Today in History

1918 Massive prohibition petition presented to Parliament

A petition with more than 240,000 signatures was presented to Parliament, demanding an end to the manufacture and sale of alcohol in New Zealand.

Since the 1880s the campaign for the prohibition of alcohol had developed into a powerful mass movement. Its supporters promoted sobriety as a ‘patriotic duty' during the First World War. In 1915 and 1916 nearly 160,000 New Zealanders signed petitions calling for six o'clock closing. In 1917 the government agreed to restrict opening hours in order to increase efficiency in the wartime workforce.

The petition of 1918 indicated continuing strong support for the prohibition lobby. The earlier closing hours introduced in 1917 now became permanent. The liquor trade offered little resistance as reduced opening hours had 'drawn some of the sting out of the wider Prohibition movement' and were preferable to a total ban.

In a special referendum held in April 1919 and again at the general election in December 1919 prohibition was only narrowly defeated. The cause continued to enjoy strong support at the polls throughout the 1920s.

Image:  Prohibition poster

1865 Native Land Court created

The Native Land Court was one of the key products of the 1865 Native Lands Act. It changed traditional communal land-holding into individual title, making it easier to purchase Maori land.

Coming a little more than a year after the Waikato War, the Land Court was to achieve what many believed had not been accomplished on the battlefield – acquiring the land necessary to satisfy an insatiable settler appetite. The operations of the Land Court affected Maori more than any other colonial institution. When old rivalries were played out in court the ultimate benefactors were Pakeha. Historian Judith Binney described the Native Lands Act as an 'act of war'.

The court was required to name no more than ten owners, regardless of the size of a block. All other tribal members who may have been owners were effectively dispossessed. The newly designated owners held their lands individually, not communally as part of (or trustees for) a tribal group. They could manage it, and sell it, as individuals and for their own benefit.

The first chief judge of the Court, Francis Fenton, maintained that judgements could only be based on evidence before the Court, thus ensuring all claimants had to attend whether they wanted to or not. Many Maori racked up large legal bills as a consequence. Those coming from out of town also faced the extra costs of food and accommodation. Lawyers, shopkeepers, surveyors and the like were willing to grant Maori credit while awaiting the outcome of their case. These expenses forced many Maori to sell the land they had been defending in order to settle their debts.

This process of alienating Maori land concerned some settler politicians. In 1863 Henry Sewell, the Attorney-General, resigned his post in protest against the confiscation policy. Back in office in 1865, he believed the Native Land Court was designed to:

destroy if possible, the principle of communism which ran through the whole of their institutions, upon which their social system was based, and which stood as a barrier in the way of all attempts to amalgamate the Native race into our own social and political system.

The decline in Maori land holdings was a feature of the late 19th century. Between 1870 and 1892 five million acres of Maori land was transferred to Pakeha ownership. Whereas at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 Maori owned almost all of the North Island, by 1892 they owned a little over a third and of this, a quarter was leased to Pakeha. A further three million acres of Maori land would be sold by 1900.

Image: Maori Land Court day, Ahipara