CAPITULO III: ANÁLISIS COMPETITIVO
10. BENCHMARKING COMPETITIVO
10.2. FACTORES CRÍTICOS DE ÉXITO
THREATENED3
1Opunake Times, 21 August, 1914, p. 2.
2Patea and Waverley Press (PWP), 17 August, 1914, p. 2.
3 Eltham Argus (EA), 12 August, 1914, p. 4. For other references to a ‘great’ and global war, a ‘War of Nations’, see Stratford Evening Post (SEP), 7, 11, 18 August, 1914, p. 4. Taranaki Herald
Such headlines suggested that this war was not just another European conflict, but perhaps ‘the greatest war that had ever been fought in the history of the world’.4 Faced with what seemed to be a ‘Great World War’ looming Taranaki
mobilised with urgency.5
On the first day of the war, Prime Minister William Massey spoke to a crowd of ‘several thousands’ from the steps of old Parliament Buildings in Wellington.6 ‘We will be called upon to make sacrifices’, he said, and ‘I am
confident that those sacrifices will be made, individually and collectively …. My advice at this trying moment is to keep cool, stand fast, and do your duty.’7 A
trickling down of messages soon followed Massey’s address. Lady Liverpool, wife of the Governor-General, appealed to women to organise fund raising committees under the auspices of local mayoresses. John Bird Hine, Stratford’s Member of Parliament (MP), sent mayor Kirkwood a telegram from the government asking for donations of horses and gifts of money for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). At the patriotic demonstrations held throughout Taranaki during the first week of the war, mayors informed people of what was needed to raise items necessary for defence of the Empire. This chapter will assess the monetary and material response by people in Taranaki to the empire’s call during the first two years of the war when the voluntary spirit was at its height.
Historians have always recognised, if only in a cursory manner, that ‘raising the necessary’ for defence of the empire required people to voluntarily commit themselves to the war effort.8 In recent years historians have been
4 Hawera and Normanby Star (HNS), 12 August, 1914, p. 5. Councillor E. Dixon reportedly told that to a crowd in Hawera.
5SEP, 8 August, 1914, p. 5. 6SEP, 6 August, 1914, p. 2. 7 ibid.
8 Erik Olssen, ‘Waging War: The Home Front 1914-1918’, in An Illustrated History of New Zealand
1820-1920, Judith Binney, Judith Bassett, Erik Olssen, (eds), Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1990, p. 308. P. J. Gibbons, ‘The Climate of Opinion’, in The Oxford History of New Zealand, W. H. Oliver, (ed.), Wellington: Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 313. An exception to Olssen and Gibbons is
reassessing patriotic activities of the Great War.9 Bruce Scates sees Australia’s
wartime volunteers as a ‘vast army’ of ‘unpaid workers’, whose ‘war work was much more than a tiresome tally of socks, balaclavas and pyjamas’, rather they invested ‘enormous emotional labour … in even the most prosaic commodities’.10 In short, they could be likened to an industrial work force that
drew heavily on the total amount of resources found in the local area.
People focused initially on ‘WHAT WE MAY DO’.11 Some
understanding about how to operate in a war crisis had already been established during the South African War.12 Besides men enlisting in the army,
this meant management of resources, providing horses, materials, and raising money. Len Jury, a labourer from Upland Road, motivated by economic opportunism thinly disguised as a patriotic contribution to the war effort, ‘took his horse “Punch” up to Inglewood to try and sell him to the Government’, but ‘Punch’ was rejected for being too heavy.13 Army regulations required horses to
be of a suitable standard for both cavalry and artillery purposes.14 John Hucker,
Simon Johnson, ‘The Home Front. Aspects of Civilian Patriotism in New Zealand During the First World War’, MA Thesis in History, Massey University, 1975, especially pp. 28-31, 33-5, 45- 69.
