reason is the relationship between capitalism and the state – a relationship that gets to the root of the modern nation state and First World War censorship. Like the viewpoint of McCombs, there is a tendency to view the state as a tool wielded by the ruling elite. From this perspective the state is an instrument, a ‘weapon’ to be picked up and used by those in power. This misses the diverse social practices that underpin it. When we speak of the state we are really talking about social relations that shape how people act and interact: a way of being that maintains unequal power relations and social hierarchies. In Marxist terms this is the reproduction of the conditions of production. Put another way, the role of the state in capitalist society is to keep society capitalist.9 It does this in many ways, from gaining legitimacy and the consent of the general population through to the use of naked force. Ironically, considering the claims often levelled against it, one of the most effective ways that the modern state maintains capitalism is by conducting itself as neutral with regards to its citizens. By treating Joseph Goss the watersider and Joseph Craig the waterside 241

DEAD LETTERS

proprietor as free and equal owners of property before the law, the state makes wage labour and the accumulation of wealth possible. In doing so it reproduces the unequal class relations that are their precondition.10 Seen in this way and in the context of pre-war strikes, it makes complete sense that ideas that threatened the reproduction of the status quo during the First World War were repressed, even if those ideas were only shared privately. By acting out the dominant political and economic framework of the day, members of the Reform and National Coalition governments not only determined acceptable limits of dissent, they imposed class discipline and secured the foundations of capitalist relations of domination and exploitation at a time of potential crisis. First World War censorship, therefore, was as much about maintaining capitalist and statist relations as protecting military information. It would be wrong, however, to see this as some devilish scheme designed to serve the interests of the ruling class, as if all of those interests were somehow identical and could be acted upon at will. Postal censorship was no conspiracy from above – more death by a thousand cuts (or a thousand memos, telegrams and bureaucratic decisions). Nor was it crude economic determinism. Censorship was equally ideological and cultural. It was the reaction of those who genuinely believed that their rule and their law was not only natural but essential to the well-being of society. Faced with the scenario of total war, those tasked with wartime censorship drew on their individual beliefs and their convictions, often in haphazard, reactive ways. Stroke by stroke, they added to a larger picture, one that reflected their values and was framed by the limits of capital. Gibbon, Salmond and others were not evil men. Nor were they good men in an evil situation. Wartime legislation, coupled with their ideological worldview and structural position, gave them significant power. What they did with that power is evident in the confiscated letters and the lives of their writers. 242

Postscript

Those on the receiving end were not mere recipients of state repression. Our writers held on to their beliefs with courage, ingenuity and resolve despite the social pressures placed on them and despite the consequences of their stance. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, they used their agency to resist, and in doing so made their own histories, even if, to use the famous quote, they did not make it as they pleased. Their letters – and in some cases their bodies – were stopped, silenced and locked away, but in the process they left traces of their lives and their struggles behind. Indeed, by intercepting, confiscating and archiving these letters, the state has preserved their resistance far better than if the letters had been allowed to reach their intended destinations. The unintended consequence – and a satisfying form of poetic justice – is that the letters are now available to a far larger audience. If history from below is history that preserves the experiences of those who in the ordinary course of events would never have the chance to author their own story, and if one of life’s most final inequities is whether or not you are remembered, then by sharing their confiscated letters all these years later, we give these writers the chance to both tell their stories and be remembered.

243

DEAD LETTERS

244

Acknowledgements

AC K N OWL E D GE M E N TS

M

ost acknowledgements end with loved ones; I want to start with mine. Zoe, thank you for making this book happen in more ways than you can know. Meredith and Rowan, I promise you won’t have to share the computer with me from now on (well, at least not for a while). Your support and patience are evident in every page – thank you. The writers whose letters make up this book also had loved ones. Thank you to the descendants who generously shared their time, stories and photographs with me – your warmth and insights are very much appreciated. I hope you are pleased with the outcome. For those I never managed to make contact with, forgive my taking licence with your family histories and correspondence. Friends, historians, and colleagues at Archives New Zealand and the National Library all played a crucial part in this book, from reading drafts and giving feedback to covering shifts and retrieving negatives from cold storage. There are too many of you to name, but thank you in particular to Thomasin Sleigh for the first comments, Stefan Grand-Meyer and his family for the translation of the first letter, and Mark Derby for the first edit. The committee of the Labour History Project has been a constant source of support, as have Trish McCormack and others in Research Services at Archives New Zealand. I also want to acknowledge Richard S. Hill, who willingly shared his time and expertise whenever asked. 245

DEAD LETTERS

Many thanks to Rachel Scott, Fiona Moffat and the team at Otago University Press for your stellar work. It was a privilege to work with editor Gillian Tewsley. Thank you also to my two peer reviewers for their valuable insights and suggestions, and to Charlotte Macdonald for her foreword. A research grant from Copyright Licensing New Zealand Ltd and the New Zealand Society of Authors meant I could take a muchneeded month of unpaid leave. Otherwise my writing time was, much like Scottish writer James Kelman’s, at dawn or dusk, ‘stealing time’. His maxim – ‘make the best hours your own rather than those you sell to an employer’ – worked. Any mistakes I will blame on tired eyes and early starts.

246

Notes

N OT E S 1  A SCHEME OF CENSORSHIP R.L. Weitzel, ‘Pacifists and anti-militarists, 1909–1914’, New Zealand Journal of History, 1973; Jared Davidson, ‘Socialist Cross of Honor: Markings of a working class counter-culture’, LHP Newsletter 55, 2012: http://garagecollective.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/socialist-cross-ofhonor-markings-of.html 2. Peter Cooke & John Crawford, The Territorials: The history of the territorial and volunteer forces of New Zealand (Auckland: Random House, 2011), 189. 3. Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918 (New York: Mariner Books, 2012), blurb. 4.  Guardian, 10 November 2017. 5.  Maoriland Worker, 19 August 1914. 6. Ian McGibbon, ‘The shaping of New Zealand’s war effort, August– October 1914’, in John Crawford & Ian McGibbon (eds), New Zealand’s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies and the First World War (Auckland: Exisle, 2007); Graham Hucker, ‘ “The great wave of enthusiasm”: New Zealand reactions to the First World War in August 1914 – a reassessment’, New Zealand Journal of History 43, no. 1, April 2009, 59–75; Stevan Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War: New Zealand society in WW1 (Auckland: Random House NZ, 2014); World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), interview with Eldred-Grigg, 7 June 2014: www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/06/07/grig-j07.html 7.  Evening Post, 11 June 1919. 8. Colonel Charles Gibbon, Report to MI5 ‘D’ Branch, 15 February 1916, KV1/16, National Archives, Kew, Britain. 9. Report by Walter Tanner, 31 March 1919, AD1 Box 705/41/1, Archives New Zealand (ANZ). All ANZ references relate to records in the Wellington Office unless specified otherwise. 10. John Anderson, ‘Military censorship in World War 1: Its use and abuse in New Zealand’, thesis, Victoria University College, 1952, 126. 11. Paul Baker, King and Country Call (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 167.

1.

247

DEAD LETTERS

12. Nicholas Hiley, ‘Counter-espionage and security in Great Britain during the First World War’, English Historical Review 101, no. 400, 1986, 669–70. 13. Anderson, ‘Military censorship in World War 1’, 20. 14. Ian Cobain, The History Thieves: Secrets, lies and the shaping of a modern nation (London: Portobello Books, 2016), 3. 15. Joseph Hemmeon, The History of the British Post Office (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1912), 46. 16. Ibid. 17. Lewis Harcourt, as cited in Report on Postal Censorship during the Great War (1914–1919), G49 Box 20/46, ANZ. 18. A.S.L. Farquharson, Report on Postal Censorship during the Great War (1914–1919), G49 Box 20/46, ANZ. 19. Howard Robinson, A History of the Post Office in New Zealand (Wellington: NZ Government Print, 1964), 128–29. 20. Ministry for Culture and Heritage, ‘The Post and Telegraph Department in 1914’: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/first-world-warpostal-service/1914 21. See Richard S. Hill, ‘Surveilling the “enemies” of colonial New Zealand: Counter-subversion and counter-espionage, 1840–1907’, in Brad Patterson, Richard S. Hill & Kathryn Patterson (eds), After the Treaty: The settler state, race relations and the exercise of power in colonial New Zealand (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2016), 270. 22. Post Office Act 1858: www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ poa185821a22v1858n15261 23. Vincent O’Malley, ‘Choosing peace or war: The 1863 invasion of Waikato’, New Zealand Journal of History 47, no. 1, 2013, 40. 24. Ibid. 25. Bruce Stirling, personal correspondence with author, 28 July 2016. See also Judith Binney, Redemption Songs: A life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki (Wellington: AUP/Bridget Williams Books, 1995). 26. Paul Christoffel, Censored: A short history of censorship in New Zealand (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1989), 4. 27. Allan Burns, ‘Some aspects of censorship: A survey of censorship law and practice in New Zealand from 1841 to 1963’, thesis, Victoria University, Wellington, 1968, 32. 28. Ibid., 33. 29. Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of New Zealand, 19 April 1904, G2 Box 13/1904/508, ANZ. 248

Notes

30. James Allen to Alexander Godley, 1 August 1914, ALLEN1 Box 1/ M1/15, ANZ. Many thanks to Ross Webb for bringing this letter to my attention. 31. Report by Tanner, 31 March 1919, AD1 Box 705/41/1, ANZ. 32. Apart from Gibbon and Tanner, I have been unable to find out the names of the censors – key Post and Telegraph records have not survived, despite having been listed in meticulous detail in various registers. The postal censor in Sāmoa was Herman Wollerman, originally from Eastbourne. See Julia Stuart, Half a World Away: Eastbourne in wartime 1899–1928, 125–29. 33. Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The authorized history of MI5 (London: Penguin, 2010), 63. 34. Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of New Zealand, 20 Nov 1914, AD1 Box 705/8/41, ANZ. 35. Report by Tanner, 31 March 1919, AD1 Box 705/41/1, ANZ. 36.  New Zealand Gazette, 17 December 1914. 37. Alex Frame, ‘Salmond, John William’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3s1/1 38. Ibid. 39. Quoted in Richard S. Hill, ‘State servants and social beings: The role of the New Zealand police force in the Great War’ in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 103. 40. Alex Frame, Salmond: Southern Jurist, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1995, 167. 41. Allen to Godley, June 1915, WA252 Box 1/2, ANZ. 42. Ian McGibbon. ‘Allen, James’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3a12/allen-james 43. McGibbon, ‘The shaping of New Zealand’s war effort’, 51. 44. Morris to Gibbon, 24 November 1914, AD1 Box 776/24/15/5, ANZ. 45. Memorandum from Tanner, 5 July 1920, PM9 Box 3/10, ANZ. 46. Moorhouse to Gibbon, 1 August 1914, AD1 Box 913/43/584/6, ANZ. 47. This figure is based on the totals given in the report of Tanner, 3 February 1919, AD1 Box 771/23/8, ANZ. 48. Based on 51 months of active censorship and figures from Tanner’s monthly reports. 49. Report by Tanner, 30 September 1918, AD1 Box 771/23/8, ANZ. Thank you to my peer reviewers for their comments on the matter of numbers. 249

DEAD LETTERS

50. Becky, MF1614, 10 August 1918 in ‘Censor’s Intelligence Reports’, BP4/2, MF1600-1698, National Archives Australia. 51. Baker, King and Country Call, 78. For a biography of Charles Mackie, see J.E. Cookson. ‘Mackie, Charles Robert Norris’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ biographies/3m20/mackie-charles-robert-norris 52. Harry Holland, Armageddon or Calvary: The conscientious objectors of New Zealand and ‘The Process of their Conversion’ (Wellington: The Maoriland Worker, 1919), 15. 53. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, 64. 54. Anderson, ‘Military censorship in World War 1’, 63. 55. Gibbon, Report to MI5 ‘D’ Branch, 15 February 1916, KV1/16, National Archives, Kew, Britain. Thanks to Kerry Taylor for sharing this with me. 56. Graeme Dunstall, ‘O’Donovan, John’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3o2/odonovan-john 57. Ibid. 58. Richard S. Hill, The Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove: The modernisation of policing in New Zealand 1886–1917 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1996), 350. 59. Report of Detective Sergeant Rawle, 13 January 1919, AD10 Box 4/11/5, ANZ. 60. Damon Salesa, ‘New Zealand’s Pacific’ in Giselle Byrnes (ed.), The New Oxford History of New Zealand (Melbourne/Auckland: Oxford University Press, 2009), 154–55. 61. See ‘Gaudin, F.E.N. – Imprisonment in Samoa’, IT1 Box 426/EX 69/87 Part 1, ANZ. 62.  Wanganui Chronicle, 9 November 1915. 63. Mrs Mandeno, QF1366, 13 June 1918 in ‘Censor’s Intelligence Reports’, BP4/2, QF1301-QF1400, National Archives Australia. 64. Bruno Urbansky to Knowledge and Unity, Brisbane, 18 October 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/27, ANZ. 65. Don, RE1267, 2 September 1918 in ‘Censor’s Intelligence Reports’, BP4/2, RE1200-RE1300, National Archives Australia. 66. Mackie to Allen, 30 November 1915, AD10 Box 11/19/33, ANZ. 67. Opinion of Solicitor General John Salmond, 17 December 1915, AD10 Box 11/19/33, ANZ. 68. William Webbe to Allen, 14 July 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/9, ANZ. 250

Notes

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91.

92. 93. 94.

Ibid. Gibbon to Webbe, 23 July 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/9, ANZ.  Press, 13 September 1916. Report of Tanner, 3 February 1919, AD1 Box 771/23/8, ANZ. Anderson, ‘Military Censorship in World War 1’, 106-107. A.A. Winslow to Allen, 29 July 1916, AD10 Box 9 17/36, ANZ. Allen to Winslow, 21 August 1916, AD10 Box 9 17/36, ANZ.  AJHR, 1917, F8, 3.  AJHR, 1917, F8, 45. Baker, King and Country Call, 44. See Hill, ‘State servants and social beings’. See Allen’s letters to William Massey, for example. ALLEN1 Box 9/, ANZ. Ross & Hunter, Holding on to Home, 82–83. Ministry for Culture and Heritage, ‘Recruiting and conscription’: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/recruiting-and-conscription Michael King, Te Puea: A biography (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), 78. Baker, King and Country Call, 43. Frame, Salmond: Southern jurist, 174. Allen to Massey, 30 December 1916, ALLEN1 Box 9/, ANZ. Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War, 231.  New Zealand Official Year Book, 1921–22: http://archive.stats.govt.nz/ browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/digital-yearbook-collection.aspx Allen to Massey, 20 January 1917; 17 March 1917, ALLEN1 Box 9, ANZ. See ‘Communications received and despatched – January 1915 – December 1917’, P2 Box 25, ANZ; Len Richardson, Coal, Class & Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand 1880–1960 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995), 172. John Crawford, ‘Steering a middle course: James Allen and the Defence Department’s response to dissent’, unpublished paper from Dissent and the First World War Conference, 2017, 6. Thanks to John for sharing this paper with me. David Stevenson, With our Backs to the Wall: Victory and defeat in 1918 (London: Allen Lane, 2011), 18. Report by Tanner, 30 September 1917, AD1 Box 771/23/8, ANZ. See the memorandum to Tanner, 26 November 1919, AD1 Box 771/23/8, ANZ. 251

DEAD LETTERS

95. See War Subject 80/14 in Register AAMF W3106 Box 14, ANZ. 96. Marcus Rediker, Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, pirates, and motley crews in the age of sail (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014), 31. 97. Ibid. 98. Deborah Montgomerie, ‘Reconnaisance: Twentieth-century war history at century’s turn’, New Zealand Journal of History 37, no. 1, 2003, 71. 99. Miles Fairburn, Nearly Out of Heart and Hope: The puzzle of a colonial labourer’s diary (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995), 6. 100. Quoted in Steven Loveridge & Rolf W. Brednich, ‘When neighbours became alien enemies: Germans in New Zealand during World War One’, in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918, 258. 101. Allen to Massey, 7 July 1919, ALLEN1 Box 9, ANZ. 102. See AD1 Box 705 8/41/1, ANZ. 103. See ‘Post Office Circulars’ 1920, ADOU 17209 W2083 Box 126/26, ANZ. 104. Crawford, ‘Steering a middle course’, 9. 105. Hill, ‘State servants and social beings’, 96. 106. Frances Porter & Charlotte Macdonald (eds), ‘My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates’: The unsettled lives of women in nineteenthcentury New Zealand as revealed to sisters, family and friends (Auckland: AUP/Bridget William Books, 1996), 12. 107. Kate Hunter & Kirstie Ross, Holding on to Home: New Zealand stories and objects of the First World War (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2014), 15.

