The Aotearoa History Show - Episode 7 | Votes, Depressions and Refrigerators

Summary

This episode of the Altera History Show, hosted by Lee Madam and William Wright, dives into New Zealand's tumultuous colonial governance, the transition from provincial to central government led by Julius Vogel, and the economic rollercoaster that followed. It highlights Vogel's infrastructure boom and the subsequent long depression, touching on the societal impacts and the contentious debate over his financial decisions. The narrative then explores the revolutionary shift in New Zealand's political landscape, from the establishment of Māori electorates to the landmark achievement of women's suffrage in 1893, and the emergence of New Zealand's first political parties, culminating in a discussion on labor movements and the transformative effect of refrigerated shipping on the economy. The script encapsulates New Zealand's journey through economic despair to prosperity, political strife to reform, and the relentless pursuit of a more inclusive society.

Takeaways

• 😊 Vogel used borrowed money to fund infrastructure projects like roads and railways, lifting NZ's economy but later contributing to a depression
• 😟 The Long Depression of the 1870s caused widespread poverty and unemployment in NZ
• 🏭 Refrigerated shipping, pioneered by William Davidson, enabled large-scale meat and dairy exports from NZ
• 👪 Kate Sheppard and the suffragists campaigned for decades to win voting rights for NZ women in 1893
• 🗳 Property and race-based restrictions on voting rights were gradually relaxed over the 1800s
• ⚖️ Compulsory arbitration courts were set up in 1894 to resolve disputes between workers and employers
• ❌ The Red Feds adopted aggressive tactics to bypass arbitration but lost public support after the Great Strike
• 🎌 Anti-Chinese laws passed in the late 1800s blocked immigrants and their NZ-born descendants from voting
• 🐘 The Liberal Party held power from 1891-1912, passing social reforms but also racist anti-Chinese laws
• 🗳🏛 The NZ Labor Party formed in 1916 to pursue workers' rights through participation in electoral politics

Q & A

What were the two main sides in the debate over how New Zealand should be governed in its early colonial history?

The two main sides were the provincialists, who thought each province should run itself, and the centralists, who thought there should be one big central government.

How did Julius Vogel help turn around New Zealand's economy in the 1860s?

As Treasurer, Vogel borrowed millions of pounds to fund large infrastructure projects like roads, railways and telegraph lines. This government spending created jobs and bolstered the economy.

What caused the Long Depression in the 1870s and how did it impact settlers?

An international banking crisis meant banks stopped lending money. Demand dropped and unemployment rose. Settlers faced grinding poverty and some even begged to leave NZ.

How did refrigerated shipping help revive NZ's economy in the 1880s?

William Davidson built an effective refrigerated ship to export meat and dairy. This allowed farmers to access lucrative overseas markets and created many new jobs.

Why were voting rights initially restricted to men who owned or rented property?

The justification was that property ownership gave voters a stake in NZ's future. It also prevented most Māori men voting, since Māori held land communally.

How did the women's suffrage movement convince politicians to grant women the vote?

Suffrage campaigners like Kate Shepherd gathered signatures from 32,000 women demanding the vote - almost 1/4 of the adult female population. Politicians were forced to listen.

What was the Liberal Party's relationship with labor unions in the 1890s?

Initially strong supporters, but unions grew angry as arbitration courts refused big wage rises. More radical unions like the 'Red Feds' emerged, alarming conservative NZers.

What lessons did the labour movement take from its defeat in the 1913 Great Strike?

That most Kiwis rejected radical tactics like mass strikes. Instead labour leaders focused on winning power democratically by forming the Labour Party.

Why did the colonial government restrict Chinese migration and voting rights?

Racist fears about growing Chinese presence. Rules blocked naturalization and voting rights for people of Chinese descent into the 1950s.

What was the big transformation taking place in NZ society alongside the political changes?

Huge numbers of European migrants were arriving, desperately wanting land. This set up conflict with Māori over land rights.

Outlines

00:00

😎 The provincialists vs the centralists - how to govern New Zealand

Paragraph 1 discusses the debate between the provincialists, who wanted each province to govern itself, and the centralists, who wanted one central government. It introduces Julius Vogel, who shifted from being a provincialist to a centralist after realizing the country needed to borrow money for infrastructure, which required a unified central government. His policies drove economic growth but also debt that contributed to an economic depression in the late 1870s.