9 In Canada, Desmond Morton, Fight or Pay. Soldiers’ Families in the Great War, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004. See especially chapter 3, ‘The Patriotic Fund’, pp. 50-89. In Australia, Bruce Scates, ‘The Unknown Sock Knitter: Voluntary Work, Emotional Labour, Bereavement and the Great War’, Labour History, 81 (2001), pp. 29-51. In Britain, Simon Fowler, ‘War Charity Begins at Home’, History Today, 49:9 (1999), pp. 17-23. In Australia, Melanie Oppenheimer, ‘Alleviating Distress. The Lord Mayor’s Patriotic Fund in New South Wales, 1914-1920’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 81:1 (1995), pp. 53-75.
10 Scates, p. 31.
11SEP, 11 August, 1914, p. 4.
12 See Army Department (AD) 31/345 Patriotic Funds. South African War 1899-1902. General File. Archives New Zealand (ANZ). John Crawford with Ellen Ellis, To Fight For the Empire, Auckland: Reed Books, 1999, pp. 25-31.
13 Jane Earp Diary, 26 August, 1914. MS 218/1 J7 in Fred Earp Papers MS 218. (Puke Ariki). 14 Horses had to be of ‘good cobby stamp, and between rising 5 and 8 years.’ SEP, 26 August, 1914, p. 6. ‘Cobby’ refers to a small, thick-set horse. ‘Horses for Mounted Rifles must be from four to seven years of age, practically sound, from 14.2 to 15.2 hands in height, but animals under 14.3 hands will only be accepted if otherwise specially suitable. No greys, duns, or light chestnuts will be taken. Geldings are preferable to mares!’ Colonel Robin cited by Christopher Pugsley, Gallipoli. The New Zealand Story, Auckland: Sceptre, 1984, p. 47. British army specifications for a light artillery horse were between ’15 hands two inches to 16 hands two inches’ on height and weighing ‘about 1200 pounds’ and for a heavy artillery horse to weigh
who farmed property on Surrey Road near Tariki, organised a working bee on his farm to dig twenty acres (8 hectares) of carrots, after which three truckloads were sent to Wellington.15 Farmers at Waverley contributed 10 bags of oats, 20
bags of chaff, 7 horses, a saddle and a bridle.16 The Stratford Defence Committee
sent 11 saddles and bridles, 16 cavalry and two artillery horses.17 The Defence
authorities in Wellington were inundated with 50 hams from the Inglewood Bacon Company; 200 hams from the South Taranaki Bacon Company; 10 boxes of butter from the North Taranaki Dairy Company; 2 ‘Ambulance outfits’ from Manaia School; 2 tons of cheese from the Eltham Dairy Company; artificial teeth from the Stratford Empire Defence League; 61 pairs of socks from St Andrew’s Presbytery in Waverley; 3 trucks of cattle and 7 trucks of sheep from the Waverley Defence Fund Committee.18
In August 1914, the government passed the first of two War Contributions Validation Acts so that the heavy influx of contributions to the Empire Defence Fund could be controlled. At the local level the response required focused work directed by committees so that goals could be systematically achieved through coordinated activities. At a meeting in Stratford, that was ‘exceedingly representative’ of the district, a management structure was organised ‘in connection with the share this district will be called upon to take in the Empire work’.19 From that meeting a local war fund was
established as part of the Government’s Empire Defence Fund initiative. A central committee was appointed, initially called an emergency committee, later the Empire Defence League, through which:
‘not less than 1400 pounds.’ Horses had to be less than 20 years old. Peter Young, ‘The War Horses’, in Purnell’s History of the First World War, 8:1 (1971), p. 3154.
15SEP, 20 August, 1914, p. 8. AD 46/62/9 Empire Defence Fund 1914 (ANZ). 16PWP, 17 August, 1914, p. 3. AD 46/62/9.
17 AD 46/62/9. 18 ibid.
all contributions, donations and collections will go. Another committee will direct the working guilds, and a men’s country collecting committee is a special branch of the organisation, and also one to control, direct, and assist in connection with entertainments that may be devised for augmenting the fund.20
More sub-committees emerged from that meeting. One attended to the requirements of Lady Liverpool’s appeal, and another advised the community on how to promote activities in the best interests of the local war effort.