1.

2  THE ONLY GERMANS AMONG THE WORMS Memorandum from Police Commissioner John O’Donovan, 30 March 1920, AAAB 478 Box 11/al, ANZ, Wellington Office. This was surprisingly similar to the directive issued in 1901 when the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York visited New Zealand. Detectives were charged with boarding all vessels arriving at New Zealand ports to search for ‘any foreigners on board who may possibly be members of foreign Anarchist Societies’. See Richard S. Hill, ‘Surveilling the “enemies” of colonial New Zealand: Counter-subversion and counterespionage, 1840–1907’ in Brad Patterson, Richard S. Hill & Kathryn Patterson (eds), After the Treaty: The settler state, race relations and the exercise of power in colonial New Zealand (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2016), 286. 252

Notes

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

Report of Detective Lewis, 2 April 1920, AAAB 478 Box 11/al, ANZ. Ibid. Andrew Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, enemy aliens and the Great War experience, 1914–1918 (Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2012), 19. Ibid., 79.  People’s Voice in ‘Weitzel, Hedwig 1900–1971’, MS-Copy-Micro-0714-25, Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL), Wellington. See Mark Dunick, ‘The New Zealand Socialist Party 1901–1913’: thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. See Jared Davidson, ‘Johan Sebastian Trunk 1850–1933’: http:// garagecollective.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/johann-sebastiantrunk-1850-1933.html Franz Wolter quoted in Steven Loveridge & Rolf W. Brednich, ‘When neighbours became alien enemies: Germans in New Zealand during World War One’, in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 270. Gail Ross, ‘A sullen silence: Frank Weitzel, Modernist (1905–1932)’, in Art New Zealand 116, Spring 2005, www.art-newzealand.com/Issue116/ weitzel.htm Kerry Taylor, ‘Weitzel, Hedwig’ from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www:TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/4w11/weitzel-hedwig. See also Roger Openshaw, ‘ “A spirit of Bolshevism”: The Weitzel case of 1921 and its impact on the New Zealand educational system’, Political Science 33, 127–39. At the time of writing, the Oaths Modernisation Bill, put forward to remove the requirement for teachers to swear an oath of loyalty, was still in committee. Taylor, ‘Weitzel, Hedwig’.  Evening Post, 5 February 1908. Ibid. Steven Loveridge, Calls to Arms: New Zealand society and commitment to the Great War (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2014), 72. Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, 46; “dynastic, cultural” Paul Kennedy, quoted in Steven Loveridge, ‘A German is always a German?: Representations of enemies, Germans and race in New Zealand c.1890–1918’, New Zealand Journal of History 48, no. 1, 2014, 57.  Dominion, 19 December 1912. 253

DEAD LETTERS

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

40.

Report of J. Forster, 4 July 1914, J1 Box 892/1914/928, ANZ. Marie Weitzel, 26 June 1914, J1 Box 892/1914/928, ANZ. Ibid. Note by C. Jordan, J1 Box 892/1914/928, ANZ. Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, 53. Yet as Loveridge notes, anti-Germanism during the war could also be seen as ‘the redirection of a cultural paradigm’ – a tradition of anti-alienism in New Zealand which included Russophobia and anti-Asian sentiment. Loveridge, ‘A German is always a German?’, 63. Loveridge, ‘A German is always a German?’, 55. Kenneth Cassells, Tawa: Enterprise and endeavour (Tawa: Tawa Borough Council, 1988), 28. Weitzel, 31 August 1914, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Memorandum, 28 October 1914, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Report of Constable Clouston, 27 March 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Ibid. Arthur Stubbs, 18 May 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Report of Constable Le Fevre, 15 November 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Report of Le Fevre, 15 November 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Memorandum from Gibbon, 24 November 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Weitzel, 26 June 1914, J1 Box 892/1914/928, ANZ. Report of Lewis, 2 April 1920, AAAB 478 Box 11/al, ANZ. Report of Lewis, 27 September 1921, ADMO 21007 W5933 Box 6/21/5/5 Part 1, ANZ. Hettie was on the committee in August 1919, and Annie joined in August 1920. See 86-043-2/20, ATL. Moore to O’Donovan, 6 Feb 1916, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ Frances Porter & Charlotte Macdonald (eds), ‘My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates’: The unsettled lives of women in nineteenth-century New Zealand as revealed to sisters, family and friends (Auckland: AUP/ Bridget William Books, 1996), 5. Kerry Taylor, ‘Workers’ Vanguard or People’s Voice?: The Communist Party of New Zealand from origins to 1946’, thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1994, 44. David Grant, with paintings by Bob Kerr, Field Punishment No. 1: 254

Notes

41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

1. 2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs & New Zealand’s anti-militarist tradition (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2008), 31. Paul Baker, King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 153.  NZ Truth, 27 January 1917. Ibid. In 1919 William Parker was in court again. He had printed and distributed flyers titled ‘The Lockout’ on pink paper that promoted going-slow, locking out the oppressors and building a new society in the shell of the old. After amusing the large crowd of watersiders in the back of the court by ‘verbally annihilating His Worship’, Parker was sentenced to another 12 months for ‘IWWism’.  NZ Truth, 27 January 1917. Report of Lewis, 2 April 1920, AAAB 478 Box 11/al, ANZ. Weitzel, 8 August 1919, AD10 Box 10/17/26, ANZ. Weitzel, 4 September 1920, AAAB 482 Box 25/e 240, ANZ. Memorandum from Edward Puttick, 7 September 1920, AAAB 482 Box 25/e 240, ANZ. Puttick to Weitzel, 10 September 1920, AAAB 482 Box 25/e 240, ANZ. 3  TO HELL WITH THEM ALL Greg Grandin, quoted in Joshua Clover, Riot. Strike. Riot: The new era of uprisings (London: Verso Books, 2016), 61–62. Steven Loveridge & James Watson, ‘Economic mobilisation: New Zealand businesses and the Great War’ in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Victoria University Press: Wellington, 2016), 163. Ibid., 164. Anna Green, British Capital, Antipodean Labour: Working the New Zealand waterfront 1915–1951 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2001), 31. Ibid., 52. Phyllis Pettit, The Wellington Watersiders: The story of their industrial organisation (Wellington: Wellington Branch of the NZ Waterside Workers’ Union, 1948), 89. As cited by Green, British Capital, Antipodean Labour, 52. See ‘Labour on Wharves, February – September 1918’, AD82 Box 2/1/16/11, ANZ.  New Zealand Official Year Book, 1917–18: http://archive.stats.govt.nz/ 255

DEAD LETTERS

browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/digital-yearbook-collection.aspx 10. Clover, Riot. Strike. Riot, 63. 11. Brian Moloughney and John Stenhouse, as quoted in Loveridge, Calls to Arms: New Zealand society and commitment to the Great War (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2014), 74. 12. Gavin McLean, Otago Harbour: Currents of controversy (Dunedin: Otago Harbour Board, 1985), 140–43. 13. ‘Index of wartime laws and regulations, 1914–21’, Ministry for Culture and Heritage: www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/index-wartime-laws-andregulations-1914-21 14. Richard Guilliatt & Peter Hohnen, The Wolf: The mystery raider that terrorized the seas during World War I (New York: Free Press, 2011), 41. 15.  Star, 9 June 1916. 16. Natalia Wright, ‘Beyond the pale of human recognition: The image of the enemy as portrayed in the Otago/Southland press during WW1 – attitudes towards British propaganda and censorship’, thesis, University of Otago, 1996, 2. 17.  Evening Star, 13 May 1915. 18. Anonymous, 2 August 1917, AAAR 477 Box 1/g, ANZ. 19.  Free Lance, 19 November 1915. 20. Memorandum from Gibbon, 26 August 1918, AD10 Box 6/14/18, ANZ. 21. Memorandum from Bonar Law, 22 June 1915, AAAB 478 Box 11/am, ANZ. 22. Memorandum from Commissioner John Cullen, 2 July 1915, AAAB 478 Box 11/am, ANZ. 23. Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, enemy aliens and the Great War experience, 1914–1918 (Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2012), 69. 24. War Regulations Act, 10 November 1914, NZ Gazette, 4022. 25. Quoted in Francis, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’, 108. 26. Memorandum from Cullen, 6 October 1916, AAAB 478 Box 11/am, ANZ. 27. Steven Loveridge & Rolf W. Brednich, ‘When neighbours became alien enemies: Germans in New Zealand during World War One’, in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914­–1918 (Victoria University Press: Wellington, 2016), 274. 28. See Emmanuel Debruyne, ‘Espionage’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer & Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the 256

Notes

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

1.

First World War : https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ espionage/2014-10-08 Statement of John Jack, 28 September 1917, M1 Box 921/13/384, ANZ. As quoted in Guilliatt & Hohnen, The Wolf, 131  Star, 19 September 1917.  Evening Post, 19 September 1917.  Auckland Star, 19 September 1917.  Free Lance, 28 September 1917. Ibid. Finding of the Court of Inquiry, 28 September 1917, M1 Box 921/13/384, ANZ. Guilliatt & Hohnen, The Wolf, 132. Ibid. Report of Constable Kelly, 8 February 1918, AD10 Box 11/19/30, ANZ. Even Christensen to Marie Nilson, undated, AD10 Box 11/19/30, ANZ. Tanner to Major-General Robin, 19 July 1919, AD10 Box 11/19/30, ANZ. Memorandum from O’Donovan, 25 July 1919, AD10 Box 11/19/30, ANZ. Opinion of Salmond, 4 August 1919, AD10 Box 11/19/30, ANZ. Marlou Schrover, ‘Migration and mobility’, in Daniel et al. (eds), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War : https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/migration_and_ mobility/2014-10-08 Memorandum, 8 January 1921, IA1 Box 1650/29/40/46, ANZ. Schrover, ‘Migration and mobility’. B. Traven, The Death Ship (London: Panther, 1974), 49. Memorandum from the Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs, 9 January 1930, IA1 Box 1519/20/7/36, ANZ. 4  FOR DEARER THE GRAVE OR THE PRISON Alice Webb, as quoted in Stevan Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WW1 (Auckland: Random House NZ, 2010), 75. I am indebted to the excellent work of Seán Brosnahan for this chapter, who shared his time and expertise with me, along with his papers on rebel families and the Easter Rising. Veronica O’Grady also shared her own family history research and helped decipher Tim Brosnan’s letter. 257

DEAD LETTERS

2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918 (New York: Mariner Books, 2012), 75. Ibid., 76.  Sun, 17 August 1914, quoted in Peter Lineham, ‘The rising price of rendering to Caesar: The churches in World War One’, in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Victoria University Press: Wellington, 2016), 192. Quoted in Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War, 221. Seán Brosnahan, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens”: The Green Ray and the Maoriland Irish Society in Dunedin, 1916–1922’, in Lyndon Fraser (ed.), A Distant Shore: Irish migration and New Zealand settlement (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2000), 1.  P.J. Gibbons, ‘Some New Zealand navvies: Co-operative workers, 1891– 1912’, NZJH 11, no. 1, 1977, 57.  Green Ray, January 1918. Tim Brosnan to M. Brosnan, AD10 Box 10/19/15, ANZ. Brosnahan makes a convincing case for this in much of his own work: see Brosnahan, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens” ’ and ‘Rebel hearts: New Zealand’s Fenian families & the Easter Rising’, in Vivienne M. Parker (ed.), New Zealand Society of Genealogists 1967–2017: Book of proceedings (New Zealand Society of Genealogists, 2017).  Green Ray, February 1917, quoted in Brosnahan, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens” ’, 8.  New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921. Tim Brosnan to M. Brosnan, 24 March 1918, BP4/2, QR186, National Archives Australia. Paul Baker, King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 109. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 208, 224. Archibald Baxter, We Will Not Cease: The autobiography of a conscientious objector (Auckland: Penguin, 1987), 11. See the work of David Littlewood for more on First World War appeals. Brosnahan, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens” ’, 14. Memorandum from the Recruiting Board to Allen, 1917, AD1 Box 1046/66/29, ANZ. Baker, King and Country Call, 204. Tom Young to Allen, 4 April 1919, AD1 Box 731/10/284/29, ANZ. See Marcus Rediker & Peter Linebaugh, The Many-headed Hydra: The 258

Notes

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

1.

