CIVIL LIBERTY IN NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 4

CIVIL LIBERTY IN NEW ZEALAND

ARGARET MEAD, when she was here a few years ago, made the point that the visiting anthropologist has a duty to present his findings in a form acceptable to the society he’s investigating. When in Rome, evaluate as the Romans do. If you observe that canny housewives habitually save and re-use pieces of string, you record that they're careful; you don’t say they’re stingy. Science, as well as good manners, demands that you don’t rock the boat. I'm. afraid I’m not an anthropologist -hardly even a visitor, since I arrived from England over seven years ago, and look forward to staying here indefinitely. But I suppose that, in considering New Zealand attitudes to civil liberties, part of my job is to act as if I were a visiting anthropologist-to describe, to try to explain, not to say that in my view such-and-such is wrong, and. that you should do this-and-that about it, But one difficulty in applying Margaret Mead’s rule is precisely that there are people in New Zealand who think that such-and-such in the civil liberties field is wrong, and, that something should be done about it. A description in terms that approve the status quo would not be acceptable to them. It was, after all, a one-time Canterbury settler who remarked that a country is not without honour save in its own prophets. One can’t satisfy everybody, So I hope to do the next best thing, and satisfy nobody. Let's get two points clear at the outset, First, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Civil liberty isn’t the only objective which governments exist to Promote, nor can any right — whether civil or otherwise-be absolute. At some point it must be possible to read the Riot Act; at some point, that is, the right of the individual to freedom of speech must give way to the right of the community to prevent disorder. The question is, where should the line be drawn. Secondly, in New Zealand the line will be drawn in a fairly liberal place. It will permit greater freedom to form and to spread heterodox social and Political ideas than most societies have permitted in the past-or, indeed, than most societies permit today. "Rare is the felicity of the time," says Tacitus, "when you can think what you like and say what you think," In the 17th century John Milton, William Penn, Roger Williams, were exceptional for the high value they placed on diversity of opinion, and for their consequent belief in toleration. Through Locke and Voltaire this attitude spread to the 18th century intelligentsia, through Jefferson and Tom Paine even more widely in the early 19th century, so that by the time New Zealand was being settled, the belief in heterodoxy was, as it were, becoming orthodox. At the time when New Zealand was achieving responsible government, John Stuart -Mill was writing his Essay on Liberty. The belief, then, that the line should be drawn in a very liberal place indeed, is part of New Zealand’s ideological inheritance. One of the snags about such an ideal, though, is that--by definition almost-you can’t realise it. Ideals conflict, for, one thinge-freedom ‘with security, progress with stability. The best one can attain is a compromise. But even more seriously; when an ideal is transplanted-as the British

idea of civil liberty was transplanted to a different environment in New Zealand ---the usual gap between ideal and reality, between profession and performance, tends to widen. It’s not merely that the New Zealand record on civil liberties is spotty — all records are Spotty, since all politics is compromisé. But the New Zealand record is even spottier than that of Great Britain, For instance, in this country you may be tried for sedition in a Magistrate’s Court, without a jury, The polite? may seize and hold yout property-your typewriter, for example, or a duplicating machine — for two months, during which time you can bring no action against them for recovery. At the discretion of the Government you may be ruled by emergency regulations for up to six months, without Parliament having been con-

suited. in these, and in other ways I'll mention later, you’re worse off than is the citizen of the United Kingdom. What is it, in the New Zealand environment, that explains these deviations from the transplanted ideal? What sort of man has in the past stood for liberty and the right to differ? The sort of man, I suggest, is the man who does in fact differ from the norm of his society. There’s the renegade aristocrat, for instance, the man who enjoys prestige and property and can afford to differ; Charles James Fox, Mirabeau, Jefferson, Herzen, Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell. There’s also the plebeian intellectual, the man who can't help but differ whether he can afford to or not, who-if he’s lucky-acquires prestige and perhaps even property, by exploiting his difference in print: Voltaire, Tom Paine, Belinsky, John Stuart Mill, Zola, Mencken; who, at any rate, finds himself a job, probably in one of the professions (teaching, law, journalism) where he may enjoy a _ limited area of freedom in which to cultivate his idiosyncrasies, I don’t want to suggest that every intellectual is a libertarian-there are plenty of obvious examples to the con-trary-still less that every teacher or lawyer or journalist is an intellectual. But I think it’s significant that in 1953 and °54 when McCarthyism was at its peak, among the professors and lecturers and schoolteachers and lawyers and librarians and students I met in the United States; not a single one had a good word to say for Senator McCarthy. The Washington newspapermen, in their annual unpopularity poll, more than once rated McCarthy worst of the 96 Senators, Most of the columnists and radio commentators, in the New York area at least, seemed to be antiMcCarthy. Yet from the opinion polls one knew that close on half the American people supported him. If one can make any inferences about attitudes to civil liberties from people’s attitudes to McCarthy-and I think one can-it’s pretty clear who the defenders of civil liberties are in America. Now what about New Zealand? Have we a local equivalent f the nonconforming noble or the independent ‘intellectual? For a time it seemed possible that the large ,sheep-stations might create an indigenous squatter-aristo-