During the first fortnight of the war local meetings organised Taranaki’s patriotic work force. The Stratford Patriotic Committee was formed at a public meeting convened by mayor Kirkwood on 10 August 1914. During its first year of operation that committee worked towards equipping soldiers, then assisting with recruiting, attending to the requirements of soldiers in camp and on active service, and providing relief to soldiers and their dependants. Elsewhere virtually every locality had some form of committee in connection with the war effort. Toko had a branch of the Lady Liverpool League, Waitara had a Patriotic League, and workers engaged on public works at Kohuratahi and Tahora established their own war fund. A ‘work-force’ is evident in the activities listed in the annual report and balance sheet of the Stratford Ladies’ Patriotic Committee. From its inception on 4 August 1915 to July 1917, the ‘workers’ and ‘helpers’ of that committee ‘made ninety leather waist-coats’, sent equipment for ten hospital beds, made two bales of sand bags, operated a market and sewing guild on a weekly basis, collected and donated funds for military hospitals, the Belgians, the Red Cross, as well as ‘comforts for [the] sick in Egypt’. They packed ‘120 parcels’ per month for the soldiers, and in addition to the numerous ‘housewives’ and ‘holdalls’, the committee since October 1916, had made and sent 480 anti-vermin shirts to the front.21
20 ibid.
When the Taranaki Herald’s resident agent in Stratford visited the depot of the Empire Defence League in August 1914, he described it as ‘the briskest business in town’ because:
parcels of underclothing, caps, wrappers, etc. are constantly arriving from the working guilds, being sorted, listed and stowed handy for distribution. A motorcar and its owner are attached to the establishment for transport service, telephone and electric light laid on, and everything ready for a long campaign.22
The lines of support, transport, communication, and the stockpiling of materials for general issue reflected precision and military organisation. Like standing armies of old, the patriotic workforce asserted itself over the local people with a sense of urgent, business-like thoroughness. In Inglewood, that assertion took the form of an inclusive and ‘systematic canvas’ of the whole district, where ‘every inch of main road and every byroad should be traversed, and every farmer and every resident visited so that none would be able to say they never had an opportunity of contributing to the fund’.23 Women workers from the
Lady Liverpool League who employed a systematic, yet voluntary division of labour invaded Patea district :
Mesdames Pearce and Whitehead offered to canvass the country districts northwards of Patea for subscriptions and material. Mrs Shield offered to undertake the work of collecting funds in the Whenuakura District. Other canvassers were appointed as under:- Mrs Booth: Whenuakura Hill to Bridge. Mrs Glenny and Mrs Grainger: Bedford Street to the Quay. Mrs Shield: Whenuakura School to Little Taranaki. Mrs Robbie: Victoria Street to Borough Boundary. Mrs Adams and Mrs Holtham: Victoria Street to Bedford Street. Mrs Death: Victoria Street.24
Women workers from the Patriotic League in Waitara aimed to visit every house each week to collect a small sum of money ‘during the currency of
22TH, 14 August, 1914, p. 6. 23IRWA, 14 August, 1914, p. 2.
the war’.25 When not collecting money they met during the evenings in sewing
bees at each other’s homes, or in the supper rooms of the local town hall. During the day, in Stratford, for example, the Lady Liverpool committee opened a shop where goods were received and kits full of comforts prepared for distribution to local volunteer soldiers in the NZEF. By mid-August, 57 volunteer soldiers had received full kits that included:
1 pair blankets, 2 over-shirts, 2 under-shirts, 2 pairs under-pants, 2 pairs socks, 1 towel, 1 kit bag, 1 hold-all furnished with knife, fork and spoon, 1 housewife (furnished) [sewing kit, otherwise known as a hussiff], 1 clasp knife, 1 lanyard [short rope], stationery, ink pencil, shaving glass.26
The material items were utilitarian, but also comforting representations of the home and domesticity. The blankets provided security and warmth; the change in clothing and the shaving glass upheld the social mores of cleanliness and standards of appearance; the ‘hold-all’ and the ‘housewife’ discouraged slovenliness; while the stationery items linked the soldier with home. Absent were cigarettes and playing cards. The kits demonstrated thoughtfulness in patriotic work.
Anne Else has described women’s patriotic work as ‘laborious’.27 Perhaps
it was, but also a way that women could fight back at the enemy.28 The ‘pile of
24PWP, 12 August, 1914, p. 3. 25EA, 12 August, 1914, p. 5. 26SEP, 20 August, 1914, p. 8.
