The history of the prohibition movement in New Zealand has been determined by its demand that the general question of the sale and consumption of alcoholic liquor be decided by direct popular vote, and by its ultimate aim of a system of State-enforced total abstinence.
The movement first attained national importance and enjoyed its period of greatest political power in the 1890s. Although prohibition and temperance groups were neither united nor altogether clear in their aims before this period, they were, nevertheless, a feature of New Zealand social life from the earliest days of European settlement. There is a report of a temperance meeting being held in the Bay of Islands in 1834, and at Hokianga in 1842 a “teetotal society” was formed by members of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission Station there. The New South Wales liquor laws, nominally in force in New Zealand, were, in fact, freely contravened, and complaints of drunkenness, particularly among Maoris, were frequent.
Sporadic attempts by groups such as the Maine Liquor Law advocates were made to control the production and sale of liquor during the 1840s and 1850s, but these measures were largely ineffective. During the 1860s, however, the widespread drunkenness, which was such a feature of pioneering life, found a response in the foundation of a large number of temperance societies. The New Zealand Independent Order of Rechabites, a total abstinence benefit society, and a Band of Hope Union were both founded in Auckland in 1863. Other early groups were the International Order of Good Templars and the New Zealand division of the Sons and Daughters of Temperance, and, at a later stage, the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
During the 1860s most provinces passed licensing ordinances. Many of these contained a “permissive clause” giving residents the right to secure, by petition, the cancellation or granting of liquor licences in their district.
The next decade saw persistent attempts to secure from the General Assembly legislation that would allow residents of a district to determine whether or not they wished liquor to be sold there. Between 1871 and 1873 nearly 100 petitions, with 30,000 signatures, were presented to the Assembly praying for such legislation. The result was the Licensing Act of 1873, under which liquor sales could be prohibited in a district if this were demanded by a petition signed by two-thirds of its residents. Although a weak measure, the Act was the first stage in the process that was to make the granting of licences, and eventually the question of national prohibition, subject to popular vote. The legislation was drafted by Sir William Fox, who was then Prime Minister. Fox was a fervent advocate of complete prohibition and the first important public figure in New Zealand to be identified with the movement. He was at that stage an extremist on the liquor question, but during the 1870s the temperance movement as a whole was becoming increasingly identified with the demand for total prohibition.
This was probably inevitable in New Zealand at that time. The unrelieved rigours of pioneering life, the opportunities for the production of inferior and highly intoxicating liquor, and the unsettled period of the Maori Wars were conditions that made for hard drinking, and there was inevitably a strong reaction. Drunkenness was commonplace, as contemporary newspapers testify in reports of accidents, deaths, and domestic tragedies. It is scarcely surprising that the extreme demand for total prohibition overwhelmed the gentler, but more reasonable arguments of the temperance reformers.
The 1887 Licensing Act, although the work of a Government anxious to stave off demands for more radical legislation on the liquor question, was a measure that gave the prohibitionists ample scope for their efforts for almost a decade. Under the Act licences were to be issued at the discretion of committees comprising the Resident Magistrate of the district and five others elected by ratepayers. No new licences might be granted unless the ratepayers had determined by majority vote whether the number of licences in the district might be increased. Polls on this question and the elections of committees were held in 1881. Interest in the country generally was not great, and only about one-fifth of those eligible to vote did so. It was clear from this that there was no general disposition to use the vote as a means of achieving licensing reform.
The prohibitionists achieved some notable successes using the machinery set up by the Act. It was established by a series of Court decisions that a committee could, provided it acted in accordance with the law and without predetermination, refuse each application for a licence at the annual meeting and thus abolish the legal sale of liquor in the district. This was done in Roslyn, a suburb of Dunedin, in 1891.
Nevertheless, the prohibitionists failed during the 1880s to make full use of the discretionary powers of licensing committees under the 1881 Act. It was difficult to get prohibitionists elected to committees at all. The veto powers of committees were weakened by their being confined to granting new licences only, and throughout the eighties prohibitionists campaigned to extend the licensing polls to cover the reduction and abolition of licences. But the most serious deterrent to decisive action by committees was the threat of costs from successfully challenged decisions in the Courts. Not all committees were as fortunate as that of Roslyn, whose action was upheld in the Courts. The most controversial case was that of the Sydenham (Christchurch) Licensing Committee which, after a hard-fought battle, was elected with a majority of prohibitionists. The chairman was the Rev. Leonard Isitt, one of the leading prohibitionists of the time. Isitt was assisted in the campaign by T. E. Taylor, then a young man, and later to earn a national reputation as a brilliant debater and the chief spokesman for the prohibition cause in Parliament. The Sydenham Licensing Committee refused to renew any of the eight licences in the district. The decision was challenged in the Courts, which ruled against the committee. The decision was reversed on appeal, but the Supreme Court finally ruled for the licensees, finding that a majority of the committee had acted “from bias and predetermination” and had not considered the matter “honestly in a judicial spirit”. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the members of the committee had to pay 700 in costs. This, and other similar cases, deterred committees from vigorous use of their powers in pursuit of prohibition principles.
To compensate for these setbacks in the campaigns of the prohibitionists, the triennial elections of licensing committees were strengthening the belief that popular control of the liquor trade could be achieved. The extension of this control was the principle demand of the prohibition forces during the 1880s.
These forces were greatly strengthened during this period by the founding of the New Zealand Alliance for the Suppression and Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic, which was founded at a conference in Wellington in February 1886, Sir William Fox being elected the first president. The emergence of this national body gave new encouragement and unity to scattered groups throughout the country and it became possible, for the first time, to organise and press the demands of prohibitionists on a national scale.
These demands were stated succinctly in the alliance's constitution:
The abolition and prohibition of the liquor traffic in New Zealand by the direct vote of the people; and in order thereto,
To obtain from Parliament such legislation as will give the people absolute power over the liquor traffic.
To secure the return to Parliament of such candidates, irrespective of party, as will support these objects.
The stress on popular control of the trade and on political action was clear.
Public feeling in favour of prohibition grew apace in the eighties. The alliance carefully attuned its demands to the theme that popular control of the liquor trade should be extended as a democratic principle, and this found a ready response in the growing popular feeling that swept the Liberal administration into office in 1890. The campaign for female franchise also ran parallel with, and greatly assisted the alliance during the eighties. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was particularly powerful within the alliance, was also the prime mover in the campaign for votes for women.
The alliance also took more direct political action in attempting to pledge candidates at elections to vote for the legislation desired by the alliance. Candidates were asked to declare their views on the liquor question and it is significant that most of them evidently considered themselves obliged to make an answer that was, on the surface at least, satisfactory to the alliance. Prohibitionists were now an important force in the community and few candidates could afford to disregard them at elections. Consequently, the election of 1890 saw increased prohibition strength in Parliament, and the movement suddenly emerged as a major force on the political scene.
At first the Government endeavoured to resist the pressure for new licensing legislation. It had, however, a strong opponent in Sir Robert Stout, a leading figure in the alliance and a contender for the leadership of the Liberals. Stout introduced a Bill in 1893 to extend the triennial licensing polls to the issues of the abolition and reduction of licences, to be decided on a simple majority vote. At the same time Leonard Isitt toured the country demanding the passage of the Bill. Stout's Bill was shelved in the committee stages by only two votes. Faced with such a close call, the Government was obliged to act.
The result was the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act of 1893, which created the licensing system virtually as it exists in New Zealand today. Licensing districts were to be identical with parliamentary electorates, with licences to be granted for three years at the discretion of the Licensing Committee. Severe restrictions were placed upon the conditions under which new licences could be issued. The triennial poll was extended to cover the issues of reduction and no-licence. Over half of the electorate had to vote for any poll to be valid, and no-licence had to secure three-fifths of the votes to be carried. If no-licence were not carried, however, the votes for it were added to those for reduction.
The Act erected severe barriers for the prohibition forces, but great optimism prevailed in late 1893. Women were able to vote for the first time and it was confidently expected that they would cast their votes for prohibition. The result was encouraging to the alliance: No-licence had won more votes than either continuance or reduction, but not a majority of the total vote.
| Results of Licensing Polls | |||
| Year | Continuance | Reduction | No-licence |
| 1894 | 42,429 | 16,096 | 48,993 |
| 1896 | 139,580 | 94,555 | 98,312 |
| 1899 | 142,443 | 107,751 | 118,575 |
| 1902 | 148,449 | 132,240 | 151,524 |
| 1905 | 182,884 | 151,057 | 198,768 |
| 1908 | 188,140 | 162,562 | 221,471 |
| Year | Local Continuance | Local No-licence |
| 1911 | 237,025 | 234,656 |
| National Continuance | National Prohibition | |
| 1911 | 205,661 | 259,943 |
| Local Continuance | Local No-licence | |
| 1914 | 274,405 | 229,474 |
| National Continuance | National Prohibition | |
| 1914 | 257,442 | 247,217 |
| 1919 April | National Continuance 264,189 | National Prohibition 253,827 |
| Year | National Continuance | State Purchase and Control | National Prohibition |
| 1919 Dec | 241,251 | 32,261 | 270,250 |
| 1922 | 282,669 | 35,727 | 300,791 |
| 1925 | 299,590 | 56,037 | 319,450 |
| 1928 | 374,502 | 64,276 | 294,453 |
| 1935 | 521,167 | 57,499 | 243,091 |
| 1938 | 546,995 | 96,131 | 263,208 |
| 1943 | 529,386 | 123,701 | 269,800 |
| 1946 | 542,681 | 202,664 | 259,162 |
| 1949 | 660,573 | 135,982 | 268,567 |
| 1954 | 672,754 | 164,380 | 250,460 |
| 1957 | 723,059 | 160,483 | 260,132 |
| 1960 | 765,952 | 138,644 | 255,157 |
| 1963 | 791,078 | 157,511 | 235,553 |
In spite of the success of prohibition in the total vote, it was frustrated at the local level. The results of the local polls in 1893 were as follows:
33: Polls invalid.
12: Reduction.
12: Continuance.
2: No proposal carried.
1: No-licence carried.
The district voting for the abolition of licences was Clutha. This was the prohibitionists' first victory.
The size of the vote commanded by the prohibitionists was a severe shock to the Government and to the licensed trade, and from that point liquor became a national political issue. For the first time the strength of the prohibition movement on a national scale was brought home to New Zealanders. Prohibition sentiment, now a mass movement, had been quietly growing during the 1880s. By that time the movement was fully committed to prohibition and it approached its task with evangelical fervour. Although a number of churches and many individual clergymen helped the movement actively, it cut across denominational lines. Even thousands of Roman Catholics, whose church was anything but sympathetic to prohibition, joined the movement after the visit of Father Hays, an American.
The participation of many clergymen probably helped to give the movement its evangelistic flavour. Religious arguments and references were freely invoked in temperance literature, and prominent figures, such as the Rev. L. M. Isitt and the Rev. Edward Walker, helped to stamp the movement with a religious imprint. At the same time, however, agnostic humanism was also strongly represented in the movement by such figures as Sir Robert Stout and F. A. de la Mare. The emotional feeling generated by the liquor question was very great. As Pember Reeves wrote in The Long White Cloud, “it … introduced an element of picturesque enthusiasm and, here and there, a passion of hatred rarely seen before in New Zealand politics”. Some prominent temperance advocates were certainly the least temperate of public men in their speeches and campaigning, and it is probable that the movement alienated much moderate opinion by the extravagance of some of its assertions and demands.
This was offset to some extent by the politically radical flavour of the movement, which emphasised the demand for “the right of the people to decide” and for the settlement of the liquor question by simple majority vote. The alliance's tilting at the powerful liquor interests was also an indication of its crusading spirit. It was easy for the movement to argue that its proposals would benefit the working man and improve his welfare by the diversion of money away from unproductive liquor consumption. T. E. Taylor and many other prohibitionists in Parliament, were left-wingers in the Liberal Party and they carried on a running battle with the leadership on social and economic matters.
Besides Taylor, other prominent prohibitionist leaders during the movement's heyday were the Isitt brothers, Frank and Leonard, both Methodist ministers and excellent speakers, Sir Robert Stout, and the Rev. Edward Walker, the alliance's organiser and parliamentary agent.
The alliance itself was a fairly loose organisation of local “no-license leagues”, which combined all the prohibition and temperance groups in each licensing district. The alliance had no direct control over these bodies, but it did have its own funds and published a newspaper, The Prohibitionist. The alliance, as the national representative of prohibition opinion, was a formidable political force. The furore over the movement's demands for licensing legislation in 1893 wrecked the Government's legislative programme and almost brought it down. The alliance, as its constitution bound it to do, worked to ensure the election to Parliament of candidates sympathetic to its views and brought considerable pressure to bear. In the end this involvement in politics undoubtedly harmed the movement. Its tactics finally united the Liberals against such extreme demands. It helped Seddon, for it ensured him the warm support of the licensed trade. Later, when the national option poll was introduced in 1910, the alliance found it necessary to negotiate a rather shady political “compact” with the trade, an episode that nearly brought about its downfall.
The 1896 licensing poll was held on election day, with the result that more people voted and the prohibitionists received a severe setback. In 1899 this reverse was carried into the political sphere and most of the prohibitionist members of Parliament, among them Taylor, lost their seats. Prohibitionists also fared badly in polls for the election of licensing committees. From this date the prohibitionists ceased to be an effective force in Parliament and could safely be ignored as a political force. Although the alliance was able to force considerable amendments of the licensing laws upon the Government during the nineties, these changes were obviously made with great reluctance and Taylor was undoubtedly right in alleging that they were designed to hurt the licensed trade as little as possible.
During the 1900s the prohibition vote again increased and, indeed, was in the majority at every poll up to 1911. This success, however, only referred to the aggregate national votes. At the local level the prohibitionists found it very difficult to surmount “the three-fifths”, that is, the requirement that no-licence had to receive this proportion of the total vote to be carried. Between 1894 and 1908 only 12 districts went “dry”, in spite of the fact that in a national poll on the simple majority principle prohibition would have been carried in 1902, 1905, and 1908.
It is not surprising, therefore, that demands for a national poll became increasingly insistent. This had always had its advocates, but many prohibitionists believed that a gradual extension of no-licence through local polls would be less revolutionary and frightening and, therefore, more effective. But the increase in the no-licence vote after 1902 again lent strength to those who sought a national poll, as it appeared that this would easily result in national prohibition, and the annual conference of the alliance in 1908 carried a resolution demanding a poll on “colonial option”. In the general election of that year a majority of the members of Parliament returned were known to favour a national poll with a simple majority to carry any proposal, or at least a 55 per cent – 45 per cent majority.
The result was the introduction in 1910 of a Licensing Amendment Bill, the outcome of long negotiations that year between the trade and the alliance which resulted in an agreement known as the “Compact”. The Bill embodied the main provisions of the compact; local option polls were to be decided by a 55 per cent majority and the cumulation of all votes from local polls was to decide the issue of national prohibition by the same majority. The announcement of the Bill caused an unprecedented political mêle. The alliance representatives responsible for the compact had reckoned without the Dominion convention of that body which, after a fierce debate, demanded separate polls on local and national option. The trade objected to this and, in an attempt to resolve the deadlock, the Government in 1911 introduced a new Bill similar to the original proposal. The trade then came close to panic and lobbied furiously. Parliament finally refused to reduce the majority to 55 per cent, and the “three-fifths” was retained. To compensate for this the Bill was amended to provide for the separate polls which the alliance favoured.
Thus the 1911 poll was conducted on the “three-fifths” basis. Prohibition won 55·83 per cent of the votes, and so the first national poll, on which such hopes had been placed, ended in disappointment, and left the alliance permanently weakened by the dispute over separate polls. The poll of 1914 was also a serious setback for the alliance. The prohibitionists, however, achieved one advance during the war with the closing of hotel bars at 6 p.m. This was intended as a war measure, but has become a permanent part of the New Zealand scene. During the war a body known as the Efficiency League, composed of business interests, was formed. The league's aims were vague but it espoused the cause of prohibition and worked with the alliance in the polls of 1919.