05:00

🚢 William Davidson invents the refrigerated shipping industry

Paragraph 2 covers how William Davidson created the first viable refrigerated shipping vessel to export meat and dairy. This transformed New Zealand's economy by enabling the export of meat, created jobs, and rescued the country from economic depression. Refrigerated exports are still critical to NZ's economy today.

10:02

👩‍🎓 Kate Sheppard leads the women's suffrage movement

Paragraph 3 discusses the movement to give women voting rights, led by Kate Sheppard of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She argued women voters could support prohibitionist policies and provide a moral voice in politics. Māori women like Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia also campaigned for women's suffrage rights. In 1893, NZ became the first self-governing country to grant women voting rights.

15:03

👷 The rise and fall of the Liberal Party

Paragraph 4 covers the surge in popularity of the Liberal Party, which won elections for 21 years starting in 1891. Backed by unions and workers, they passed progressive social reforms but also anti-Chinese discriminatory laws. The party declined due to inflation and the growth of more radical labor unions that sparked violent clashes. This led to the formation of the modern Labour Party.

Keywords

💡suffragists

The suffragists were a political movement fighting for women's right to vote. Kate Sheppard was a prominent New Zealand suffragist who led the campaign for women's suffrage. The suffragists argued that giving women the vote would allow them to play a role as the 'voice for morality' in parliament. Their massive 1893 petition with 32,000 signatures was key to New Zealand becoming the first self-governing country to give women the right to vote.

💡Liberal Party

The Liberal Party was New Zealand's first organized political party, formed in the late 1800s under Richard Seddon. They drew strong support from unionized labour and passed progressive reforms like shorter working hours and old age pensions. But some Liberal policies and leaders were also racist, like anti-Chinese immigration laws. The Liberals dominated politics from 1891-1912, NZ's longest serving government.

💡economic boom and bust

The video explores cycles of economic boom and bust in colonial NZ. Julius Vogel's massive infrastructure spending caused a boom in the 1870s only for NZ to crash into a decade-long depression when overseas banks stopped lending. Later, refrigerated shipping sparked an export boom that rescued the economy. This instability is an ongoing NZ theme.

💡voting rights

The video traces the expansion of voting rights from just male property owners in 1853 to almost all adult men getting the vote in 1889. Māori male voting came earlier via 4 Māori electorates created to balance South Island gold rush votes. But racist laws blocked Chinese New Zealanders from voting until the 1950s.

💡political instability

Alongside dynamic economic shifts, colonial politics lurched between factions like centralists and provincialists early on, while the Liberals had a 21 year monopoly until defeated in 1912. New parties like Reform and Labour emerged from major strikes, showing political power shifting with economic forces.

💡prohibition movement

The prohibition movement sought to ban alcohol which they saw as a destabilizing frontier society problem behind crime and poverty. Prohibitionists made up a faction supporting women's suffrage in 1893. But their aims failed - a 1917 no-license referendum saw voters reject countrywide prohibition.

💡refrigerated shipping

William Davidson created the first viable system to ship refrigerated meat and dairy to Britain, revolutionizing NZ's economy in 1882. Exports of meat, cheese and butter created jobs and reliance on pastoral farming. It shows NZ profiting through innovation and ties with imperial Britain.

💡long depression

The long depression from 1878-1890s caused poverty and hardship when overseas banks cut lending and the economy crashed. The government work schemes meant to stimulate economic activity during this harsh depression failed when funds dried up, showing the economy's vulnerability.

💡freezing works

Meat freezing works sprung up after 1882 to package sheep carcasses for export. They generated employment for unskilled labourers and demand for more intensive sheep farming. The video depicts this as a lifeline during depression, entwining farming, manufacturing and Maori land loss.

💡sheep carcasses

Sheep carcasses were the first refrigerated export product that built New Zealand economic growth in partnership with Britain. Exports of boxed lamb and mutton underpinned the success of refrigerated shipping - later dairy exports took over as the mainstay.

Highlights

Vogel used borrowed money to fund infrastructure projects like roads, railways and telegraphs, boosting the economy but contributing to a worse crash later.

The Long Depression lasted over 10 years after an international banking crisis, causing unemployment and poverty in NZ.

Refrigerated shipping allowed large-scale meat and dairy exports, revolutionizing NZ's economy.

Voting rights were initially limited to property-owning men, largely excluding Māori.

Special Māori parliamentary seats were created, but still limited Māori power.

Women campaigned for suffrage rights using petitions, leading NZ to grant women the vote in 1893.

The Liberal Party held power for 21 years, passing social reforms but also anti-Chinese laws.

Compulsory arbitration courts were created to resolve disputes between workers and employers.

The Great Strike of 1913 was defeated, leading unions to focus more on elections than revolution.

The NZ Labor Party formed after the strike, starting a new political era.

Huge numbers of European colonists migrated to NZ, desperately wanting land.

Vogel started as a provincialist arguing for North and South islands to be separate, but switched to promote central government.

Giving Māori parliamentary seats in 1867 was political cover to limit Māori power.

Nearly half of convictions in early colonial NZ were for drunkenness, spurring calls for prohibition.

Chinese migrants faced racist laws like poll taxes and bans on citizenship until the 1950s.

Transcripts

okay so you're a Parker politician and

the late 18-hundreds

you've just tipped the balance of power

away from through net the fina way into

your hands

what are you do next what kind of

society do you live in how do you pay

for the roads and railways what happens

if there's a global economic crash and

of course do you let anyone other than

rich white guys make these decisions

chaotic oh so I'm Lee madam and

McLaughlin and I'm William right and

this is the Altera history show

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it's not easy setting up a new nation in

early on in our colonial history it was

a big fight among Parker over how New

Zealand should be governed there were

two sides the provincial ascend the

centralist the Preventionist thought

each province should run itself in the

centralist thought there should be one

big central government one of the

leading centrists was a guy called

Julius Vogel funnily enough Vogel

started his career as a hardcore

provincial astana Tago it even argued

the North and South Islands to become

different countries some South Island

has still won their to happen one of the

things which convinced Vogel to become a

centralist was money the New Zealand

Wars who left the government badly

indeed and banks would only lend money

to a strong central government in 1869

Vogel's essentialist smashed the

provincial ists he was made treasurer

and promised to borrow six million

pounds over ten years Vogel used that

money to launch what they called the

grand go-ahead policy building roads

bridges railways and telegraph lines

government spending bolstered a flagging

economy local factories started building

things like railway wagons on government

contracts unemployment fell average

wages rose it also helped that wall

prices were skyrocketing with the end of

the American Civil War

Keamy growing wall was no longer

undercut by cheap slave made cotton the

centralist had won the argument the new

railways and telegraph lines broke down

some of the barriers of distance

it made central government more workable

in 1876 the provincial governments were

officially abolished by this point the

government owed more than 18 million

pounds but Vogel wasn't worried the

economy was booming I'd be able to pay

back their money soon all the spending

was about to come back to bite us it was

the beginning of the long addition the

long depression is called long because

it lasted more than 10 years in 1878

there was an international credit crisis

it was a little bit like the 2008 global

financial crisis banks stopped lending

money demand for goods and services

dropped before the crash the New Zealand

government had directly employed a lot

of people through

work programs but now there was no money

to fund those programs so the work dried

up families got desperate women and

children worked long hours and sweet

shops for tiny wages people saw their

wedding rings in tools some mothers

sewed clothes from flour bags for their

kids in some kids even slipped in the

streets under old sacks some settlers

sent petitions to Australia in the

United States begin for help to leave

one of the petitions seed we the

undersigned being in every sense of the

word genuine working men having been

miserably betrayed by false

representations of New Zealand

immigration agents lecturers and printed

pamphlets are now facing the better

reality of parading the streets hungry

and ill shod with no prospect of a

better future the settlers were in shock

that come to New Zealand to escape

grinding poverty in the UK now it had

followed them here

Vogl got a lot of blame for this and

people were writing to the newspaper

saying he should be strung up by the

heels for his life okay so here's a

question was it good or bad that the

Vogel administration spent so much money

on infrastructure I mean on one hand

that spending lifted New Zealand out of

an economic slump but on the other hand

it contributed to a much worse economic

slump a few years later on the other

hand we still use a lot of that

infrastructure today it's contributed

billions upon billions of dollars to the

New Zealand economy but on the other

other other hand it helped accelerate

the destructions of the New Zealand's

natural environment but on the other

other other other William no stop stop

stop stop okay the good news at this

point in the story is that a historical

hero is on the horizon a savior of the

New Zealand economy a champion which

beats at you annoyingly when you leave

its door open the fridge people had

experimented transporting meat and dairy

overseas using refrigerated ships for a

long time but they were either too

expensive or too unreliable that is

until a meager landowner called William

Davidson gave it a try Davidson looked

at these failed experiments made some

improvements in