27 Anne Else, (ed.), Women Together. A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand, Wellington: Daphne Brassell Associates Press and Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 1993, p. 293. Else states that 568 women’s patriotic organisations existed in New Zealand during the Great War, and it could even have been as high as 920. See p. 292.
28 An example from Ashburton in the South Island shows this was a war fought by another means:
‘When they [Germans] sank the Lusitania and murdered Edith Cavill [sic], that made our Mother so angry that she took off after them in the only way she knew how. She cast about for a weapon. She couldn’t find anything deadly that she could wield, but she could and did find something that demanded all her zeal. She flung herself into Red Cross work’.
shirts, singlets and hold-alls’ in the Patea town hall, for example, showed that ‘not many idle moments had been passed’, at least in south Taranaki.29 It was
considered purposeful work, judging by the numbers of women who participated. For thirteen women in New Plymouth, twenty in Waverley, thirty- three in Patea, and twenty in Eltham who comprised the Lady Liverpool League committees of those towns, as well as twenty guilds in the Stratford district, war work provided women with an enhanced role in the local and national community.30 Research also shows that patriotic work provided a ‘valuable
social outlet for women’ who lived in ‘small and sometimes isolated rural’ communities.31
Taranaki had yet to experience any mourning, which they knew from their memory of the South African War would come. Anxieties could be minimised if faced together with some conviviality. People in central Taranaki had done that before in the immediate pre-war period. The Stratford Municipal Band had given a benefit performance in Victoria Park for a ‘distressed family’, which raised a small sum of money; and at Lowgarth, a farewell function had been held for a family that had fallen on hard times.32 Singing, violin solos,
sword dancing, recitations, speeches and dancing ‘until the small hours of the morning’ made that gathering in Lowgarth ‘most enjoyable’.33 The Taranaki
Herald’s resident agent in Stratford observed a seemingly incongruous aspect of the war effort. ‘It is instructive to note what high spirits seem to prevail in the town. In fact, it would appear that a state of war is productive of a very
Alison Ryde and M.B. Thompson, (eds), The Essays on Pioneer Women. Ashburton Centenary, 1878-1978, Ashburton: Bruce Printing Co., 1978, p. 1.
29PWP, 17 August, 1914, p. 3.
30 PWP, 12 August, 1914, p. 3. EA, 10 August, 1914, p. 5. SEP, 14 August, 1914, p. 8. TH, 10 August, 1914, p. 7. See Sarah Luxford, ‘‘’Partners in the Welfare of the Nation’’: The Involvement of Cambridge Women in Local Patriotic Organisations During the Great War’, B.A. (Hons) Research Exercise in History at Massey University, 2002. See also Fowler, p. 23.
31 Sonia Inder, ‘Middlemarch 1914-1918’, PGDip.Arts Research Exercise in History, University of Otago, 1992, p. 28. For women in Australia, ‘patriotic work proved an avenue to companionship, it loaned women solace midst the anguish of war.’ Scates, p. 45.
considerable amount of human happiness’.34 A state of war certainly existed,
and ‘we are in for a very serious business’, prophesied a Stratford Evening Post
editorial on the patriotic fund, ‘but it is a blessed thing that we need not always be mourning: difficulties faced cheerfully fade all the more quickly.’35 It is not
surprising then, what the Herald’s resident agent noted. Those same ‘high spirits’ and ‘happiness’ helped characterise the nature of fund raising activities in 1914.
From the second week of the war, people in Stratford and the surrounding district, and ‘Out East’, had no shortage of public and private entertainments to attend. No less than fifteen publicly advertised social activities in aid of the war fund took place in August. Dances were held at Cardiff, Stratford, Midhirst, and Whangamomona; concerts were held at Ngaere, Huiroa, Te Wera and Douglas; Ngaere held a euchre party; Tuna held a social; the Egmont Club held a social and musical evening; a ‘War Tea’ was held in Stratford; 300 people, possibly ‘well-to-do’ folk, attended a garden party at Ngaere, and on Broadway in Stratford: