Pestilence has not been one of New Zealand's be-setting problems. Even in the earliest days of settlement, when preventive and remedial medical services were limited, a salubrious climate and austere living conditions were guarantees of a reasonable standard of physical health. Between 1910 and 1920 the incidence of smallpox warranted preventive measures on a national scale, and similar widespread immunisation and precautionary methods were found necessary in respect of diphtheria at various times since the turn of the century. Infantile paralysis or, as it later came to be called, poliomyelitis, was also responsible for varying death rolls, and from the 1920s onwards it developed on occasion to the point where restrictions on school attendance and public assembly were necessary. The overall death roll, however, was not high by epidemic standards.
It was in 1918 that the greatest epidemic in the history of the country swept New Zealand with grim results. It was a world-wide catastrophe, and in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia it was estimated that 720,000,000 were affected, with a death roll of 21,000,000. In New Zealand in the summer months of 1918–19 the deaths from this plague form of pneumonic influenza were in excess of 6,700. A total of 5,516 Europeans died, and Maori fatalities were estimated at over 1,200. Deaths in Auckland City were 1,680 and in Wellington 1,406. The disease was most virulent in centres of population, and in a matter of months accounted for more lives than those lost from influenza and associated ailments in the preceding 46 years.
The first impact of the epidemic on New Zealand was felt at Auckland after the arrival from overseas of the ship Niagara. The New Zealand Expeditionary Force serving overseas had suffered casualties, notably on the “death ship”, the Tahiti, en route to the European theatre of war, but the first victims at home were those stricken in Auckland. Prompt precautions were taken throughout the country, but the disease swept right through the Dominion. The Niagara's passenger list included the then Prime Minister, the Hon. W. F. Massey, and his Minister of Finance, Sir Joseph Ward, returning from a war mission in Europe. When nearing the New Zealand coast, the ship radioed a message that over 100 of her crew were stricken with influenza, and asked for urgent hospital accommodation for 25 serious cases. It is still a matter of speculation whether the presence on board of important passengers influenced the authorities to grant a clearance to the ship when its entire complement should have been held in strict quarantine, but the fact is that after the vessel berthed, the plague overran New Zealand in a matter of weeks, and was never appreciably checked until it had run its course in the autumn of the following year.
A Commission of Inquiry, headed by Mr Justice Denniston, later found that “the epidemic was introduced from outside New Zealand and there is a strong presumption that the clearing of the ship Niagara was the cause”.
by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.