virtually concluded a whole ship into a

giant sailing refrigerator that's right

we invented a floating fridge

a freezing frigate an icy arc on the

15:53 1882 the Dunedin sit sailed from

Port charmers with a cargo of nearly

5,000 sheep carcasses 250 kings of

butter here pheasant turkey chicken in

two thousand two hundred and twenty six

sheep tons hmm sheep tongues it worked

perfectly the first voyage turned a

profit of four thousand seven hundred

pounds the meat export business

revolutionized New Zealand's economy

sheep farmers had a totally new income

stream it used to be that farmers with

too many sheep would literally drive

them off a cliff in unto the sea now

they could sell sheep to the meatworks

for money and those meatworks created

thousands of new jobs for unemployed

workers theory farm started to become

more common - which opened up another

new stream of exports and jobs

refrigeration single-handedly saved our

economy it's still really important

today we export about a hundred thousand

tons of chilled meat every year

plus another eight hundred thousand tons

of butter and cheese okay so

economically we've gone from boom to

bust and back to boom and it's gonna be

a bit of a theme in New Zealand's

economy on the political front there was

also a whole lot of instability New

Zealand's first election was an 1853 and

from the start voting rights were based

on two things one you have to be a man

because you know patriarchy - you have

to be a householder that first rules

pretty straightforward but the second

one gets a bit tricky a householder was

someone who either owned or rented a

place to live and that property had to

be worth something it couldn't just be a

random tent on a beach the justification

was that this rule ensured voters had a

stake in the future of New Zealand if

people owned or rented a home it

suggested they were putting down roots

they weren't just travelling workers or

sailors this rule also prevented

virtually all Maori mean from voting

that's because Maori did an only lam

privately

owned it communally as part of the Erie

your habbo this was at least partially

deliberate Maori outnumbered Europeans

and lots of voting districts in the

colonial government didn't want to give

those Maori too much political power

particularly given they were still

trying to strong-arm Maori into handing

over the land we'll be talking more

about that in the next episode the first

change to New Zealand's voting system

came when gold was discovered in New

Zealand and the late 1850s gold miners

weren't householders so they couldn't

vote but they still had to pay quite a

lot of taxes over in Australia - had

rioted over this injustice and the New

Zealand government was worried the same

thing might happen here so in 1860 they

granted voting rights to any man with a

prospecting or business licence but they

created a new problem most of the gold

mining was happening in the South

Ireland which means the South now had a

lot more votes and a lot more political

power people in the North Island weren't

happy about that so in 1867 Parliament

set up for special Maori electorates 3

in the north and one in the South they

granted all Maori men the right to vote

for in peace and those electorates the

new muddy fix dealt with that

north-south power imbalance plus there

was one more reason to give multi voting

rights back in Britain the authorities

were a bit unhappy with the colonial

governments confiscation of Maori land

and its plans to obtain more land

through legislation giving martí seats

in parliament was kind of political

cover because look you know we can't be

oppressing the natives we've given them

seats in parliament but they're only

weak so far based on the population

numbers they should have been 15 Maori

MPs limiting Maori to four seats was a

deliberate move to restrict their power

so in 1889 that property restrictions

were completely abolished pretty much

all men could vote Maori and pocky are

the rich and the poor but in the minds

of a lot of Kiwis this created another

kind of problem a lot of the men who

could now vote were very heavy drinkers

alcohol was a big problem in colonial

New Zealand nearly half of all convert

actions between 1855 and 1870 were for

drunkenness heavy drinking seems to go

hand in hand with a frontier society you

see very similar concerns in Australia

and the United States around the same

time lots of women in a fairly big chunk

of me wanted alcohol completely bent in

this political alliance helped in New

Zealand become the first country in the

world where women could vote one of the

leaders of the alcohol prohibition

movement was Kate Shepard the New

Zealand head of the women's Christian

Temperance Union Temperance is just an

old-timey word meaning no drinking

Kate chip had argued that if women got

the vote they could help elect

prohibitionists MPs who could then pass

laws restricting the sale of alcohol and

alcohol was just part of it

Shepherd and their fellow suffragists

argued that woman could be a voice for

morality in parliament cleansing the

corruption which many believed had

infected New Zealand politics meanwhile

Maori women like me tt-time Monica had

lobbied for women to vote and stand in

Te Kotahitanga a national pan tribal

Maori parliament which had sprung up in

the wake of the New Zealand Wars people

like meat eater time Monica hear argued

that why he near Modi should also have

voting rights in the New Zealand

Parliament given they owned land just

like Maori men she in other way he near

joined forces with the peracare