2.

hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso, 2012), 143–73. Brosnahan, ‘Rebel hearts’, 4. New Zealand Provost Marshalls War Diary, as cited by Brosnahan, ‘Rebel Hearts’, 4. Brosnahan, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens” ’, 11. Ibid. Ibid., 12. Letter from ‘John’, 11 May 1919, AD10 Box 10/19/24, ANZ. Ibid.  Green Ray, January 1918. Baxter, We Will Not Cease, 17.  Green Ray, January 1918. Ibid. See Jared Davidson, ‘Dissent during the First World War: by the numbers’, 28 June 2016: https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2016/06/28/dissentduring-the-first-world-war-by-the-numbers/ H.E. Holland, Armageddon or Calvary: The conscientious objectors of New Zealand and ‘The Process of Their Conversion’ (Wellington: Maoriland Worker Printing & Publishing, 1919), 116. The Coroner’s Inquest file for William White can be found at J46 Box 590/ COR1919/397, ANZ. Baker, King and Country Call, 194. Statement of Thomas Moynihan, AD1 Box 738/10/566 Part 2, ANZ. Baker, King and Country Call, 199. Quoted in Baker, King and Country Call, 200. Holland, Armageddon or Calvary, 114. Hochschild, To End All Wars, 326. Tim Brosnan to M. Brosnan, AD10 Box 10/19/15, ANZ. 5  THE CAMP IN THE BUSH ‘Warrigal’ meaning wild or unruly. Rae Reynolds, personal communication with the author, 25 January 2017. I am truly indebted to Rae and other descendants of Frank and Elizabeth Burns for their generosity in sharing information about their family, and the help of Fiona Gray. Paul Baker, King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 203. 259

DEAD LETTERS

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

In August 1917 the police were seeking 3054 defaulters. Richard S. Hill, ‘State servants and social beings: The role of the New Zealand Police force in the Great War’ in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 105. Baker, King and Country Call, 202–03. Ibid., 207. Jim Fitzpatrick to E. Fitzpatrick, 1 July 1918, AD10 Box 3/5/8, ANZ.  NZ Herald, 31 May 1918.  Evening Post, 18 September 1918. Baker, King and Country Call, 203. Ibid.  Marlborough Express, 16 November 1917. Baker, King and Country Call, 207. Ibid., 207–08. Ibid., 206. Ibid., 205. Len Richardson, Coal, Class & Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand 1880–1960 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995), 1. Norman Crawshaw, From Clouds to Sea: 100 years of coal from Millerton and Stockton (Westport: Coal New Zealand, 1996), 27. Quoted in Ryan Bodman, ‘ “Don’t be a conscript, be a man!”: A history of the Passive Resisters’ Union, 1912–1914’, thesis, University of Auckland, 2010, 11. Memorandum from Allen, March 1917, AD10 Box 3/5/11, ANZ. Report of Sergeant Ryan, 11 June 1918, ANZ Box 10/19/4, ANZ. Ibid. Ibid. Kirwans Hut is now a popular site for overnight trampers. Memorandum from Greymouth Police Inspector to O’Donovan, 27 June 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/4, ANZ. Ibid. Patrick Tooker to Patrick Green, QF1573, 23 July 1918 in ‘Censor’s Intelligence Reports’, BP4/2, QF1501-QF1600, National Archives Australia. Ibid. Allen to J.E. McBride, 14 June 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/4, ANZ. Memorandum of Adjutant-General R.W. Tate, 26 June 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/4, ANZ. 260

Notes

29. Joshua Clover, Riot. Strike. Riot: The new era of uprisings (London: Verso Books, 2016), 12, 37. 30. Richardson, Coal, Class and Community, 222–28. This paragraph is entirely indebted to Richardson. 31. Ibid., 227–28. 32. Rae Reynolds, personal communication, 25 January 2017. 33. Bill Burns, The Charming Creek Line. Bill Burns was born and raised on the North bank of the Ngākawau River and worked at Charming Creek. Bill self-published four books of poetry: Best of the Brew, Best of the West, God’s Own and Coaled Sweat.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

6  MIGHT IS RIGHT Anonymous, AAAB W291 482 Box 67/661, ANZ. Ibid. Ian Cobain, The History Thieves: Secrets, lies and the shaping of a modern nation (London: Portobello Books, 2016), 16. Ibid., 19. As quoted in Cobain, The History Thieves, 22. Ibid., 23. See Richard S. Hill, ‘Surveilling the “enemies” of colonial New Zealand: Counter-subversion and counter-espionage, 1840–1907’, in Brad Patterson, Richard S. Hill & Kathryn Patterson (eds), After the Treaty: The settler state, race relations and the exercise of power in colonial New Zealand (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2016), 184–85. Willis to Allen, 22 December 1914, AD1 Box 776/24/21/17, ANZ. Report of Constable Sefton, AD1 Box 776/24/21/13, ANZ. Hill, ‘Surveilling the “enemies” of colonial New Zealand’, 283–84. Memorandum of Massey, AAAB 482 W291 Box 51/517, ANZ. Memorandum, 3 March 1915, AAAB 482 W291 Box 67/661, ANZ. Statement of Arthur Mandel, 4 July 1916, AAAB 482 W291 Box 67/661. Ibid. Many thanks to Mark Derby for bringing this to my attention. Maxim Gorky, ‘The Song of the Stormy Petrel’, trans. Eugene M. Kayden, in Sewanee Review 44, no. 4, 1936, 469. Ibid., 470. See David McGill, Island of Secrets: Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington Harbour (Wellington: Steele Roberts & Silver Owl Press, 2001); ‘Prisoners of War at Somes Island’ (Report of Mr Justice Chapman 261

DEAD LETTERS

19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

Respecting the Treatment of), Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1919 Session I, H-33. McGill, Island of Secrets, 55–57. Report of Major Matheson, 18 August 1916, AAAB 449 Box 5/29/147, ANZ. For more on Carl Mumme, see Jared Davidson, Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism & Early New Zealand Anarchism, AK Press: Oakland, 2013, 127-129. Arthur Muravleff to Allen, 18 June 1918, AAAB 482 W291 Box 67/661, ANZ. Memorandum from Gibbon, 7 March 1918, AAAB 482 W291 Box 67/661, ANZ. Major Osburne-Lilly [sic] to Matheson, 2 November 1918, AAAB 482 W291 Box 67/661, ANZ. Raymond Evans, ‘ “Agitation, ceaseless agitation”: Russian radicals in Australia and the Red flag riots’, in John McNair & Thomas Ray Poole (eds), Russia and the Fifth Continent (Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1992), 126–71: http://australiarussia.com/ redflagriotsENFIN.htm Melbourne Censor to Gibbon, 15 November 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/27, ANZ.  NZ Truth, 3 April 1920. Thank you to Gareth Winter for his help with Wairarapa information. Ibid. 7  MY DEAR DOCTOR ibbon to Salmond, 28 April 1917, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. G Report of Detective Ellison, 21 November 1914, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. Report of J. Rawle, 19 February 1917, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. The divorce file is held at Archives New Zealand. AAOM W3265 Box 1152/1355, ANZ. See also NZ Truth, 19 February 1916. Alan Kramer, as quoted in Steven Loveridge, ‘A German is always a German?: Representations of enemies, Germans and race in New Zealand c.1890–1918’, New Zealand Journal of History 48, no. 1, 2014, 65. Salmond to Gibbon, 4 May 1917, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. Report of Constable Bodamm, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. Dominion, 16 December 1912. Free Lance, 3 May 1913 262

Notes

10. I nterview between Hjelmar Dannevill and O’Donovan, 21 May 1917, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Alison Oram & Annmarie Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook: Love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970 (London & New York: Routledge, 2001), 1. 16. See Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and community for single women 1850–1920 (London: Virago, 1985), 17. 17. Helene to Dannevill, undated, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. William Paul Bond was born on 7 August 1913, which made him three in 1916. He died in the United States in 1973. 18. Helene to Dannevill, undated, AD10 Box 9/17/26, ANZ. 19. Ibid. 20. Oram & Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook, 51. Dannevill’s masculinity and her blurring of binary genders adds a further complexity. Jack Halberstam in Female Masculinity argues that ‘many other models existed beyond the either–or proposition of an asexual friendship or a butch-femme sexual dynamic’. Halberstam suggests that theorising a range of multiple genders and sexual desires would better explain female masculinity than the term lesbian. 21. Oram & Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook, 12. 22. Alison J. Laurie, ‘Lady-husbands and kamp ladies: Pre-1970 lesbian life in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 2003, 57­–58. 23. Vicinus, Independent Women, 285. 24. Noel Billing, January 1918, quoted in Laurie, ‘Lady-husbands and kamp ladies’, 64. 25. Vern Bullough & Bonnie Bullough, Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 155. 26. Oram & Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook, 14. 27. Evening Star, 29 May 1917. 28. Dominion, 29 May 1917. 29. Northern Advocate, 2 June 1917. 30. Evening Post, 5 June 1917. 31. NZ Truth, 21 July 1917. 263

DEAD LETTERS

32. J ean Howard, ‘Crossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern England’, Shakespeare Quarterly 39, no. 4, 1988, 424. 33. See Laurie, ‘Lady-husbands and kamp ladies’, 3–4. 34. Sarah Nicolazzo, ‘Vagrant figures: Law, labor, and refusal in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world’, thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2014, 32. 35. I want to thank Julie Glamuzina for her insightful comments and advice regarding why Dannevill was targeted when she was. As Julie wrote to me, ‘What was the trigger for the authorities to arrest her in 1917? After all, she had come to the attention of the police in 1911. She had been dressing in masculine fashion for several years and was well-known in Wellington.’ Personal correspondence with the author, 29 May 2016. 36. NZ Truth, March 1918. 37. NZ Truth, 10 August 1918. 38. Dr Edith Huntley passed away in November 1919, leaving a large estate to found and develop maternity homes. The Lahmann Home was eventually acquired by the Department of Education and renamed the Miramar Girls’ Home. 39. NZ Truth, 26 May 1920. Dannevill took her own life in February 1930, aged 68, and her companion Mary died in 1963. Thank you to Sally McLean for this information.

1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8  YOURS FOR DIRECT ACTION om Barker, quoted in Dean Parker, ‘Red Auckland’, Metro, 269, T November 2003. Erik Olssen, The Red Feds: Revolutionary industrial unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908–1913 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1988), 3. Paul Baker, King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988), 168. Alec Holdsworth, 18 July 1961, Bert Roth Papers, MS-CopyMicro-0714/27, ATL, Wellington. For more on Philip Josephs see Jared Davidson, Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, transnationalism & early New Zealand anarchism (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2013). See the many reports of Tanner, AD10 Box 11/19/33, ANZ. Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918 (New York: Mariner Books, 2012), 187. 264

Notes

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

illiam Ensom to Arthur Ponsonby, 17 October 1917, AD10 Box W 11/19/35, ANZ. Report of Tanner, AD10 Box 11/19/35, ANZ. After the war Ensom was prosecuted for distributing the banned communist book Red Europe. Interview with Michael Schmidt, Imminent Rebellion 13, 2014, 60. Parker, ‘Red Auckland’. Ibid. Bert Roth, Wharfie: From hand barrows to straddles’: Unionism on the Auckland waterfront (Auckland: NZ Waterfront Workers’ Union, Auckland Branch, 1993), 33. Olssen, The Red Feds, 195. See ‘How the cycle picket was slugged’, Industrial Unionist, 20 November 1913. William (Bill) Murdoch, a watersider and ex-manager of the Industrial Unionist, was one; Harry ‘Red’ Toovey, a fellow watersider, was another. Leo Woods, a hotel worker who had sat on the Thames Strike Committee in 1913, was active before being ‘thrown into one of Massey’s concentration camps’ for evading conscription, as was George Phillips, Bob Heffron (not yet a stowaway), Oscar Neitzhert and his friend Berthold Matzke, Jack O’Brien, William Bell and possibly Ernie Staples, an ex-British Navy sailor who was wounded during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. Direct Action, 1 October 1914. Philip Josephs was a member, as were the watersiders Carl Erickson, Joseph Herbert Jones and William Parker. Others included Charles Johnson, a prominent 1913 striker; Jim Rea, an insurance agent who was arrested during the Free Speech campaign; Nita Freeman, one of the few women and a founding member of the Communist Party; and possibly Sidney Fournier, who was moving away from the NZSP at the time. Bert Roth, ‘NZ Wobblies’, Lecture Notes, Bert Roth Collection, MSPapers-6164-120, ATL, Wellington. NZSP Minutes, date illegible, 1915, 86-043-2/19, ATL, Wellington. Evening Post, 21 October 1916. Report of Constable Gourley, 8 August 1915, AAAB W291 482 Box 47/477, ANZ. Industrial Unionist, March 1913. Otago Daily Times, 13 September 1915. Evening Post, 16 September 1915. 265

DEAD LETTERS

25. M emorandum from Cullen, AAAB W291 482 Box 47/477, ANZ. 26. New Zealand Gazette, 20 September 1915. 27. David Palmer, Walking Historic Auckland (New Holland: Auckland, 2012), 40. 28. Opinion of Salmond, 16 September 1915, AAAB 482 W291 Box 47/477, ANZ. 29. Allen to Alfred Winslow, 12 October 1915, AAAB W291 482 Box 47/477, ANZ. 30. Cablegrams, 14 and 21 October 1915, AAAB W291 482 Box 47/477, ANZ. 31. In Wellington the military also had their eyes on Nita Freeman: correspondence between her and a fellow Wobbly named ‘Don’ had been discovered in 1918 and handed to Tanner, who triggered an investigation. ‘Don’ was probably Donald Blair, a miner who had been giving classes on political economy and socialism in Blackball. Police never did prove the identity of Don, and only learned later that Nita had left for Australia, where she caused headaches for the authorities as well. When she left Australia for Auckland, a censor there typed in his report: ‘Nita’s leaving, thank Heaven!’ 32. Opinion of Salmond, AD10 Box 10/19/16, ANZ. 33. Ibid. 34. Stalwarts included Peter Serbin, Ernie Staples, Bill Miller, Bill Murdoch, Leo Woods, Bruno Urbansky (the Polish radical whose mail was watched by Tanner), Hugh and Jean Campbell, Paul Art, Jack Lyn, Bill Duncan, Charlie Burt, and a woman listed only as Miss McCormack. George Phillips was the group’s secretary, Leo Woods its literature secretary. 35. Opinion of Salmond, 3 September 1915, AAAB W291 482 Box 47/477, ANZ. 36. NZ Truth, 14 July 1917. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1917, 859. 42. New Zealand Statutes, 1919, 160–4. 43. Henry Murphy, 2 May 1919, AD10 Box 10/19/23, ANZ. 44. Report of Australian Censor, AD10 Box 10/19/23, ANZ. 266

Notes

45. Th ames Star, 10 June 1919. 46. He was one of many Wobblies to be deported in the 1920s. Noel Lyons was another. See Jared Davidson, ‘Wobbly driplines: Strikes, stowaways and the SS Manuka’, LHP Bulletin 63, April 2015: http://garagecollective. blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/wobbly-driplines-strikes-stowaways-ss.html 47. John E. Martin, The Forgotten Worker: The rural wage earner in nineteenth-century New Zealand (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1990), 1–3. 48. Ibid., 168. 49. John E. Martin, Tatau Tatau – One Big Union Altogether: The shearers and the early years of the New Zealand Workers’ Union (Wellington: NZ Workers’ Union 1987), 49. 50. Arthur Cook, quoted in John E. Martin, ‘Cook, Arthur’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ biographies/4c29/cook-arthur 51. Maoriland Worker, 11 June 1911.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

9  PATRIOTISM WILL NOT PAY MY BILLS Stevan Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WW1 (Auckland: Random House, 2010), 345. Free Lance, 28 December 1917. Gibbon to O’Donovan, 22 February 1919, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Transcript of Anonymous, January 1917, AD1 Box 995/51/3/7, ANZ. Actual examples of the letters can be found in AD1 Box 995/51/3, ANZ. Report of Constable Lapouple, 5 March 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Ibid. O’Donovan to Gibbon, 28 March 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Memorandum from Gibbon, 2 April 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Joseph Goss, 19 March 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Ibid. Memorandum from Chief of the Australian Section, Melbourne, 1 July 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Goss, 8 June 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Gibbon to O’Donovan, 12 July 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Report of Constable Lapouple, 3 August 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921. 267

DEAD LETTERS

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

anganui Herald, 12 March 1910; Evening Post, 5 February 1908. W Wanganui Herald, 3 March 1914. Evening Post, 13 February 1904. New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921. ‘You will be surprised to know that Charlie Erickson died down at Christchurch last week,’ wrote Goss in one of his letters. Nita Freeman of Newtown also received a passing mention: ‘Nita Freeman sends heaps of love.’ Goss, 19 March 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Report of Constable Lapouple, 3 August 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Stevan Eldred-Grigg, New Zealand Working People 1890–1990 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1990), 69. Goss, 8 June 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. Ibid. Michael Seidman, Workers Against Work: Labor in Paris and Barcelona during the Popular Front (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), e-pub edition, 25. Richard Price, cited in Anna Green, ‘Spelling, go-slows, gliding away and theft: Informal control over work on the New Zealand waterfront 1915–1951’, Labour History 63, 1992, 101. Dominion, 27 April 1908. Eldred-Grigg, New Zealand Working People 1890–1990, 130. Evening Post, 22 April 1908. Ibid. Evening Post, 27 April 1908. Ibid. Baker, King and Country Call, 166. Ibid. As cited by Eldred-Grigg, The Great Wrong War, 379. Ibid., 373. Ibid., 373–74. Baker, King and Country Call, 147. Steven Loveridge, ‘What should Daddy do in the Great War?: The Second Division question and conditional commitment within Great War New Zealand’, forthcoming paper. Baker, King and Country Call, 149. Ibid. Allen to Massey, 14 May 1918, ALLEN1 Box 9, ANZ. 268

Notes

43. B aker, King and Country Call, 149. See also Allen to Massey, 14 May 1918, ALLEN1 Box 9, ANZ. 44. Baker, King and Country Call, 139. 45. Ibid. Emphasis added. 46. Mark Derby, The Prophet and the Policeman: The story of Rua Kenana and John Cullen (Nelson: Craig Potton Publishing, 2009), 100. 47. Memorandum from Cullen, as cited by Derby, The Prophet and the Policeman, 101. 48. Joseph Goss, 12 July 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. 49. Police Report, 6 August 1918, AD10 Box 10/19/10, ANZ. 50. Mark Jones, ‘Kiel Mutiny’ in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer & Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War : https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/kiel_mutiny 51. Adam Hochschild, To End all Wars: A story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918 (New York: Mariner Books, 2012), 341. 52. Neil Frances, Safe Haven: The untold story of New Zealand’s largest ever military camp, Featherson: 1916–19 (Masterton: Wairarapa Archive & Fraser Books, 2012), 147. 53. Lawrence Shadwell, The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde (London: W. Blackwoods & Sons, 1881), 108. 54. David Bright, ‘Loafers are not going to subsist upon public credulence: Vagrancy and the law in Calgary, 1900–1914’, Labour/Le Travail 36, 1995, 43.

