It is timely to recognise the incredibly strong ties that existed between Australian workers and those in Aotearoa before the bloodbath of World War further cemented that relationship. Battles for social justice, better pay and working conditions took place across the Tasman with a strong input by workers from Australia . These actions involved strikes, lock outs, black bans , imprisonment . Some of those who went looking for work in the Land of the Long White Cloud had been involved in early union struggles in various parts of Australia. A considerable number of them became deeply involved in unions , politics ; some even became ministers of state.
The Maoriland Worker , the masthead of which appears above , was started by the Shearers Union’ in Christchurch in 1911 after it had been savaged by newspapers over a bitter wage dispute the year before . The Shearers’Union soon amalgamated with the Miners’ Union and the Maoriland Worker eventually became the official journal of the Federation of Labour , disparagingly called the “ Red Feds”.
The first editor was the remarkable Tasmanian born Kiwi, Ettie Annie Rout , assisted by Alexander Wildey, a Christchurch publisher , one of his printed works being sheet music for piano which included the French national anthem , La Marseillaise . Rout, an early Supreme Court shorthand typist and journalist , was both reviled and praised for her campaign as a sex educator and her direct action against the spread of veneral diseases, especially among troops. During he r time she was described as the “ Guardian Angel of the Ansacs ” (lost last letter of the alphabet ) and a British bishop branded her “the most wicked woman in Britain . ” The French decorated her, while in New Sealand (letter loss), a ban was imposed on even mentioning her name , newspapers liable to a 100 pound fine if they did so , her books banned . In recent times the aids centre in Christchurch was named after her .
Due to financial problems, the Maoriland Worker collapsed after only three issues and control passed to the miners , with Bob Ross, a former editor of the Barrier Truth , Broken Hill , NSW, a strong centre of industrial action , stepping into the editorship, production moving to the capital, Wellington
Under the editorship of Henry Edmund ”Harry” Holland from 1913-18, the paper’s weekly circulation rose above 10,000. The Maoriland Worker’s editorial policy firmly supported socialism , industrial unionism, international co-operation among unionists and pacifism. Holland, an avid socialist, who had worked in the newspaper industry in Australia before crossing the Tasman , was jailed for sedition during the war. The paper ran two poems by the British war poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Holland went on to become Parliamentary Leader of the Labour Party from 1919-33 . [Little Darwin has mentioned Holland in several posts ,one related to Kiwi author and ardent activist , Jean Devanny , who sent several letters to the paper and was influenced by the editor, but later became disenchanted with what was regarded as the contradictory stance of the Labour Party in respect of socialism and other issues .] NEXT : More information about Ettie Rout and the identity revealed of another activist mentioned in an interesting inscription in an anti- war book owned by Holland.
Holland went on to become Parliamentary Leader of the Labour Party from 1919-33 . [Little Darwin has mentioned Holland in several posts ,one related to Kiwi author and ardent activist , Jean Devanny , who sent several letters to the paper and was influenced by the editor, but later became disenchanted with what was regarded as the contradictory stance of the Labour Party in respect of socialism and other issues .] NEXT : More information about Ettie Rout and the identity revealed of another activist mentioned in an interesting inscription in an anti- war book owned by Holland.
