EL CUADRO COMUNICACIONAL.
ANÁLISIS DE LA COMUNICACIÓN INTERNA
One of the distinguishing features about New Zealand social policy has been a strong held belief that in a rural economy with a small population, there need be no unemployment. As Reeves wrote:
So fashionable has the agrarian cult been, that, at times, to be a townsman has almost been to wear a badge of inferiority ... Manufacturers have been classed as artificialities, professional men as parasites, and artisans roundly termed a race of loafers. Even ... intelligent colonists look upon the growth of their cities with mixed feelings ... (Reeves, 1902: 361).
It was common among farmers, though by no means exclUSively confined to them, to take a position that "unemployment was due to a drift to towns when there was work to be done on the farms" (NZIIA, 1950: 6). It was often claimed that, "the artificial economy of the city . attracted, trapped, and sustained the unfortunate, the weak-willed and the idle" (Fairburn, 1985: 4). The growth of large
towns was something that was not warmly welcomed in New Zealand. The general attitude was that the urban areas, in a primary producing country, were an unnatural growth, and the 'lingering' of men about the town discovered "by New Zealanders from the late 1870s, aroused wide ranging emotional feeling" (NZOYB, 1900: 95). The 'superior' opportunities for independence offered by rural life was that of the wholesome surrounds of the country, particularly for families of the unemployed. These feelings were exacerbated by the fact that the unemployed were most v:sibly concentrated in larger towns, and so was working class militancy and trade unionism (Roth, 1973). Indeed, it was true that many seasonal rural workers wintered over in larger towns for lack of work in rural areas (Martin,
1982).
The dearth of employment opportunities in rural areas during winter did little to change the hostile view associated with larger town and city:
There is too much crowding of labouring men in our towns and cities, and the evil should be checked, for to any ordinary observer it is abundantly evident that men once accustomed to the
dissipations of a town life are, as a rule, for ever unfitted for country labour (Otago Witness of
July 15, 1882).
The 'rural myth' (that in a country with abundant land there need be no unemployment) found expression in state responses to unemployment. Public works projects on which many of the unemployed were given work were more often than not in country districts. Urban based projects were offered to ordinary Department of Public Works and Local Authorities employees (Maxwell, 1937: 54). The 'rural myth' that if the drift to the towns was arrested, the problem of unemployment would be resolved was given credence by occasional complaints by farmers that they were unable to get the number of workers they needed. In a letter to the Minister of Immigration dated 23 January 1882 a farmer in the South Island claimed:
the farmers here are getting quite alarmed at the scarcity of labour and the level of wages demanded. I have made several applications at the Emigration Office and I am told that the applications for men and women is something of extraordinary . . . (Immigration Department, File Number 1M 4/1/2, National Archives).
Workers may have been reluctant to accept such employment in that it may have amounted to a few weeks or perhaps a few days of employment at very low wages and may, in addition, have required them to move from their place of residence into the country without security of employment (Eldred-Grigg, 1990).
It was, however, government policy to discharge relief workers during the shearing, mustering, dipping, harvesting, and threshing times from public works (Immigration Department, File Number, 1M 4/1/2, National Archives). The discharging of relief workers from pUblic works to meet the seasonal labour needs of farmers points to the significant influence farmers had over employment policy. This policy had implications for skil led workers who found themselves unemployed during this time of the year. If they sought government assistance to employment, they were most likely offered seasonal employment.
One policy maker who believed in the 'rural myth' was Mr R. Thompson, Member of Parliament for Marsden, who claimed, "that any attempt to provide work for the unemployed about towns would do more harm than good, and would encourage these people to hang about towns I I (NZPD, 1888: 393). It was
presumed that if the unemployed were given employment on public works projects in the country, the 'unemployed' cry would soon cease in the urban areas (NZPD, 1888).
Even though village settlements hardly belonged in the category of unemployment relief at all, being merely an extension of the accepted principle of state-aided land settlement, they were promoted as such (Hector, 1886). The Stout-Vogel Government began to expedite village settlements as a way of dealing with unemployment. By the time the Stout-Vogel Government was voted out of office some seven hundred and thirty families had been settled under the Village Settlement Scheme (A]HR, 1887 C-1 1). However, the settlement of families was not intended to free them from dependence on wage income, but to provide large landowners with a steady supply of labour. Sinclair (1959) suggests that the land was often as poor as the tenants and as a result wage employment still remained paramount.
POUCY MAKERS'
CONFUCI1NG VIEWS OVER RELIEF WORKS
Although Members of Parliament at this stage could not be classified according to political parties lines, policy makers' views on unemployment could be divided between those who believed that it was not the responsibility of the state to look after the unemployed - that being the realm of private charity - and those who thought that the state was morally responsible to look after those who could not fmd paid employment through no fault their own.
Even though the job creation policy began to take shape during this period, it remained as contentious as unemployment itself among policy makers. Although no supporting empirical evidence could be found, it was claimed by those who took a conservative view that relief works had the consequence of diverting labour from the 'ordinary channels' [that is private sector employment] (Immigration Department, File Number, 1M 4/1/2, National Archives). This claim was based on the belief that the private sector was the legitimate source of employment for the working classes. Mr C. H . Mills, Member of Parliament for Waimea Sounds, claimed that relief works:
do a certain amount of injury . . . and spoil that old self-reliance which is a national
characteristic of the British race . . . by steadily sapping all self-reliance, enterprise and effort,
and ... destroying all individuality (NZPD, 1885: 97).
This assertion was backed by Mr V. Pyke, Member of Parliament for Dunstan, who complained that relief works in his constituency were becoming the only source of employment "for the dilapidated, the lame, and the lazy" (NZPD, 1887: 341). The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Stout, articulated a similar view in 1886 when he told a deputation of the unemployed asking for his Government to create work for them, "it would mean rank socialism, which would ruin the Colony ultimately" (Hamer, 1 965: 83). Socialism was popular among workers especially in its articulation of the workers' 'right to work'.
In 1884, a letter9 written by the Unemployed Committee of Canterbury to the Editor of the
Christchu rch Times
of October 6, 1884 about the plight of the 9 The letter read in part as: Sir, Feeling assured your paper is always open for correspondence connected with the welfare of the working-man, I beg to crave, on behalf of the Committee of the unemployed, short space in this evening's issue to lay a few facts before the general public as to the condition of the mechanics of the city. We made a careful scrutiny in the working-men's quarters, so as to obtain information which we considered would be useful to us in our present agitation. Our results are that ... over five hundred men, of all trades and occupations, at the present time are out of work, and with no prospect of finding any. In two streets alone in the city there were seventy-four families whose breadwinners were unemployed, and the average length of time these seventy-four had been unemployed was eleven weeks .. These men, Sir, are too proud to let the world know their position; so they patiently remain at home, and suffer on. Week by week some article of furniture finds itself in some auction-room ... First his best suit goes, then the wife's best apparel, then the children's ... with the vain hope, week after week, that something is sure to tum up to enable them to redeem them; but, alas, false vision! they are soon lost for ever.
Further, Sir, some have told us, with husky voices, how they have been compelled to take even that most sacred of all things - to any honest husband and wife - that small piece of gold, the wedding ring ... When we know these things, can you, Sir, wonder at us doing all that lies in our power, in a legitimate and constitutional manner, to obtain that which we consider we are justly entitled to - namely, work. Signed E.F. Corley, Secretary of the Unemployed Committee, Christchurch,
unemployed caused an uproar when it was read in Parliament ana resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry. The Royal Commission sub�itted its Report in March 1885. The Report acknowledged the fact that, IIfor the past two years there had been large falling off in the employment for working men, and that there had been considerable increase of distress and impoverishment"
(Canterbury Times,
March 14, 1885). The Report also noted that, lithe expenditure on charitable aid in . . . Canterbury . . . for the year ended June 30, 1884, . . . exceeded that of the previous year by £762"(Canterbury Times,
March 14, 1885). The Commissioners reported that the dearth of employment was partly a result of diminution of expenditure on public works. The Commissioners recommended that i n short-term the Government create work for the unemployed men of Canterbury in an afforest action scheme and village settlements was recommended as a long term solution 10(Canterbury Times,
March 14, 1885).In 1886 the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Stout, responding to demands by some Members of Parliament for relief works to alleviate the distress caused by unemployment, said, " . . . we should not teach the colonists to look to the Government for help whenever depression occurs. If we teach the people to do that, then we shall injure the people, and we shall also injure the Colony" (NZPD, 1886: 6 1 2-61 3). Similarly in 1887 the Minister of Public Works, in the Annual Report to Parliament, said the Department:
... regretted the necessity of Government resources being expended in the past on more or less unproductive undertakings in order to provide work for the unemployed. It is also considered that no relief works that can possibly be avoided should be undertaken, as we believe that it is
detrimental to the interest of the men themselves to keep them employed on purely relief work,
which, after all, is merely another name for charitable aid CAJHR 1887. 0-1 : 1 1 , emphasis
added).
DUring a debate on unemployment in Parliament, the Minister of Public Works claimed that, lithe moment a man begins to fall on that resource he loses his self respect to a very large extent, and if it continued very long it becomes a chronic disease with him: and that we should avoidl1 (NZPD, 1887: 489). Despite these statements, provision of relief works was at a record high judging from expenditure on job creation in the financial year 1886/87 given in table 2 above. The M inister's concerns were certainly not successfu l in restricting state expenditure on relief works.