1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

10  A NEW FORM OF GOVERNMENT arianne Simpkins, ‘Figueira, Francisco Rodrigues’, from the M Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www:TeAra.govt.nz/en/ biographies/2f6/figueira-francisco-rodrigues Auckland Star, 6 January 1912. Ibid. See Barbara Engel, ‘Not by bread alone: Subsistence riots in Russia during World War I’, Journal of Modern History 69, December 1997, 697. Graeme Dunstall, A Policeman’s Paradise? Policing a stable society, 1917– 1945 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1999), 45–47. Loveridge & Watson, ‘New Zealand Business and the Great War’, 173. Dunstall, A Policeman’s Paradise?, 49. Randal Burdon, The New Dominion: A social and political history of New Zealand, 1918–39 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1965), 44–45. 269

DEAD LETTERS

9.

10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

Quoted in Barry Gustafson, Labour’s Path to Political Independence: Origins and establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1900–19 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1980). Quoted in Gustafson, Labour’s Path to Political Independence. Peter Cooke & John Crawford, The Territorials: The history of the territorial and volunteer forces of New Zealand (Auckland: Random House, 2011), 204. New Zealand Gazette, 14 May 1919. The IWW remained a perceived threat alongside Bolshevism well into the 1920s. In September 1920 O’Donovan sent a nationwide memo giving the names of the IWW prisoners about to be released in Sydney. Knowing that people like William Bell of the Direct Action Group were in touch with the Sydney Twelve, he warned detectives to guard the wharves in case they arrived in New Zealand. John B. Williams of the One Big Union was also under surveillance: they were especially concerned about his comments in Christchurch, where he told the crowd he was working with the IWW men recently liberated in New South Wales (the Sydney Twelve). In 1926 police kept a close eye on Mauritius Wobbly and waterside worker Eugene De Langre. ‘He has come under my notice for more than a year,’ the detective wrote, ‘and although I am given to understand that he is not a member of the Communist Party, he is probably worse by the fact that he is a member of the IWW.’ De Langre had been promoting the go-slow to his fellow watersiders and teaching seamen to sing revolutionary songs outside the Wellington Shipping Office. When police raided his sleeping quarters they found over 50 copies of IWW newspapers and pamphlets. Dunstall, A Policeman’s Paradise?, 256. Ibid., 254–55, 265. Tanner to Gibbon, 8 May 1919, AD10 Box 9 17/30, ANZ. See Judith Simpson & Katherine Knight, The Hastie-Hansen Story: Irish and Danish family links (Waikanae: Heritage Press, 1995); Linda Hansen, ‘John Ernest Hansen’, The Treasury 1, 2008. Graeme Foster, Waitakere Walks (Auckland: Wilson & Horton, 1985), 30. I am indebted for this paragraph to Linda Hansen, ‘John Ernest Hansen’, as well as personal communication with the author. Lucy Sargisson & Lyman Tower Sargent, Living in Utopia: New Zealand’s intentional communities (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 270

Notes

21. W eekly News, 10 February 1937. Many thanks to Linda Hansen for sharing this article with me. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Laura Anderson to Ray Hansen, 18 June 1930, 84-204-77, ATL, Wellington. 27. Edward Grigg to Lord Milner, 1 August 1918, as quoted in David Colquhoun, ‘Royal scenes from the Empire City: The Prince of Wales in Wellington, 7–9 May 1920’, Turnbull Library Record, 41, 2009, 15. 28. Colquhoun, ‘Royal scenes from the Empire City’, 18. 29. Quoted in ibid., 28–30. 30. Massey, quoted in ibid., 25–26. 31. Ibid., 14. 32. Letters to Freda Dudley Ward, 3–9 May 1920, quoted in ibid., 23. 33. Ibid. Sixteen years later Prince Edward abdicated in order to marry another lover, Wallis Simpson.

1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

POSTSCRIPT Maisie Earle (ed.), Backwoodsman’s Rangitikei: Poems and songs by Louis McLachlan (Whanganui: Barbara McPhail & Maisie Earle, 2008). With thanks to Gareth Winter, who located the grave of Matzke for me. New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1917, as quoted in John Anderson, ‘Military censorship in World War 1: Its use and abuse in New Zealand’, thesis, Victoria University College, 1952, 234. Brock Millman, Managing Domestic Dissent in the First World War (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 1. Deian Hopkin, ‘Domestic censorship in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 4, 1970, 152. Prime Minister Lloyd George, as recorded by C.P. Scott in his diary, 27 December 1917. Eberhard Demm, ‘Censorship’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer & Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War : http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ censorship/2015-09-10. Demm cites Prime Minister Lloyd George’s remark: ‘We will fight Germany to a knockout’. 271

DEAD LETTERS

7. 8.

Anderson, ‘Military censorship in World War 1’, 5. Richard S. Hill, ‘State servants and social beings: The role of the New Zealand Police force in the Great War’ in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 104. 9. Nate Hawthorne, ‘Socialist electoralism and the capitalist state’: http:// libcom.org/blog/socialist-electoralism-capitalist-state-30122013 10. See Michael Heinrich, ‘State and capital’: http://libcom.org/blog/statecapital-07012014. This is why Allen, Salmond and the War Regulations spoke of ‘peace and good government’, ‘law and order’, or preventing ‘illwill and hostility between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects’. And this is why advocating for anything other than parliamentary change sanctioned by the state was deemed violent, seditious and illegal.

272

Bibliography

B I B L I OGR A P H Y BOOKS, CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES Adam, Jack, Vivien Burgess & Dawn Ellis, Rugged Determination: Historical window on Swanson, 1854–2004 (Auckland Swanson Residents & Ratepayers, 2004) Andrew, Christopher, The Defence of the Realm: The authorized history of MI5 (London: Penguin, 2010) Ashworth, A.E., ‘The sociology of trench warfare 1914–18’, British Journal of Sociology 19, no. 4, December 1968, 407–23 Bade. James (ed.), Out of the Shadow of War: The German connection with New Zealand in the twentieth century (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998) Baker, Paul, King and Country Call: New Zealanders, conscription and the Great War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988) Bassett, Michael, The State in New Zealand, 1840–1984: Socialism without doctrines? (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1998) Baxter, Archibald, We Will Not Cease: The autobiography of a conscientious objector (Auckland: Penguin, 1987) Bennett, James, ‘Rats and Revolutionaries’: The labour movement in Australia and New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004) Bollinger, Conrad, Against the Wind: The story of the New Zealand Seamen’s Union (Wellington: New Zealand Seamen’s Union, 1968) Nicholas Boyack, Behind the Lines: The lives of New Zealand soldiers in the First World War (Wellington: Port Nicholson Press, 1989) David Bright, ‘ “Loafers are not going to subsist upon public credulence”: Vagrancy and the law in Calgary, 1900–1914’, Labour/Le Travail 36, 1995 Brosnahan, Seán, ‘ “Shaming the shoneens”: The Green Ray and the Maoriland Irish Society in Dunedin, 1916–1922’, in Lyndon Fraser (ed.), A Distant Shore: Irish migration and New Zealand settlement (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2000) ——, ‘Rebel hearts: New Zealand’s Fenian families & the Easter Rising’, in Vivienne M. Parker (ed.), New Zealand Society of Genealogists 1967– 2017: Book of proceedings (New Zealand Society of Genealogists, 2017) Brown, Geoff, Sabotage: A study in industrial conflict (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1977) 273

DEAD LETTERS

Bullough, Vern & Bonnie Bullough, Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993) Burdon, Randal, The New Dominion: A social and political history of New Zealand, 1918–39 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1965) Burgmann, Verity, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Cain, Frank, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1983) Cassells, Kenneth, Tawa: Enterprise and endeavour (Tawa: Tawa Borough Council, 1988) Chapman, Robert, The Political Scene 1919–1931 (Auckland: Heinemann Educational Books, 1969) Clayworth, Peter, ‘ “Lucky Laidlaw” and “Worried Webb”: The Robert Laidlaw exemption case and public attitudes to conscription in 1918’, Journal of New Zealand Studies 20, June 2015 Clark, Christopher, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 (London: Penguin, 2013) Clover, Joshua, Riot. Strike. Riot: The new era of uprisings (London: Verso Books, 2016) Cobain, Ian, The History Thieves: Secrets, lies and the shaping of a modern nation (London: Portobello Books, 2016) Coleman, Jenny, Mad or Bad? The exploits of Amy Bock, 1859–1943 (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010) Colquhoun, David, ‘Royal scenes from the empire city: The Prince of Wales in Wellington, 7–9 May 1920’, Turnbull Library Record 41, 2009 Crawford, John, ‘Steering a middle course: James Allen and the Defence Department’s response to dissent’, unpublished paper from Dissent and the First World War Conference, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies and the Labour History Project, Wellington, 31 August–2 September 2017 Crawford, John & Ian McGibbon (eds), One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue: New Zealand, the British Empire and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003) Crawshaw, Norman, From Clouds to Sea: 100 years of coal from Millerton and Stockton (Westport: Coal New Zealand, 1996) Cooke, Peter & John Crawford, The Territorials: The history of the territorial and volunteer forces of New Zealand (Auckland: Random House, 2011) Davidson, Jared, Remains to Be Seen: Tracing Joe Hill’s ashes in New Zealand (Wellington: Rebel Press, 2011) 274

Bibliography

——, Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, transnationalism & early New Zealand anarchism (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2013) Derby, Mark, The Prophet and the Policeman: The story of Rua Kenana and John Cullen (Nelson: Craig Potton Publishing, 2009) Dobson, Christopher & John Miller, The Day We Almost Bombed Moscow: The Allied war in Russia 1918–1920 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986) Downie Stewart, William, The Right Honourable Sir Francis H.D. Bell P.C., G.C.M.G., K.C.: His life and times (Wellington: Butterworth, 1937) Dunstall, Graeme, Policeman’s Paradise? Policing a stable society, 1917–1945 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1999) Eldred-Grigg, Stevan, The Great Wrong War: New Zealand society in WW1 (Auckland: Random House NZ, 2010) ——, New Zealand Working People 1890–1990 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1990) Englander, David & James Osborne, ‘Jack, Tommy, and Henry Dubb: The armed forces and the working class’, Historical Journal 21, no. 3, September 1978, 593–621 Engel, Barbara, ‘Not by bread alone: Subsistence riots in Russia during World War I’, Journal of Modern History 69, December 1997 Evans, Raymond, ‘ “Agitation, ceaseless agitation”: Russian radicals in Australia and the Red flag riots’, in John McNair & Thomas Ray Poole (eds), Russia and the Fifth Continent (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992) ——, The Red Flag Riots: A study of intolerance (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1988) Fairburn, Miles, Nearly Out of Heart and Hope: The puzzle of a colonial labourer’s diary (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995) Farland, Bruce, Farmer Bill: William Ferguson Massey and the Reform Party (Wellington: Bruce Farland, 2008) Federici, Silvia, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the body and primitive accumulation (New York: Autonomedia, 2004) Field, Michael, Mau: Samoa’s struggle against New Zealand oppression (Wellington: Reed, 1984) ——, Black Saturday: New Zealand’s tragic blunders in Samoa (Auckland: Reed, 2006) Foster, Graeme, Waitakere Walks (Auckland: Wilson & Horton, 1985) Frame, Alex, Salmond: Southern jurist (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1995) 275

DEAD LETTERS

Frances, Neil, Safe Haven: The untold story of New Zealand’s largest ever military camp: Featherston, 1916–1919 (Masterton: Wairarapa Archive in association with Fraser Books, 2012) Francis, Andrew, ‘To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German’: New Zealand, enemy aliens and the Great War experience, 1914–1918 (Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2012) Gibbons, P.J., ‘Some New Zealand navvies: Co-operative workers, 1891–1912’, NZJH 11, no. 1, 1977 Gorky, Maxim, ‘The Song of the Stormy Petrel’, Sewanee Review 44, no. 4, 1936 Grann, David, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage murders and the birth of the FBI (New York: Doubleday, 2017) Grant, David, Field Punishment No. 1: Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs & New Zealand’s anti-militarist tradition (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2008) Green, Anna, British Capital, Antipodean Labour: Working the New Zealand waterfront 1915–1951 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2001) ——, ‘Spelling, go-slows, gliding away and theft: Informal control over work on the New Zealand waterfront 1915’, Labour History 63, November 1992 Guilliatt, Richard & Peter Hohnen, The Wolf: The mystery raider that terrorized the seas during World War I (New York: Free Press, 2011) Gustafson, Barry, Labour’s Path to Political Independence: Origins and establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1900–19 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1980) Halberstam, Jack, Female Masculinity (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1998) Hansen, Linda, ‘John Ernest Hansen’, Treasury Journal, vol. 1, 2008 Hay, Douglas, ‘Property, authority and the criminal law’, in Douglas Hay (ed.), Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and society in eighteenth-century England (London: Verso, 2011) Hemmeon, Joseph, The History of the British Post Office (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912) Hiley, Nicholas, ‘Counter-espionage and security in Great Britain during the First World War’, English Historical Review 101, no. 400, 1986 Hill, Richard S., ‘Surveilling the “enemies” of colonial New Zealand: Countersubversion and counter-espionage, 1840–1907’, in Brad Patterson, Richard S. Hill & Kathryn Patterson (eds), After the Treaty: The settler state, race relations and the exercise of power in colonial New Zealand (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2016) ——, ‘State servants and social beings: The role of the New Zealand Police 276