suffragists but the ante suffragists

argued giving women the vote was

dangerous like here's a typical

anti-surface cartoon we've got a man in

a dress he's looking all sad dinners

burning the cat's got unto the milk jug

the kids are fighting the whole fabric

of societies falling to pieces the nd

suffragists argued women didn't even

want the vote it was just a radical

fringe it was stirring up trouble but

that was an argument Kate Shepherd knew

how to win she and her fellow activists

gathered signatures from women all

around the country demanding the vote in

1891 the first petition had 9,000

signatures there more than doubled the

next year and finally in 1893 they

collected 32,000 signatures almost a

quarter of the adult pakkir women living

in New Zealand signed it the male

politician

were forced to listen on September the

19th 1893 New Zealand became the first a

self-governing country in the world

where women could vote it's one of the

greatest moments of our history a moment

where we genuinely live the world but we

still had a big chunk of the population

who were blocked from voting Chinese New

Zealanders the Gold Rush has brought a

lot of Chinese miners to New Zealand and

the colonial government was not at all

happy about that

all through the late 1800s politicians

passed racist laws aimed at stopping

more Chinese people from coming to New

Zealand

there were poll taxes and reading tests

and rules blocking people of Chinese

descent from getting pensions and just

keep in mind these laws didn't just

affect Chinese migrants they often

affected Chinese New Zealanders whose

families had lived in this country for

multiple generations rules which blocked

people of Chinese descent being

naturalized as New Zealand citizens

stayed in force until the 1950s there

was only then that most Chinese Kiwis

got the right to vote

opening up voting to more people in the

late 18-hundreds wheat hand in hand with

the rise of New Zealand's first

organized political party the Liberal

Party the Liberal Party formed under the

leadership of a guy called Richard Sidon

or as he was better known King dick not

a joke that was his actual real nick

name sidan was a hardcore populist and

the Liberals were heavily supported by

unionized workers unions had seen a big

boost during the long depression as they

fought for better working conditions and

pay the support of unions helped the

Liberal Party win elections all the way

from 1891 to 1912 21 years they were the

longest serving government in New

Zealand history the Liberals passed laws

for shorter working hours in old-age

pensions they cracked down on child

labour reform tax laws and expanded

local industry but also some of them

were hardcore racists

was the Liberals who passed a lot of

those nasty anti Chinese laws the

Liberals goal was to support work

but discourage class conflict they were

particularly keen to avoid huge strikes

which were crippling entire industries

in the UK and USA leading to violent

government crackdowns so in 1894 the

Liberals created compulsory arbitration

courts to handle disputes between

employers and workers but in the early

nineteen hundred's

those courts refused to raise wages too

much inflation workers pays a stop

keeping pace with the rising costs of

food in housing this make those workers

pretty angry so they started to join a

more aggressive organisation than you

Zealand Federation of Labor the red

fence the red feeds refused to accept

the rulings of the arbitration courts

instead they got their members to strike

illegally hoping to force employers to

meet their demands a lot of red fed

leaders were full-on revolutionaries

they wanted the labor unions to seize

power from the capitalists oppressors

and finally give true freedom to the

working man but for most New Zealand

voters the revolutionary rhetoric of the

red feeds was a step too far by 1912

some voters had abandoned the Liberals

in the Reform Party came to power reform

was a conservative anti-union party

which had crystallized around a farmer

turned politician called William se

Macy's administration cracked down on

the red feeds in the red feeds responded

by launching the biggest strike New

Zealand had ever seen the great strike

of 1913 15,000 men walked off the job

the ports of New Zealand's largest city

shut down trade ground to a halt mines

closed all over the country violence

fights broke out between special

constables and angry strikers but the

read feeds didn't have the money or the

political support to keep the strike

going and by the end of 1913 that

petered out this was a massive defeat

for the labour movement but it taught

them an important lesson most New

Zealanders were put off by the hardcore

tactics and rhetoric of the red feeds

they thought workers should win rights

through elections and negotiation not

through violence or revolution the

leaders of the early labor movement took

the

listen on board from now on that focus

on winning power through politics three

years out of the great strike of 1913

those leaders formed the New Zealand

Labor Party and began a new era of New

Zealand politics so while all this

wrangling was going on around voting and

economics and politics

there was another huge shift taking

place all Tarawa was being transformed

huge numbers of Europeans were migrating

to the new colony of New Zealand and

there was one thing all those colonists

desperately wanted led next episode

we'll be talking about those colonists

and how they got hold of their land

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