Pressure from these two bodies was directed at reforming the provisions for the taking of the national poll. Faced with their demands the Government, in 1918, was forced to introduce an amendment to the Licensing Act. This amendment, which became law, altered the provisions of the poll in a way that was to change the history of the prohibition movement completely.
The Amendment Act provided for a special poll to be taken before 30 April 1919 on a proposal for national prohibition with compensation. The alliance's argument for a simple majority vote was conceded at last and the poll was to be determined by this method. In the event of this not being carried, succeeding polls were to be taken on three issues: (1) national continuance, (2) State purchase and control, and (3) national prohibition without compensation, an absolute majority being necessary to carry (2) or (3). The local option polls were discontinued.
It was obvious that April 1919 was to be the alliance's great chance. The alliance was aided by the Efficiency League, whose financial assistance boosted the alliance's income in 1919 to £58,198. It had previously never exceeded £4,000 in any one year. With these resources a tremendous effort was made at the first poll and, with the New Zealand results counted, it appeared that the fight for prohibition was won. The figures were:
| Continuance | Prohibition |
| 232,208 | 246,104 |
After a few breathless days of waiting, the votes of the Expeditionary Force overseas were counted and the result was announced.
| Continuance | Prohibition |
| 31,981 | 7,723 |
The soldier's votes swung the balance and continuance was carried with only 51 per cent of the votes.
At the second poll in 1919, on 7 December, the first vote on the three-issue ballot paper was taken. Again prohibition was lost only by a hair's breadth, failing to secure a majority over the combined total for continuance and State purchase and control by only 3,362 votes. The insertion of the state purchase and control issue worked, as had obviously been intended, to draw away votes from prohibition.
The 1919 polls represented the supreme effort of the prohibitionists, and since that time the strength and electoral support of the movement have steadily declined. During the 1920s the campaign still continued to arouse enough feeling to disrupt party politics on occasions, as in 1925 when a Licensing Amendment Bill very favourable to the trade was considerably amended by unruly Reform members of Parliament. The Government's failure to control its supporters shook the faith of many of its influential supporters and played a large part in the shift of business support to the United Party in 1928. Prohibition was losing ground. There were obvious reasons for this. During the twentieth century memories of the rough, hard-drinking pioneering era faded, and drunkenness, particularly in the more extreme forms, declined. During the twenties the example of the failure and abuse of prohibition in the United States also turned opinion against the movement. During this period in New Zealand there was a noticeable growth of moderate opinion on the liquor questions, and a swing away from prohibition. This is seen in the founding of a Licensing Reform Association early in the twenties. The association was attacked bitterly by the alliance. The alliance also faced the concerted power of the licensed trade which after 1905 was united to contest the triennial polls and carried out extensive publicity campaigns.
The decline of the alliance was also due to a number of faults in the nature and tactics of the movement itself. In its early years the alliance antagonised political parties by its constant pressure and tended only to harden them in their opposition to its demands. The alliance's attempts to have prohibitionists elected to Parliament were also largely a failure. In retrospect, too, the demand for a national poll on prohibition worked to the alliance's disadvantage. Whereas a slow but steady advance was being achieved in local no-licence, the trade found it much easier to arouse opposition to prohibition on a national scale, and many people who were content to vote against hotels in their own districts thought twice about supporting national prohibition. After the failure of 1919 there was considerable dissatisfaction within the alliance about the abandonment of local option polls. At the root of the alliance's failure, however, was the coercive nature of the whole prohibition concept. The extreme tone of much prohibition propaganda and its resolute refusal to admit the efficacy of any reform other than total prohibition alienated the support of many people who were dissatisfied with licensing conditions as they were.
In spite of these weaknesses the prohibition movement must be accounted the most important mass social movement in New Zealand's history. It attracted support which, in its heyday, cut across political, religious, and class groupings and aroused emotions and passions rarely generated by moral or political questions in New Zealand.
by John Richard Sinclair Daniels, M.A., Local Government Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.