Bibliography

force in the Great War’, in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016) ——, The Iron Hand in the Velvet Glove: The modernisation of policing in New Zealand 1886–1917 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1996) ——, Policing the Colonial Frontier: The theory and practice of coercive social and racial control in New Zealand, 1767–1867 (Wellington: Historical Publications Branch, Dept of Internal Affairs, 1986) Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Empire 1875–1914 (London: Folio Society, 2005) Hochschild, Adam, To End All Wars: A story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914– 1918 (New York: Mariner Books, 2012) Holland, Harry, Armageddon or Calvary: The conscientious objectors of New Zealand and ‘the Process of their Conversion’ (Wellington: H.E. Holland, 1919) Holt, James, Compulsory Arbitration in New Zealand: The first forty years (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986) Holton, Bob, British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and realities (London: Pluto Press, 1976) Hopkin, Deian, ‘Domestic censorship in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 4, 1970, 152 Howard, Jean, ‘Crossdressing, the theatre, and gender struggle in early modern England’, Shakespeare Quarterly 39, no. 4, 1988 Hucker, Graham, ‘ “The great wave of enthusiasm”: New Zealand reactions to the First World War in August 1914 – a reassessment’, New Zealand Journal of History 43, no. 1, April 2009, 59–75 Hunt, Graham, Spies and Revolutionaries: A history of New Zealand subversion (Auckland: Reed, 2007) Hunter, Kate & Kirstie Ross, Holding on to Home: New Zealand stories and objects of the First World War (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2014) Hutching, Megan, ‘The moloch of war: New Zealand women who opposed the war’, in John Crawford & Ian McGibbon (eds), New Zealand’s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies, and the First World War (Auckland: Exisle Publishing, 2007) Isitt, Benjamin, ‘Mutiny from Victoria to Vladivostok, December 1918’, Canadian Historical Review 87, no. 2, June 2006 Kealey, Gregory S., ‘1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt’, Labour/Le Travail 13, 1984 Keshen, Jeff, ‘All the news that was fit to print: Ernest J. Chambers and information control in Canada, 1914–19’, Canadian Historical Review 73, no. 3, 1992 277

DEAD LETTERS

Kornbluh, Joyce L. (ed.), Rebel Voices: An IWW anthology (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1964) Kostick, Conor, Revolution in Ireland: Popular militancy 1917–1923 (London & Chicago: Pluto Press, 1996) Lineham, Peter, ‘The rising price of rendering to Caesar: The churches in World War One’, in Steven Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016) Littlewood, David, Military Service Tribunals and Boards in the Great War: Determining the fate of Britain’s and New Zealand’s conscripts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017) Loveridge, Steven, Calls to Arms: New Zealand society and commitment to the Great War (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2014) ——, ‘A German is always a German?: Representations of enemies, Germans and race in New Zealand c.1890–1918’, New Zealand Journal of History 48, no. 1, 2014) Loveridge, Steven (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914­–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016) Loveridge, Steven & Rolf W. Brednich, ‘When neighbours became alien enemies: Germans in New Zealand during World War One’, in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914­–1918 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016) Loveridge, Steven & James Watson, ‘Economic mobilisation: New Zealand businesses and the Great War’ in Loveridge (ed.), New Zealand Society at War 1914–1918 Martin, John E., Tatau Tatau – One Big Union Altogether: The shearers and the early years of the New Zealand Workers’ Union (Wellington: New Zealand Workers’ Union, 1987) ——, The Forgotten Worker: The rural wage earner in nineteenth-century New Zealand (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1990) Martin, John E. & Kerry Taylor, (eds), Culture and the Labour Movement: Essays in New Zealand labour history (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1991) Matthews, Charles, Evolution of the Prison System (Wellington: Government Printer, 1923) McLean, Gavin, Otago Harbour: Currents of controversy (Dunedin: Otago Harbour Board, 1985) McLean, Gavin & Tim Shoebridge, Quarantine!: Protecting New Zealand at the border (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010) 278

Bibliography

McGibbon, Ian (ed.), The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 2000) ——, ‘The shaping of New Zealand’s war effort, August–October 1914’, in John Crawford & Ian McGibbon (eds), New Zealand’s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies, and the First World War (Auckland: Exisle Publishing, 2007) McGill, David, Guardians at the Gate: The history of the New Zealand Customs Department (Wellington: Silver Owl Press for the New Zealand Customs Department, 1991) ——, Island of Secrets: Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington Harbour (Wellington: Steele Roberts & Silver Owl Press, 2001) Millman, Brock, Managing Domestic Dissent in the First World War (London: Frank Cass, 2000) Moloney, Pat & Kerry Taylor (eds), On the Left: Essays on socialism in New Zealand (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2002) Montgomerie, Deborah, ‘Reconnaissance: Twentieth-century war history at century’s turn’, New Zealand Journal of History 37, no. 1, 2003 Murray, Robert K., Red Scare: A study in national hysteria, 1919–1920 (New York: University of Minnesota Press, 1955) Newton, Douglas, The Darkest Days: The truth behind Britain’s rush to war, 1914 (London: Verso, 2015) Nolan, Melanie (ed.), Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2005) Nolan, Melanie (ed.), War and Class: The diary of Jack McCullough (Wellington: Dunmore Press, 2009) O’Connor, P.S., ‘Some political preoccupations of Mr Massey, 1918–20’, Political Science 18, no. 2, September 1966 ——, ‘The awkward ones: Dealing with conscience, 1916–1918’, New Zealand Journal of History 8, no. 2, October 1974 O’Farrell, P.J., Harry Holland: Militant socialist (Canberra: Australian National University, 1964) Olssen, Erik, The Red Feds: Revolutionary industrial unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour 1908–1913 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1988) O’Malley, Vincent, ‘Choosing peace or war: The 1863 invasion of Waikato’, New Zealand Journal of History 47, no. 1, 2013 Openshaw, Roger, ‘ “A spirit of Bolshevism”: The Weitzel case of 1921 and its impact on the New Zealand educational system’, Political Science 33, no. 2, 1981 279

DEAD LETTERS

Oram, Alison & Annmarie Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook: Love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970 (London & New York: Routledge, 2001) Palmer, David, Walking Historic Auckland (Auckland: New Holland, 2012) Parker, Dean, ‘Red Auckland’, Metro 269, November 2003 Peterson, Larry, ‘The One Big Union in international perspective: Revolutionary industrial unionism 1900–1925’, Labour/Le Travail, 7, Spring 1981 Pettit, Phyllis, The Wellington Watersiders: The story of their industrial organisation (Wellington: Wellington Branch of the NZ Waterside Workers’ Union, 1948) Porter, Frances & Charlotte Macdonald (eds), ‘My Hand Will Write What My Heart Dictates’: The unsettled lives of women in nineteenth-century New Zealand as revealed to sisters, family and friends (Auckland: AUP/Bridget William Books, 1996) Pugsley, Christopher, On the Fringe of Hell: New Zealanders and military discipline in the First World War (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991) Putkowski, Julian, British Army Mutineers 1914–1922 (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 1998) Rediker, Marcus, Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, pirates, and motley crews in the age of sail (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014) Rediker, Marcus & Peter Linebaugh, The Many-Headed Hydra: The hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso, 2012) Rice, Geoffrey, Black November: The 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2005) Richardson, Len, ‘Politics and war: Coal miners and conscription, 1914– 1918’, in Philip Ross May (ed.), Miners and Militants: Politics in Westland (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1975), 128–55 ——, Coal, Class & Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand 1880–1960 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995) Robinson, Howard, A History of the Post Office in New Zealand (Wellington: Government Printer, 1964) Ross, Gail, ‘A sullen silence: Frank Weitzel, Modernist (1905–1932)’, in Art New Zealand 116, Spring 2005 Roth, Herbert, Trade Unions in New Zealand: Past and present (Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1973) ——, Wharfie: ‘From hand barrows to straddles’: Unionism on the Auckland waterfront (Auckland: NZ Waterfront Workers’ Union, Auckland Branch, 1993) 280

Bibliography

Roth, Herbert & Jenny Hammond, Toil and Trouble: The struggle for a better life in New Zealand (Auckland: Methuen, 1981) Salerno, Salvatore, Red November, Black November: Culture and community in the Industrial Workers of the World (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989) Salesa, Damon, ‘New Zealand’s Pacific’, in Giselle Byrnes (ed.), The New Oxford History of New Zealand (Melbourne & Auckland: Oxford University Press, 2009) Sargisson, Lucy & Lyman Tower Sargent, Living in Utopia: New Zealand’s intentional communities (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004) Schmidt, Regin, Red Scare: FBI and the origins of anticommunism in the United States, 1919–1943 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2000) Seager, Allen, ‘Nineteen nineteen: Year of revolt’, Journal of the West 23, no. 4, 1984 Seidman, Michael, Workers Against Work: Labor in Paris and Barcelona during the Popular Front (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991) Simpson, Judith & Katherine Knight, The Hastie–Hansen Story: Irish and Danish family links (Waikanae: Heritage Press, 1995) Stevenson, David, With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and defeat in 1918 (London: Allen Lane, 2011) Strachan, Hew, The First World War (London: Pocket Books, 2006) Street, Maryan, The Scarlet Runners: Women and industrial action 1889–1913 (Wellington: Working Life Communications, 1993) Stuart, Julia, Half a World Away: Eastbourne in wartime 1899–1928 (Eastbourne: Eastbourne Memorial RSA, 2016) Sutch, W.B., The Quest for Security in New Zealand 1840 to 1966 (Wellington: Oxford University Press, 1966) Thompson, E.P., ‘The crime of anonymity’, in Douglas Hay (ed.), Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and society in eighteenth-century England (London: Verso, 2011) Tigar, Michael E. & Madeleine R. Levy, Law and the Rise of Capitalism (Michigan: Monthly Review Press, 1977) Townshend, Charles, The Republic: The fight for Irish independence, 1918– 1923 (London: Penguin, 2014) Traven, B., The Death Ship (London: Panther, 1974) Trlin, Andrew, Now Respected, Once Despised: Yugoslavs in New Zealand (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1979) 281

DEAD LETTERS

Tuchman, Barbara W., The Guns of August: The classic bestselling account of the outbreak of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2014) Turner, Ian, Sydney’s Burning: An Australian political conspiracy (Sydney: Alpha Books, 1969) Vicinus, Martha, Independent Women: Work and community for single women 1850–1920 (London: Virago, 1985) Waites, Bernard, A Class Society at War: England, 1914–1918 (London: Bloomsbury, 1992) Walsh, Maurice, Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a revolutionary world 1918–1922 (London: Faber & Faber, 2015) Watson, James, WF Massey: New Zealand, Haus Makers of the Modern World series (London: Haus Publishing, 2010) Watson, James & Lachy Paterson (eds), A Great New Zealand Prime Minister? Reappraising William Ferguson Massey (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2011) Weitzel, R., ‘Pacifists and anti-militarists, 1909–1914’, New Zealand Journal of History 7, no. 2, 1973 Wilson, Anthony, ‘Defining the “Red Menace”: “Russophobia” and NZ– Russian relations from the tsars to Stalin’, in A. Trapeznik & A. Fox (eds), Lenin’s Legacy Down Under: NZ’s Cold War (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004) Wright, Matthew, Shattered Glory: The New Zealand experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front (Auckland: Penguin, 2010) PAMPHLETS Christoffel, Paul, Censored: A short history of censorship in New Zealand (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1989) Davidson, Jared, Fighting War: Anarchists, Wobblies & the New Zealand state 1905–1925 (Wellington: Rebel Press, 2016) Fry, Eric, Tom Barker and the IWW (Brisbane: Industrial Workers of the World, 1999) Lamb, Dave, Mutinies 1917–1920 (Oxford: Solidarity, 1977) Patten, John, Ned Kelly’s Ghost: The Tottenham IWW and the Tottenham tragedy (London: Kate Sharpley Library, 2005) Smith, Walker C., Sabotage: Its history, philosophy and function (IWW Publishing Bureau, 1917)

282

Bibliography

THESES Anderson, John, ‘Military censorship in World War 1: Its use and abuse in New Zealand’, MA thesis, Victoria University College, 1952 Bodman, Ryan, ‘ “Don’t be a conscript, be a man!: A history of the Passive Resisters’ Union, 1912–1914’, Postgraduate Diploma in Arts in History dissertation, University of Auckland, 2010 Burns, A.C., ‘Some aspects of censorship: A survey of censorship law and practice in New Zealand from 1841–1963, mainly concerning the control of indecent publications’, MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1968 Burr, Val, ‘Somes Island Internment Camp for enemy aliens during the First World War: An historical enquiry’, MA thesis, Massey University, 1998 Dunick, Mark, ‘The New Zealand Socialist Party 1901–1913’, MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016 Gould, Ashley, ‘Proof of gratitude? Soldier land settlement in New Zealand after World War 1’, PhD thesis, Massey University, 1992 Hoare, Nicholas, ‘New Zealand’s “critics of empire”: Domestic opposition to New Zealand’s Pacific empire, 1883–1948’, MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2014 Laurie, Alison J., ‘Lady-husbands and kamp ladies: Pre-1970 lesbian life in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2003 Loveridge, Steven, ‘ “Soldiers and shirkers”: An analysis of the dominant ideas of service and conscientious objection in New Zealand during the Great War’, MA thesis, Waikato, 2009 Moriarty-Patten, Stuart, ‘A world to win, a hell to lose: The Industrial Workers of the World in early twentieth century New Zealand’, MA thesis, Massey University, 2012 Nicolazzo, Sarah, ‘Vagrant figures: Law, labor, and refusal in the eighteenthcentury Atlantic world’, PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2014 Simons, Clifford, ‘Military intelligence in the New Zealand wars, 1845–1864’, PhD thesis, Massey University, 2012 Taylor, Kerry, ‘Workers’ Vanguard or People’s Voice?: The Communist Party of New Zealand from origins to 1946’, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1994 Voller, L.C., ‘Colonel the Honourable Sir James Allen, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., T.D., M.A. Cantab., statesman’, MA thesis, University of Otago, 1943 Wharton, Miriam, ‘The development of security intelligence in New Zealand, 1945–1957’, MDS thesis, Massey University, 2012 283

DEAD LETTERS

Wright, Natalia J., ‘Beyond the pale of human recognition: The image of the enemy as portrayed in the Otago/Southland press during WW1: attitudes towards British propaganda and censorship’, MA thesis, University of Otago, 1996 ONLINE ENTRIES Brinton, Maurice, ‘The Bolsheviks and workers’ control: The state and counter-revolution’, https://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-andworkers-control-solidarity-group Davidson, Jared, ‘Dissent during the First World War: By the numbers’, http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2016/06/28/dissent-during-the-first-worldwar-by-the-numbers ——, ‘Johan Sebastian Trunk 1850–1933’, garagecollective.blogspot. co.nz/2013/09/johann-sebastian-trunk-1850–1933.html Debruyne, Emmanuel, ‘Espionage’, in Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer & Bill Nasson (eds), 1914–1918–Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914–1918–online.net/article/ espionage/2014–10–08 Dunstall, Graeme, ‘O’Donovan, John’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3o2/odonovan-john Frame, Alex, ‘Salmond, John William – Biography’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3s1/1 Hawthorne, Nate, ‘Socialist electoralism and the capitalist state’, http:// libcom.org/blog/socialist-electoralism-capitalist-state-30122013 Heinrich, Michael, ‘State and capital’, http://libcom.org/blog/statecapital-07012014 Jones, Mark, ‘Kiel mutiny’, in Daniel, Gatrell, Janz, Jones, Keene, Kramer & Nasson (eds), 1914–1918–Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, 10.15463/ie1418.10908 Martin, John E., ‘Cook, Arthur’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/4c29/cook-arthur McGibbon, Ian, ‘Allen, James’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/3a12/allen-james Ministry for Culture and Heritage, ‘The Post and Telegraph Department in 1914’, nzhistory.govt.nz/war/first-world-war-postal-service/1914 ——, ‘Recruiting and conscription’, nzhistory.govt.nz/war/recruiting-andconscription 284