10 The Report of this Royal Commission was never published by the Government even though its
These views were shared by Mr A.A. Menteath, Member of Parliament for Te Aro who claimed that relief works had, "been sapping the morals of our colonists . . . teaching them to look to government and not their own efforts . . . " (NZPD, 1887: 6). Thus, while a certain amount of job creation could be tolerated, any inclination to expect relief works as a 'right' had to be combated. The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Stout, justified his Government's failure to tackle unemployment by claiming that, "[t]his question of unemployed will rise periodically. You cannot get capital and labour to adjust themselves without it .. . "(NZPD, 1886: 886). In other words, unemployment was viewed as a fact of life, and one which workers were supposed to recognise and accommodate. It was at the same time seen by conservative policy makers as having a positive role to play in the functioning of the capitalist economy by depressing wage levels and making workers succumb to increased exploitation by employers.
Conservative policy makers were not alone in opposing relief works. A Dunedin clergyman, the Reverend. ]. U. Davis, held the view that, "only when distress verged on starvation was government justified in providing relief work" (Davis, 1880: 6). A farmer, in a letter to the editor of the
Lyttelton Times,
October 13, 1884, complained: "... the doctrine that the State is bound to find work for all who cannot find it for themselves, which is, in fact, nothing less than rank Socialism". While not denying that unemployment was to a large extent caused by the depression the country was going through, the unemployed were blamed for failing to save during the good times to meet such circumstances (Bradshaw, 1888).fhe general animosity to relief works among Conservative policy makers and hose who were far removed from the effects of unemployment such as successful )usiness persons reechoed Edward Gibbon Wakefield's view that: , "there need be
10 able-bodied destitution in New Zealand .. . unless through idleness and vice"
:Wakefield, c1890: 42). Some did not hesitate to claim that, "if a healthy man was )overty-stricken the fault was not with the labour market but the man" (Young, L892: 16). There was a strong belief that continued provision of employment on 'e1ief works as demanded by the unemployed would confirm in their ways those who lacked the desire to lead an independent existence, and indeed swell their lUmbers by sapping the self-reliance and initiative of the entire population of the )Oor (A]HR, 1 890 H-25).
3y contrast there were Members of Parliament who held the view that the state lad a responsibility towards the unemployed. Prime Minister, Major Harry �tkinson though drawing his support from Conservative policy makers, in 1883
attempted to introduce legislation for a national insurance scheme against sickness and pauperism. 1 1 The proposed legislation was strongly opposed by political conservatives. "A political committee in Atkinson's electorate warned him against purveying such subversive ideas" (Scholefield, 1946: 140). Scholefield argues that, Atkinson, though a firm believer in individual self-reliance, disagreed with the assertion of classical economists and statesmen in industrial countries that pauperism was caused by lack of thrift amongst the working classes. Atkinson's proposed scheme did not however cover unemployment.
Another prominent statesman who advocated state assistance to the unemployed was Sir George Grey, a founding member of the Liberal Party. Sir George Grey held the view that the state had an obligation to create work for the unemployed able and willing to work, but was opposed to the insurance scheme proposed by Atkinson. Sir George Grey favoured the settlement of the unemployed on the land with state assistance, and advocated that those given employment on relief works, were to be paid wages which were sufficient to enable them to support themselves and their families (NZPD, 1887). Mr W. White, Member of Parliament for Sydenham, claimed that:
. . . a great of deal of the distress had been had been caused through too many immigrants having been brought out; but as the Government had allowed them to come here, it was the duty of the Government to fInd them employment (NZPD, 1884: 307).
Mr White wanted immigration stopped until the labour market was in a position to :ake extra workers and to use the money budgeted for assisted immigration to :::reate work for the unemployed. 1 2 Mr Richard Taylor, Member of Parliament for 5ydenham, speaking for his constituency said, "They [unemployed] are people who have been brought to Canterbury with the funds of the colony, and therefore he colony must look to the case of these men" (NZPD, 1887: 490). Worker'S :lemand for work from the state was rebuffed on the ground that it was not state responsibility to find work for the working classes, but that finding employment was an individual responsibility. These opposing views were demonstrated by way )f government responses to unemployment.
11 The proposed legislation was that provision be made against sickness and pauperism and not
unemployment by compulsory national insurance.
12 Some newly-arrived immigrants, had complained that they were induced to leave their native
land through erroneous impression. They allege that they have been completely misled; that they have been allured to New Zealand only to fInd themselves worse off than they were in Great Britain; that the Colonial Paradise, so vividly pictured to them had turned out to be totally false (Evening Post, January 15, 1880).