Bibliography

——, ‘Index of wartime laws and regulations, 1914–21’, www.nzhistory.net.nz/ war/index-wartime-laws-and-regulations-1914–21 Plumridge, Elizabeth & Rowan Carroll, Policing the First World War: Slygrogging, sex and sedition, New Zealand Police Museum, Porirua, 2015, www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/policing-first-world-warslygrogging-sex-and-sedition Schrover, Marlou, ‘Migration and mobility’, in Daniel, Gatrell, Janz, Jones, Keene, Kramer & Nasson (eds), 1914–1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914–1918– online.net/article/migration_and_mobility/2014–10–08 Simpkins, Marianne, ‘Figueira, Francisco Rodrigues’ from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/2f6/figueirafrancisco-rodrigues Taylor, Kerry, ‘Weitzel, Hedwig’ from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/4w11/weitzel-hedwig NEWSPAPERS AND OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS Auckland Star Direct Action Dominion Evening Post Evening Star Free Lance Green Ray Imminent Rebellion Industrial Unionist Knowledge and Unity Maoriland Worker Marlborough Express Mother Earth New Zealand Tablet Northern Advocate NZ Truth NZ Observer Otago Daily Times People’s Voice Press Spur 285

DEAD LETTERS

Star Thames Star Wanganui Chronicle Weekly News Wharfies Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives New Zealand Gazette New Zealand Official Yearbooks New Zealand Parliamentary Debates New Zealand Statutes UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Alexander Turnbull Library Bert Roth Papers Raymond Ernest Hansen Papers Gerald Griffin Papers NZ Welfare League Union records

Archives New Zealand Aliens Registration Branch Army Department (AD1, AD10, AD11, AD83: Director of Recruiting, AD82: Recruiting Board, Military Personnel Files) British Military Occupation of Samoa Crown Law Customs Department Department of Internal Affairs Department of Justice Department of Justice: Prisons Branch Gibbon semi-official papers Governor Island Territories Mines Department Marine Department National Efficiency Board New Zealand Police (P1, P2, P3), Police Gazettes Old Police Records (Special Branch) 286

Bibliography

Post and Telegraph Department Prime Minister’s Department Sir James Allen Papers Sir Alexander Godley Papers War Archives Wellington High Court National Archives Australia Censor’s Reports BP4/2 Intelligence Reports on Enemy Trading and Other Suspicious Actions MP95/1 Military Personnel Files National Archives Kew MI5 Records

287

DEAD LETTERS

INDEX Page numbers in bold refer to images. Addison Gold Mining Company 125 Aldred, Guy  232 Alexandra Barracks  22, 109 aliens  14, 24, 32, 75–77; definition  84; ‘disaffected and dangerous’  190; identity certificates 91; internment 63, 65, 67, 84–85, 139–40, 146, 150–58, 174–75, 191; police surveillance  37–38, 63–65, 66–67, 72, 89–90, 141, 143–44, 145, 146–50; public tip-offs  141, 144; waterside workers  83– 85, 86–87, 88, 89; see also Registration of Aliens Act 1917 Aliens Registration Branch  36 Allen, James  203; Arthur Muravleff ’s letters  139, 154, 155–56; and censorship  29–30, 32, 39, 41, 49, 51, 241; concerns about organised labour  32, 43, 45, 50, 80, 128, 215, 228; and conscientious objectors  46; and conscription  38, 43, 45, 105, 133, 205, 228; and Dalmatians  216; death of son  33; Featherston Military Camp mass protest  218; and Gibbon  23, 33, 218; and Hjelmar Dannevill  175; and IWW  191, 215, 228; and Marie Weitzel  71, 72; Wanganui Detention Barracks inquiry 112 288

Alliance of Labour  226–27 Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants 227 anarchism  14, 68, 181, 187, 193, 216, 226, 227, 232; Carl Mumme  59, 153; Freedom Group  182; international figures  59, 192; J. Sweeny  179–80, 197; Mother Earth (anarchist newspaper)  179, 192; Philip Josephs  179–80, 182, 192, 209; police surveillance  57, 224; waterside workers  83, 185; see also direct action Anderson, Carl  221, 222, 230, 233–35 Anderson, John  240–41 Anderson, Laura (née Hansen)  230–31, 232, 233, 234–35; letter to Sara Bakkely, Denmark  221–23, 225, 226, 231, 235, 237 Anti-Conscription League  70, 71, 128 Anti-German League  49, 69, 176 anti-militarism  22, 29–30, 128– 29, 153, 183, 197, 215, 216, 232; see also conscription resistance; pacifism Anti-Militarist League  22 Appleyard, Herbert  62, 64 Arapuni Power Station strike 199 Archives New Zealand  47, 229

Index

Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backwards 211 Bernhard, Prince of SaxeWeimar 143–44 Billing, Noel  174 birth control, topic of correspondence 28 Bishop, Mrs  37 Bismarck, Otto von  59 Black Hand  152 Blomfield, William, cartoon  220 Boddam, Detective  166, 167 Bolshevism  46, 47, 66, 214, 216, 224, 227–28, 237; anarchist critique of  226; Australia  154, 222; Carl and Laura Anderson  222, 230, 235, 236; cartoon by William Blomfield  220; Henry Murphy  197; O’Donovan’s monitoring  229; Russia  46, 49, 96, 154, 225–26 Bond, Edward  165, 168, 176 Bond, Mary Blanche Oliphant  165, 166, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177 Bradley, James  106 Briggs, Mark  46 Brisbane Free Speech  39 Britain: Billing’s claim of German ‘Black Book’ of same-sex relationships  174; Britishorigin New Zealand settler society 61–62; censorship 25, 26–27, 36, 49, 183, 240; directives on waterside workers  83–84; hysteria surrounding power rivalry with Germany  143; and Ireland  27, 97–99; MI5 and imperial intelligence  36, 229; New Zealand exports  45; postwar imperialism  77–78,

Armistice, First World War  155, 218 Arms Act 1920  228 Army Department, Secret Registry  13, 15–16, 46–49, 229, 239, 243 Auckland: Auckland City viewed from Grand Hotel, c.1910  179; Direct Action Group  184, 187– 89, 190–97; Fort Street  190–91; general strike, 1913  185–86, 188, 189; IWW  181, 182, 184, 186–91, 193; Port of Auckland  184; working-class subculture 185 Auckland Employers’ Federation  184, 185, 188, 189 Auckland Military Service Board 194 Australia: Brisbane Free Speech  39; censorship  36, 47, 49, 107, 130, 155; conscription referenda  96, 100, 212; conscription resistance  196; IWW  186, 188, 195, 197, 199; political circumstances in contrast to New Zealand  15; postwar police surveillance  230; Red Flag riots  228; sharing of mail with New Zealand censors  107, 113–14, 130, 155, 197, 206 Australian One Big Union  199 Baker, Paul  104, 111–12, 125 Baritz, Moses  196 Barley, Belle  149, 158 Baxter, Archibald  46, 104, 109 Beck, Police Matron  166 Beeville community  232, 235 Bell, John ‘Jack the Rigger’  194 Bell, William John  188, 194–95 289

DEAD LETTERS

90; postwar police surveillance  230; propaganda campaign against peace proposals  46; Secret Office  26, 27; sedition arrests  25; sharing of mail with New Zealand censors  183; Socialist Party  196; War Office  30, 31, 36 Brosnahan, Seán  99, 104 Brosnan, Hannah  101, 114–15 Brosnan, Mary Ellen (Molly) (née Corbett)  95–96, 101, 108, 114–15 Brosnan, Timothy (jnr)  101, 114 Brosnan, Timothy (snr)  94, 100, 209; conscription resistance  95–96, 100, 108–09, 150; death from pneumonia  114; Hibernian Society membership  101–02; imprisonment with hard labour  95–96, 109–10, 114; letters to Margaret McCarthy  95–97, 113–14, 115, 226; loss of civil rights after war  114; Maoriland Irish Society membership  102–03; migration to New Zealand  100; road labouring work  100–01, 108, 110 Bruce, George  198 Brunt, John  155–56 Buck, Don  223–24, 235 Burns, Bill  136 Burns, Charlotte (Lottie)  125 Burns, Elizabeth (Lizzie) (née Connacher)  134, 135–36 Burns, Frances  135 Burns, Francis Theodore (Frank jnr) (aka Jack Hay, Frank Lonnigan)  210; bush

camp  129–30; conscription resistance  118, 119, 124, 125, 129, 130, 131–32, 133, 135; death of Lizzie  135–36; imprisonment  125, 130, 133; letter from Patrick Tooker  130–32; letters to Doll Nugent  116, 117–23, 125, 130; mining  124, 125, 129, 130, 134 Burns, Frank (snr)  117, 118, 119, 125, 133 Burns, Jean  135 Butler, Dannie  107 Byrne, Kevin ‘Slim’  68, 70, 71 cable censorship  31, 41, 191 Canada: censorship of correspondence  36; letters smuggled from New Zealand 40–41 Canada, postwar police surveillance 230 Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Labourers Union  198 capitalism  14, 16, 28, 40, 58, 70, 96, 102 128, 135, 180, 186, 187, 215, 219, 226, 241–42; see also class; patriarchy; social reproduction; unwaged labour; work Carroll, Vincent  126–27 Cascade Kauri Regional Park  231 Catholic Church: sectarian conflict  101; support of First World War  98; see also Irish Catholic residents of New Zealand Catholic Worker Movement  232 censorship of books and films  34 censorship of correspondence: Australia  36; Britain  25, 26– 27, 31; Canada  36; France  36 290

Index

censorship of correspondence, New Zealand: archived letters now available to larger audience 243; complaints 39– 40, 41–42; consequences of evading the censor  38–39, 40; consequences of seditious or disloyal remarks  24, 25, 32, 34; end, 1920  49; equally ideological and cultural  242; everyday nature of mail  14–15; imprisoned objectors’ mail  112–14; information and people subject to censorship  24, 25, 31–32, 34, 35–36, 39–40, 42, 47, 183, 243; internees’ mail  151, 153, 154–57; Joseph Goss’s letters  204, 206, 207, 216–17, 219; justification  24; late nineteenth and early twentieth century 28–29; legislation 28, 29, 30, 35, 242; letters about harbouring conscription evaders  126, 196; linguists  30, 31; maintenance of capitalist and statist relations  242; Māori  27, 28; military means for political ends  25, 49; racial ‘others’  28; as social control  28–29, 50, 240–41; staff  30–31, 34, 35; state counter-subversion, nineteenth century 27–28; statistics 25, 35; wartime censorship  16, 24–25, 29–43, 46–51, 212, 239–42; Wobblies’ mail  194– 95, 196–97, 199; see also Army Department, Secret Registry; Gibbon, Charles; Tanner, Walter

Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company 40 Charming Creek Coal Company 135 Chinese: anarchist flyers  192; Boxer Rebellion  265; Consul  144; exit permits  91; restaurants 185; state control of  28; war service  77 Christchurch, Second Division League meeting and direct action 213–15 Christensen, Eric Even  92 Christensen, Even: alien registration  85; death and burial  92; first letter to Ole L. Ottestad  75–78, 81, 89–90, 92; further letters to Ole L. Ottestad, and sister Marie  90–91, 92; revocation of naturalisation  91–92; waterside worker  75, 81, 89, 93, 150 Christoffel, Paul  28 Churchill, Winston  98 civil libertarian groups  42 ‘Clarion’ settlers  59 class see middle class; social class; working class Clouston, Constable  65 Cobain, Ian  142 Cody family  106–07, 126, 228 colonisation  24, 27, 28, 42, 43, 44, 57, 214, 235; see also Ireland; Māori; Sāmoa Committee of Imperial Defence  29 Commonwealth communications 29 communism in the New Zealand education system  60 Communist Party of New Zealand  60, 69, 227 291

DEAD LETTERS

Cumberland, sinking  88 Cummins, Tom  113 Customs Act 1913  190 Customs Department  37

compulsory military training  22, 25 condensed milk, for writing letters 40 Connacher, Peter  134 Connolly, James  69, 98, 102 conscientious objectors  14, 46, 104 conscription  35, 39, 43–44, 45, 48, 69–71, 99–100, 103; Appeal Boards  104, 134; Second World War  114 conscription resistance  103–07; Berthold Matzke  193–94; exemption  104; by faking illness  103–04; by going into hiding  104, 107, 124, 125–28, 196; imprisonment of resisters  95–96, 106, 107, 108–13, 130, 133, 193, 206; Irish nationalists  100, 104–05, 106–07; by leaving New Zealand  104, 105–06, 228; Peter Simonov  154–55; propaganda distributed in Taranaki  205; Second Division League  213–14; ‘underground railroad’ for escapers  104–05, 106, 124, 129, 131; West Coast miners 128–29; see also antimilitarism; Brosnan, Timothy (snr); Burns, Francis Theodore (Frank); pacifism Cook, Arthur  198 Cox, Detective  166, 167 Cox, Michael  63–64, 65 Craig, Barbara  224 Craig, Joseph James  184, 185, 188, 189 Crampton, J.L.  111–12 Crawford, John  49 Cullen, John  37, 83–84, 189–90, 216

Dalmatian forced labour on public works 215–16 Dannevill, Hjelmar  14, 160, 203; arrest and police interrogation  166–67, 168–71; departure from New Zealand with Mary Bond  176–77; gender  164–65, 166, 169, 170–71, 174, 175; internment on Somes Island  174–75; Lahmann Health Home, Wellington  161–62, 163–64, 165, 166–68, 175, 176; lesbian sexuality  171–76; letter from Katherine Early  161–62, 172; letters from Helene  162–64, 172–73; men’s clothing  160, 164–65, 166, 167, 168, 170, 174, 175–76, 177; nationality  165, 169, 171, 175, 176 Dee, Gerald  70 defaulters see conscription resistance Defence Department  22, 30, 49–50, 51, 91, 92, 124, 144, 151, 154, 157, 176, 229; postwar strengthening of surveillance  229, 230 Defence of the Realm Regulations (UK) 25 Demm, Eberhard  240 Denniston  128, 129, 181, 198 Denny, Jack ‘Maori Jack’  224 Department of Internal Affairs  92 deportation  24, 51, 67, 72, 92, 192, 195–97, 199, 228 Depression, 1930s  68, 135 292

Index

deserters evading conscription 105–06 Devonport Naval Base, censorship 31 dignity of labour  209, 219 direct action  32, 179, 180, 214; Direct Action Group  184, 187–89, 190–97, 270; see also go-slows; sabotage; spelling; strikes; work-to-rule Direct Action (newspaper)  186, 188, 190, 192, 193, 209 disaster capitalism  51 Duggan, Harry, letters from Joseph Goss  201–02, 204, 206–07, 213, 216, 217 Duncombe, Thomas  26

spy  41; internment of suspected spies  84–85, 146, 158; naturalisation seen as cover for spies  48–49; police investigation  148–50; suspected spies  34, 41, 84–85, 143, 144–46, 148, 158, 164 Europe  22, 23, 35, 60, 78, 91, 103, 152, 166, 175, 214, 217, 222 Executive Council  33 exit permits  91, 105 Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill  72, 134–35 Fabian Society  183 Fairburn, Miles  48 Featherston Military Camp  110, 138, 155–57, 194, 204; escape attempt, 1919  156; escape of Muravleff and two other internees  157–58; mass protest, 1918  218 Federation of Labour (Red Fed)  22, 44, 128, 132, 208, 216 fines: for evading the censor  39; for harbouring defaulters  126; for seditious or disloyal remarks 25 First World War  15, 16, 23, 98; aftermath  134–35, 226, 227–29; Armistice  155, 218; casualties  23, 203, 218; as conflict of societies  240; framed as struggle to preserve civilisation  50; German Spring Offensive  212; impact on New Zealand society and culture  48, 50; known as Great War  23; New Zealand entry and participation  23–24, 97, 98, 99; official end, Treaty of Versailles  134; postwar

Early, Bill  161 Early, Katherine  161–62, 172 Easter Rising, 1916  99, 102, 110 Eby, Harold  41, 191 Edward, Prince of Wales, visit to New Zealand, 1920  54, 56–57, 235–36 Eldred-Grigg, Stevan  210–11 Elliott, Howard  42, 227 Ellison, John  164–65, 170 Employers’ Federation  215, 227; see also Auckland Employers’ Federation Ensom, William  183 Erickson, Carl  209 erotica, topic of correspondence  28 espionage fears: Britain  141, 142– 43; British investigation  142– 43; see also security and intelligence services espionage fears, New Zealand: German espionage  31, 143, 144–46, 164; Harold Eby, suspected American 293

DEAD LETTERS

extension of repressive legislation  226, 228; role of common people in forcing an end  217–18; war weariness  201–02, 203, 212–13 Fischer, Hugo  169–70 Flood, John  214, 215 food: Chinese restaurants  185; conscription evaders  107, 124; Laura and Carl Anderson  230; in prisons  110–11; rural labourers  179, 197, 198; Somes Island Internment Camp  140, 152 Forster, J.  62 Fort Jervois, Ripapa Island  29–30 Fothergill, J.A.  175 Fournier, Sidney  68–69, 70, 186 Frame, Alex  33 France, censorship of correspondence 36 Francis, Andrew  58 fraudulent material  29 Free Speech campaign  70–71, 186 Free, Thomas Henry  216 Freedom Group  182 Fry, George  223–24 Fuller, Ellen  45

German residents of New Zealand  34, 49, 55–56, 58, 59, 61–64, 76, 84, 146, 156, 193; see also Weitzel, Marie Germany: administration and residents of Sāmoa  38–39; annexation of colonies after the war  77; espionage, actual and suspected  31, 143, 144–46, 164; fears of German sabotage and plotting  82–84, 86–87, 88; German consulate in Wellington vandalised  63; hysteria surrounding power rivalry with Britain  143; industrialisation and militarism  58–59; Kaiser’s abdication and proclamation of republic  217–18; letters from New Zealanders to people in Germany 55–56; Lusitania sinking  65; minelaying in the Pacific  76, 87–88, 89; pro-German sentiments in New Zealand  31, 47, 48; propaganda campaign against peace proposals  46; socialism  58–59, 217; Spring Offensive 212 Ghalore, Walter  196 Gibbon, Charles  20; and Allen  23, 33, 218; Companion of St Michael and St George  204; departure from New Zealand  49; interest in postwar intelligence network  229; Motuihe Inquiry  204; posting to New Zealand as chief of general staff  21–23, 25; wartime roles  23–24, 36, 37, 43, 51, 83, 90, 145, 148, 149, 166, 174, 190, 204, 218

Gallagher, John  196 Gallipoli campaign  33, 99 Gaudin, Frederick  38 gender politics  66, 68, 98, 180, 214, 225 gender variance  173–74; clothing as indication of gender  174, 175; Hjelmar Dannevill  164– 65, 166, 169, 170–71, 174, 175, 176; linked to economic and social disorder  166, 173–74, 176 294

Index

Gibbon, Charles, chief censor  23, 24, 30–31, 49, 51, 89, 242; and Arthur Muravleff  149, 154, 155; Australia’s sharing of mail  113–14, 130, 155; Britain’s sharing of mail  183; and censorship evasion  38, 40–41; and Frank Burns  130; Joseph Goss’s letters  204, 206, 207, 216–17; and Marie Weitzel  65, 66, 67, 72; Philip Josephs’ file  180; and Salmond  32, 42; and Tanner  34, 65, 89; Timothy Brosnan’s letter  113– 14; workload  204 Gibbon, Margaret  21 Gibbon, Mary  21 Gibbs, Mary Ann  224 Godley, Alexander  30, 33, 43 Goldman, Emma  59, 192 Gorky, Maxim  141, 149; The Song of the Stormy Petrel 151 go-slows  45, 80, 110, 128, 129, 184, 216, 219, 270 Goss, Albert  217 Goss, Joseph  61, 102–03, 207–12, 216–17, 218–19; letters to Harry Duggan, Queensland  201–02, 204, 206–07, 213, 216 Goss, Mary  219 Gould, Robert  110 Gourley, Constable  188, 193, 196 Grayndler, Charles  198 Great Strike, 1913  21, 22, 31–32, 43, 59, 68, 79, 182, 184, 185–86, 188, 189, 198 Great War see First World War Green, Anna  79 Green Ray  102–03, 104–05, 106, 109, 113 Grey, George  28 Griffin, Jeremiah  106

Hague Convention 1907  152 Hall-Thompson, Percival  88 Hammond, Detective  148, 196 Handysides, Miss  149 Hansen, Allan  232 Hansen, Johan Ernst (John Ernest)  231–32, 234 Hansen, Karl  38–39 Hansen, Ray  232, 234, 235 Hansen, Waldemar  232 Harcourt, Lewis  27, 31 Hay, Jack (alias of Frank Burns) see Burns, Francis Theodore (Frank jnr) Hay, John (Jack)  124, 131, 132 Hayward, Albert  80 Heffron, Bob  104, 228 Hērangi, Te Kirihaehae Te Puea 43–44 Herdman, Alexander  189, 190 Hibernian Society  101–02 Hill, Richard S.  50, 241 Hislop, Thomas William  154, 158 Hochschild, Adam  183 Holdsworth, Alec  182 Holland, Harry  36, 49, 111, 112–13, 183, 213 Home Rule Bill  98, 113 Hoover, J. Edgar  234 Howard, Ted  49 Hudson, G.V.  34 Hughes, William  96, 201 Hunter, Edward ‘Billy Banjo’  198 Hunter, Hiram  215 Hunter, Kate  50 Huntley, Edith  166–67, 168, 176 immoral material  29 Imperial General Staff, New Zealand section  22 imprisonment  22, 24, 25, 34; censorship of prisoners’ 295

DEAD LETTERS

mail  112–14; for conscription resistance  95–96, 106, 107, 108–13, 130, 133, 193, 206; detention centres and prisons (Bill’s Boarding Houses)  110; for evading the censor  32, 36, 38, 40; for harbouring defaulters  126; Passive Resisters Union members  22; Peter Simonov  155; for seditious utterances  25, 44–45, 70; Wobblies  195; see also internment and internment camps indecent material  28, 29 industrial conscription  215 industrial disputes  50, 215, 229; postwar rise in disputes  226; see also Direct Action; goslows; spelling; strikes; workto-rule Industrial Unionist  182, 186, 188 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)  14, 39, 66, 69, 70, 128, 154, 180–81, 186, 209, 227; New Zealand branches  181, 182, 186, 192; New Zealand Welfare League campaign  228; police action  180, 188, 189–90; publication and distribution of literature and posters  181–82, 186–90, 192, 199; see also Wobblies (IWW members) Industrialist Club, Wellington  186 influenza pandemic  218 intelligence services see security and intelligence services International Women’s Day  225 internment and internment camps  51, 66; aliens (generally)  84–85, 174–75, 191; anti-militarists  153;

censorship of internees’ mail  31, 35, 112–13, 153–54; German residents  63, 65, 67, 146; Hjelmar Dannevill the only woman interned  174; for IWW connections  191; Russian residents  139–40, 150–58; suspected spies  146; see also imprisonment; and names of individual camps invasion novels, Britain  142 invisible ink  40 Ireland: conscription  97, 113; Dublin Lockout, 1913  98; Easter Rising, 1916  99; Irish Convention  96–97, 113; Northern Ireland rebel provisional government  98; struggle for independence from Britain  27, 97–99, 106, 108, 109, 113, 209, 228 Irish Catholic residents of New Zealand  14, 95–97, 98–102, 209; conscription resistance  104–10, 112 Irish Citizen Army  98 Irish Nationalist Party  97 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)  98, 102, 106 Irish Volunteers  98 Irvine, Thomas  129 Jack, John  85–86, 87 jail see conscription resistance Johnson, Henry  80 Jones, Joseph Herbert  70, 219 Josephs, Philip (Comrade Peter): anarchist beliefs  182, 209; letter from J. Sweeny  179; mail-order radical literature supply  182; police raid and detention 192 296

Index

Joyce, James, Ulysses 34 Judd, John  126 Kaingaroa Prison  110 Kaitāia–Awanui swamp drainage, strike 216 Kell, Herbert  88 Kelly, William  89–90 Kipling, Rudyard  98 Kirwans Claim  132 Knab, William  153 Kosel, Hugo  153 Kraut, Alfred  153, 156 Krishnamurti, Jiddu  232 labour disputes see industrial disputes Labour Representation Committee 236 Labour Unity Conference, 1913  30 Lafargue, Paul, The Right to Be Lazy 211 Lahmann Health Home, Wellington  161–62, 163–64, 165, 166–68, 175, 176 Langley, Edward  214, 215 Lapouple, Constable  205, 207–08, 209, 216, 219 Larkin, John  106 Larkin, Robert  106 Laurie, Alison  173 Law, Bonar  83, 189 Le Fevre, Constable  67 Le Queux, William  143; The Invasion of 1910 142; Spies of the Kaiser 142 Lee, John A.  184 Leopold II, King of Belgium  183 lesbian sexuality  171–77 letter writing, methods to evade censor: condensed milk  40; invisible ink  40; secret codes  40 297

Lewis, Detective  57 Liston, James  228 Liverpool, Lord  30, 62–63 Lloyd George, David  97, 113, 240 Local Posts Act 1856  27 London, Jack  122, 129, 149, 205 Lonnigan, Frank see Burns, Francis Theodore (Frank jnr) Lorenzen, Louisa  231–32 Loughran, Jack  69, 70, 71 Loveridge, Steven  61 Luckner, Felix von  204 Luke, John  213 Lund, Herman  205–06 Lusitania sinking  65 Mackie, Charles  36, 39–40, 182–83 Makura 193 Malatesta, Errico  59 Mandeno, Percy  39 Mangan, Denis (name changed to O’Sullivan) 108 Mangōnui  15, 141, 146 Manuka 105–06 Māori: censorship of correspondence  27, 28, 42; resistance 43–44 Maoriland Irish Society  102, 104–05, 107 Maoriland Worker  36, 102, 182, 199, 228, 236 Marine Department  36, 40 Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union  184–85 Marxist view of the state  241 Massey, William (Bill)  30, 32, 45, 49, 50, 66, 70, 84, 86, 110, 146, 167–68, 213, 214, 229, 236–37 Matheson, Dugald  152–53, 154 Matthews, Mr and Mrs, of Kaitāia 145

DEAD LETTERS

Matzke, Berthold Charles Richard 193–94; headstone  238 Matzke, Florence  194, 238 Maungapōhatu, police raid on Rua Kēnana  44, 214 Mazzini, Guiseppe  26 McCombs, James  214, 240 McCowan, Constable  150 McKenna, Frederick  106 McLachlan, Louis ‘Backwoodsman’, The Working Man 239 meetings  22, 23, 69, 82–83, 124, 182, 208–09, 229; Great Strike, 1913  185; One Big Union  187, 193; to protest conscription  44, 69–70; Second Division League, Christchurch  213–14; see also soapboxing Mertin, Karl  153 middle class  183, 213, 231 Military Service Act  34, 43, 133, 150, 197 Military Service Board  134 minelaying in the Pacific  87–89 miners and mining: Allendale, Victoria  125; Alliance of Labour  227; antimilitarism  128–29; goslows  45; Huntly mine disaster  195; mutual aid networks  135–36; strikes and industrial disputes  128, 135; tributism  135; West Coast, New Zealand  124, 125, 127, 128–29, 130–33, 134–35, 136, 186 Miners’ Federation  128 minesweepers 88 Miramar Girls’ Home  176 Moormeister, Walter  151–52, 156 Moral and Physical Health Society 168

moral courage, Goss’s view  208–09 Morel, Edmund  36, 183 Morris, William  59 Most, Johann  59 Mother Earth (anarchist newspaper)  179, 192 Motuihe internment camp  31, 204 Mount Eden Prison  111, 223 Moynihan, Thomas  112 Mumme, Carl  59, 153, 193 Mumme, Margaret  153 Muravleff, Arthur Ivanoff (aka Mandel, Mandle): censorship of letters  151, 154–57; disappearance  158–59; escape from Featherstone Military Camp  157–58; French heritage claim  141, 147, 148, 149, 150; internment, Featherston Military Camp  155–57, 218; internment, Somes Island camp  139–40, 150–54, 193; letter to NZ Truth  156–57, 158; letters to Peter Simonov (aka Simonoff)  139–40, 154–55, 156; life in New Zealand  148–49, 150; police investigation and surveillance  141, 146–50; reason for leaving Russia  149, 182; request to return to Russia  158; suspected of spying  141, 147, 148, 150; writing  141, 146, 147, 148–49, 150, 158 Muravleff, Trafinovitch  139 Murphy, Henry Aloysius  196–97, 200, 209, 226 Murray Creek quartz mine  125, 129, 130, 131, 132 Murray, J.B.  194 mutiny  214: Austro–Hungarian army  217; German sailors, Kiel 217 298

Index

mutual aid  68, 101, 124, 135, 224 Myer, Bernard  152

O’Brien, Jack  187 obscene material  28, 29 O’Connor, Constable  146–47 O’Donovan, John  37, 51, 57, 67, 69, 90–91, 107, 113, 145, 150, 166, 169, 203, 229, 230; investigation of letter-writer ‘Von der boch’  204, 205–06 O’Grady, Constable  131 Okahukura railway works strike 216 Olssen, Erik  181 One Big Union  180, 187, 198–99, 227 One Big Union Council  193 O’Neill, Andrew  199 Osborne-Lilly, James  154 Ostler, Hubert  42

Napier, Sir Charles  219 Narrow Neck Military Camp  44, 110 nationalism  14, 15, 23, 25, 49, 26, 61, 64, 73, 75–78, 84, 90, 92, 97, 100, 102, 106, 141, 226; see also New Zealand Welfare League; white supremacy; Women’s Anti-German League National Peace Council  22, 36, 182 naturalisation  48–49, 84, 86–87, 89, 91–92; impact of revocation 92 naturopathy 168 navvies  100–01, 114 Navy, New Zealand  36 Neitzhert, Oscar  188, 190, 191–92, 193, 197 New Zealand Defence League  22 New Zealand Labour Party  227 New Zealand Police see police New Zealand Security Service  230 New Zealand Socialist Party (NZSP)  59, 68, 69, 70, 182, 187 New Zealand Welfare League  227– 28 New Zealand Workers’ Union (NZWU) 198–99 Newton, G.F.  92 Ngākawau  124, 135, 136 Ngakawau Coal Miners’ Industrial Union of Workers  133–34 Northern Wars, 1845–46  27 Norway  75, 77, 81; shipping losses 90 Nugent, Mary (Dolly)  123–24, 125; letters from Frank Burns  116, 117–23 NZ Truth  156–57, 158, 175, 176

pacifism  14, 40, 42, 46, 182–83, 197, 219, 232; see also antimilitarism; conscription resistance Pacifist League  128 Paloona 105 Paparua Prison  110 Parker, William  70, 71, 186 Parkin, Mr and Mrs  62–63, 64 Passive Resisters Union (PRU)  22, 29–30, 128 passports  91, 92 patriarchy  43, 46, 57, 61, 62, 66, 67, 70, 98, 164–166, 170, 174, 176, 225; see also gender politics; gender variance; social reproduction; unwaged labour; women Patrick, Ted  192 patriotism  14, 15, 49, 66, 67, 70, 84, 110, 112, 146, 201, 202, 214, 216, 236 Pearse, Patrick  110 299

DEAD LETTERS

Peschkoff, Zenobuin  149 Phillips, George  188, 192–93 Pieterse, Jan  87 pigeon, suspected of carrying enemy message  145 Pioneer Club  168 police  62, 71, 72–73, 121, 145; Auckland larrikinism  185; British directives on waterside workers  83–84; and conscription evaders  44–45, 107, 108, 117, 118, 124, 125–27, 129, 130, 131–33; and IWW  180, 188, 189–90, 194–95, 197; and miners’ industrial action  45, 135; O’Donovan’s administration style  37–38; permits for travel  66, 67; portrayal as servants of the public  50; postwar pay rise  227; postwar strengthening of surveillance  229–30; Prince of Wales’ visit  57; raid on Rua Kēnana, Maungapōhatu  44, 214; Special Branch records 229; surveillance 37– 38, 46–47, 63–65, 66–67, 72, 89–90, 141, 143–44, 145, 146–50; Zeppelin airship scare 143 Ponsonby, Arthur  183 Port Kembla disaster  85–86, 87, 88, 89, 143, 150 ports and wharves  69, 78–79, 81; alien waterside workers  83–85, 86–87, 88, 89; fears of German sabotage and plotting  82–84, 86–87, 88; go-slows  45, 80, 184, 219; Port of Auckland  184; Port of Otago  81–83, 89;

regulations  80, 81–82; site of workers’ education  184–85; working conditions and accidents 79–80; see also ships Post and Telegraph Act 1908  30 Post and Telegraph Department  27, 30, 34, 37, 47 Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association 227 Post Office Act 1858  27, 28 Post Office Amendment Act 1893 29 postal service, New Zealand  27 Price, William (jnr)  126 Price, William (snr) and Ella  126 prisoners of war, censorship of letters 35 prisons see imprisonment privacy, individual and collective  13, 16 protest  16, 23, 44, 212, 218; see also anti-militarism; conscription resistance; industrial disputes; meetings; pacifism; soapboxing Protestant Political Association (PPA)  42, 227, 236 public works, Dalmatian forced labour 216 punishment for seditious or disloyal remarks  24, 25 Puttick, Edward  73 racial ‘others’, hostility towards  28, 49, 61–62, 84, 86–87, 91, 141, 142, 150, 164, 226; see also nationalism; white supremacy; Women’s Anti-German League Raetihi  15, 148, 150, 154, 158 railway workers  57, 147, 149, 205, 216, 227, 236 Rawle, Detective Sergeant  37, 165 300

Index

Rea, John Patrick (Jim)  70 Recruiting Board  105 Rediker, Marcus  48 Redmond, John  97–98, 102, 103 Reed, Vernon  195 Reform Party  213, 227, 236, 242 Register of Aliens, 1917  85, 91, 92 Registration of Aliens Act 1917  75, 85; notice  74 Religious Advisory Board  114 returned servicemen  226; post-traumatic stress and suicide 218 Returned Services’ Association 112 Revocation of Naturalisation Act 85 Reynolds, Henry  40 Richardson, Len  128 Ringer, Arthur  49 riots: anti-German riots, Whanganui  214; fear of armed rioters  228; Red Flag riots, Australia  228; Welsh Tonypandy riots  69; women associated with Second Division League, Christchurch 214–15 Robin, Sir Alfred  90 Rodtnick, Fritz  152 Rose, Tania  240 Ross, Kirstie  50 Rosser, Arthur  194 Rotoaira Prison Camp  110–11, 114 Rua Kēnana  44, 214 rugby league  185 Rupp, Leila  173 rurally based class struggle  197–98 Russell, Bertrand  36 Russell, George  86 Russian Club, Brisbane  154

Russian residents of New Zealand  139, 193; see also Muravleff, Arthur Ivanoff (aka Mandel, Mandle) Russian revolutions: 1905  149, 182; 1917  46, 155, 157, 196, 225–26 Ryan, Sergeant  131–32 sabotage: Direct Action  184, 187, 188–90; fears of German sabotage and plotting  82–84, 86–87, 88; public fears  142 sailors see seamen Salesa, Damon  38 Salmond, Anne  168 Salmond, Sir John  32–33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 49, 51, 91, 194, 241, 242; and Hjelmar Dannevill  164, 165, 166, 170, 174, 176; and IWW  186, 190, 191, 192 Salmond, William Guthrie  33 same-sex relationships  173, 174; see also lesbian sexuality Sāmoa 111; censorship 31; German residents  38–39 Scandinavian residents in New Zealand  76–77, 81, 205, 221, 231 Schultz, Erich  38 Scott, Detective  147–48 Scott, Dick  69 Scurr, C.N.  82–83 seamen  78, 83, 85–86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 217, 227, 225, 270: hydrarchy  105; police raids  46; smuggling  40, 105106, 181; strikes  45, 78 Seamen’s Union  46, 105 Second Division League  213–14 Second World War  114 301

DEAD LETTERS

Secret Office, British  26, 27 Secret Registry, Army Department  13, 15–16, 46–49, 229, 239, 243 security and intelligence services: Britain  36; lack of official service in New Zealand  36–37, 229; wartime surveillance laid groundwork for future spy agencies  230; see also surveillance Seddon, Richard  143–44 sedition  25, 68, 70, 71, 212, 228; distributing revolutionary pamphlets  228; Second Division League members  214, 215; seditious strikes  45, 185– 86; seditious utterances  44–45, 186; waterside workers’ goslow  80; West Coast miners’ strikes 129 Seegner, Carl  145, 146 Sefton, Constable  145, 147 Semple, Robert  44–45, 182, 219 Serbin, Peter  193 Shaw, Bernard  68 Shearers Union  198 ships: crew, joining to evade conscription 105–06; mines 87–89; see also ports and wharves Shirkers Bush  107 signalling, public allegations  144– 45 Simonov, Peter (aka Simonoff)  139–40, 154–55, 156 Sinn Féin  102, 106, 109, 110, 113 smuggling of letters  40–41 soapboxing  44–45, 68, 70, 71, 187, 210, 219

social class  180; unequal relations 241–42; see also middle class; wealth; working class social control  28–29, 50 social reproduction  68, 124, 135, 231, 241 socialism: Britain  196, 217; Germany  58–59, 217 socialism, New Zealand  14, 59, 68, 69, 70, 113, 128, 182, 208, 211, 217; Arthur Muravleff ’s articles  149; Joseph Goss  208, 210, 212; Marie Weitzel  59, 67–68, 69, 71 Solidarity (newspaper)  190 Somes Island Internment Camp  64, 84–85, 139–40, 150– 54, 191, 193–94; censorship of internees’ mail  31, 153–54; escape attempt, 1918  153; government investigation  153; mistreatment and abuse of internees  151–52; poor food  140, 152; subversive mail service  153–54; transfer of internees to Featherston Military Camp  138, 155 South African War  21, 29, 57–58, 60, 69, 194, 208–09 spelling 80 spies see espionage fears Spitzbergen 77–78 Spur, The  179, 232 St Kilda Battery  109 Steinhauer, Gustav  142 Stewart, Frances Ann  165 Stewart, John Tiffin  165 Stewart, Mary (Molly)  172 Stewart, William  172 Stockton Mine  124, 130 302

Index

Stop the War Committee, Britain 183 strikes, Australia  88 strikes, England  78 strikes, Ireland  98, 113 strikes, New Zealand  45–46, 180, 184–86, 210, 215, 227; Arapuni Power Station  199; Dalmatian labourers on public works  216; hunger strikes  22, 30, 110; IWW involvement 184–85; miners  45, 128, 129; railway workers  57, 216, 236; rent strikes  70; rural workers 198; seamen 45; waterside workers  69, 80, 185–86, 188; Waihī, 1912  104, 192; Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company  43; wildcat strikes  80, 219; see also Great Strike, 1913 strikes, Russia see Russian Revolutions strikes, Vienna  217 Stubbs, Arthur D.  66, 68 Sullivan, Jim ‘Gun’  186 Supreme Court, IWW anti-war posters 186–87 surveillance  16, 36–38, 40, 46–47, 241; of foreign residents and visitors  37, 63–65, 66–67, 72, 89–90, 141, 143–44, 145, 146–50; postwar strengthening of state surveillance  50–51, 229–30; see also security and intelligence services Swanson  15, 221, 222–23, 230–31 Sweeney, Detective  148, 149, 150 Sweeny, J.  179, 197–99 syndicalism  186, 193, 226–27

Tanner, Walter  24, 25, 33–35, 38, 39, 40, 46, 51, 228; and Charles Mackie  182–83; and Even Christensen  89, 90; and Harold Eby  41; and Henry Murphy  197; and Joseph Goss  217, 218; Laura Anderson’s letter  226, 230; and Marie Weitzel  65; and Philip Josephs  192; postwar postal censorship  49; Somes Island internees’ mail  153; suppression of Green Ray 113; and Sweeny  180 Tanner, William  34 Taranaki: conscription resistance propaganda  205; Māori resistance 43 Taranaki War  28 Tate, Robert Ward  134 Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero  43 Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki  28 Te Urewera, Māori resistance  43 telegram censorship  29 Theosophical Society  232 Tooker, Richard Longfield Beare (Patrick)  130–33, 134 Traven, B., The Death Ship 91–92 Treaty of Versailles  134 Trentham Military Camp  109, 110, 133–34, 203 tributism 135 Troy, John  105 Trunk, Johann Sebastian  59 Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Act 1919  195–96, 228 Union of Democratic Control (UDC)  182, 183 Union Steam Ship Company  79, 89 303

DEAD LETTERS

unions  181, 210, 211, 215; One Big Union  180, 187, 193, 198–99, 227; see also names of individual unions United States  82, 147, 192, 226; Black Panther Party  234; consul-general, Auckland  41, 191; postwar police surveillance 230 Unlawful Associations Bill (Australia) 195 unlawful material  29 unwaged labour  68, 110, 152, 216, 231 Urbansky, Bruno  39

Ward, Joseph  33, 214 waterside workers  196–97; Alliance of Labour  227; goslows  45, 80, 184, 219; ports as sites of education  184–85; strikes  69, 80, 185–86, 188 Waugh, Constable  223–24 wealth: pursuit of  211–12, 214, 242; and war  44, 70, 79 Webb, Alice  97 Webb, Paddy  112–13, 182, 203, 206 Webbe, William Henry  40 Weitzel, Annie  60, 69 Weitzel, Carl (Charles)  58 Weitzel, Friedrich Gustav  58, 60–61, 66, 71, 72, 73, 208 Weitzel, Friedrich Junior (Frank)  58, 60 Weitzel, Gertrude  60, 69 Weitzel, Hedwig (Hettie)  58, 59–60, 69, 228 Weitzel, Henrietta Marie  60, 66 Weitzel, Marie (née Benninghoven)  60, 208, 210, 236; arrival and life in New Zealand  58, 60–61; censored letters  65; discrimination against  62–65, 66–69, 72–73, 141, 149–50, 176; encounters with the law  57, 61, 62–63, 65–66, 67, 71–72; letter to brother Hermann Weitzel, Germany  55–56, 65; reasons for leaving Germany  58–59; return to Germany  72–73; socialism  59, 67–68, 69, 71 Wellington Meat Export Company 83 Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company, Petone  43 Wells, H.G.  69

vagrancy  125, 173, 219, 223–24; laws 28 venereal diseases  169–70 venereal diseases, topic of correspondence  28, 29 Victoria Range  129–30, 132 vigilante groups  227 Waihou riverworks strike  216 Waikato, Māori resistance  43–44 Waikato War  28 Waikeria Prison  110 Waitahu River  129, 131, 132 Wanganui Detention Barracks  110, 111–12, 153, 212 War Office, British  30, 31, 36 War Regulations  25, 32, 42, 44, 45, 182, 195, 212; amendment, 20 September 1915  190, 192; control of wharves  80, 81–82, 88, 89, 100; related to aliens  67, 84, 88, 89, 90, 139, 190, 191, 196 War Regulations Continuance Act 1920 228 Ward, Freda Dudley  237 304

Index

Wells, H.G., The War in the Air 143 West Coast  127–28; antimilitarism 128–29; conscription resistance  124, 125–34, 193; dried fern in letter from Frank Burns  47, 116; miners and mining  124, 125, 127, 128–29, 130–33, 134–35, 136, 186 West Coast Federation of Passive Resisters 128 Westport jail  130, 133 Whanganui: anti-German riots  214; Wanganui Detention Barracks  110, 111–12, 153, 212 wharves see ports and wharves white supremacy  23, 61, 62, 73, 81, 226; see also nationalism; New Zealand Welfare League; racial ‘others’, hostility towards White, William  110–11 Whitesides, William Harry  224 Williams, John B.  199 Williams, Reginald  30 Wilson, Woodrow  90, 222 Wimmera, sinking  88 Winchester, Albert  130 Winslow, Alfred  41, 191 wireless stations, suspected to be enemy-owned 144 Wobblies (IWW members)  209, 215; censorship  194–95, 196–97; distribution of IWW literature and posters  181–82, 186–87, 191; imprisonment and deportation  195–97, 199; industrial action  184–86; public opinion  181; rural activities 198 Wolf, minelaying  76, 87–88, 89 Wolter, Franz  59, 84–85

women: Anti-Conscription League  7; call for return to traditional roles in wartime  173; strike for pay rise, Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Co.  43; see also lesbian sexuality Women’s Anti-German League  49, 69, 176 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom  46 Women’s Suffrage Petition, 1893 232 work, struggle for and against  197, 209–12, 219 work-to-rule  80, 188–89 Workers’ University Direct Action Group  187–88, 191; see also Direct Action Group working class  14, 22, 31–32, 37–38, 43, 48, 58, 61, 66, 207; Arthur Muravleff ’s writing  149; Auckland subculture  185; IWW constitution preamble  180; Joseph Goss’s letters  206–07, 208, 209–10; militancy  42, 43, 45–46, 210, 225–26, 227; Prince of Wales’ visit to counter unrest  235–37; radical counterculture  68, 181; resistance to work  197, 209–12; rural labourers  197– 98; Russian Revolution  225– 26; solidarity  125, 181, 226–27, 232; war weariness  201–02, 203, 212–13; see also Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); miners; strikes; unions; waterside workers; Wobblies (IWW members) 305

DEAD LETTERS

World War I see First World War World War II see Second World War Worrall, James Kirkwood  30

Young, Tom  105 Zeppelin airship scare, New Zealand 143

306