cracy, and it’s plausible to suppose that eventually New Zealand too might have produced its Charles James Foxes and Bertrand Russells. But the power of this class was broken in the ’nineties, and under Ballance and Seddon and Ward two other groups came. to the forefront-in the country the small farmers, in the towns the lower middle class, Let’s look for a moment at the attitudes of these two important groups and deal with the intelligentsia later. The small farmer is in many respects an estimable man, but he hasn’t the power or the prestige or the property, generally speaking, to encourage him in undue eccentricity of opinion. Nothing is more inhibiting to dangerous thoughts than is the combination of the freehold and a large mortgage, The best example of the small farmer in politics, illustrating both his strength and his limitations, is Massey, the Reform Party Prime Minister. The limitations are pretty clearly exposed in the civil liberties field. Take the period of the First World War, for instance: Some additional restraints on freedom were only to be expected-a censorship, for example, But under New Zealand's censorship regulations, reputable newspapers which divulged military information of value to the enemy were treated much more leniently than were disreputable newspapers which opposed conscription or favoured a negotiated peace or supported the rebellious Irish nationalists. Peter Fraser and Bob Semple were jailed for opposing conscription: Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden expressed a similar opposition with impunity, though Britain’s wartime record on civil liberties was by no means good. Again, the provision made in New Zealand for conscientious objection was less than generous-but for the efforts of Sir Francis Bell it’s probable that no exemption at all would have been granted. As it was. those C,.O.’s who didn’t fall within the religious categories for which Bell had made provision, were very harshly treated. Again, after the war the Government continued to ban the import of literature deemed by ‘it to be seditious. Words were excluded which circulated freely in Britain and Australia. Nor was it left to the Courts to determine what was seditious: the decision was an administrative one. But the most flagrant example of point-

less intolerance in this period is surely the passing, in 1915, of a Government Bill designed to remove from the staff of Victoria College Professor von Zedlitz, who was guilty of having had one German parent, and of having lived in Germany (till he was nine years old). When Massey became Prime Minister, about as many New Zealanders lived in rural areas as in towns. Since then the urban population has _ increased rapidly, the rural population relatively slowly; as a result the political significance of the lower middle class has increased, at the expense of that of the small farmer, What influence has this change had on _ attitudes to. civil liberties? The answer, I think, must be: Not much, This isn’t the occasion for a disquisition on the nature of social class; I must make it clear, though, that the distinction I want to make between petty bourgeoisie and proletariat depends less on occupation or income than on attitudes and values, It’s the difference between Walter Morel the miner and his wife Gertrude in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers; it boils down to a matter of "respectability." Disregarding the gold-mining days, New Zealand has placed a high value on respectability. If not physically, then at least spiritually, the aspidistra has been omnipresent in the New Zealand town and suburb. And it’s not respectable to hold unorthodox opinions. The Labour. Party increased its support in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties not because New Zealand developed a_ proletariat, but because the Labour Party became respectable, discarding in the process the proletarian class-consciousness of the old "Red Fed" phase. If the Massey Governments exhibit the small farmer in politics, the Savage and Fraser governments illustrate similarly the politics of the lower middle class. The petty bourgeois, like the small farmer, has his strength and his limitations, and the limitations show up once again in the civil liberties field, particularly as the politician, in his own pursuit of respectability, starts with an occupational handicap-he has to lean over backwards to appear to be upright. So we find the Labour Government leaning over backwards to avoid the charge that it’s soft towards conscientious objectors; as a result C.O.’s were treated more harshly in New Zealand than in any other Commonwealth country, or for that matter in America, though their treatment even so was better than during the First World War. Once again, peace propaganda and opposition to conscription were more readily prohibited in New Zealand than in Britain; newsvapers and journals which circulated freely in Britain were excluded from New Zealand, While the security. police in Britain were on the lookout for Nazi spies, the security police in New Zealand seem to have been compiling dossiers on university students. And when the Cold War developed, the Government tried to prove that it wasn’t soft towards Communists in the case of Mr Holmes and his satchel-a most unfortunate envisode, in that it now seems the Opvosition daren’t take a strong line on civil liberties lest the Government throw the Holmes case back at it, For instance, only one member of the Parliamentary Labour Party was prepared to ruise a question in the House when Mr Guy charged the security police with blackmail and bribery and other unpleasantnesses a couple of years ago. This episode illustrates very clearly one major difference between New Zealand and Britain: in a case of this sort (continued on page 33)

Civil Liberty in New Zealand

(continued from page 4) a considerable number of members on both sides of the House of Commons would have been quick to demand an ifquiry. As Sir Ivor Jennings, a Gistinguished constitutional lawyer, ha§ put it: "There is nothing that the House does better than to protest against individual acts of oppression, whether légal or illegal." In and after 1940, for example, no mémbers of the House of Commons were particularly fond of Sir Oswald Mosely and his supporters. But the operation of Defence Regulation 18B, ufider which such individuals were detained, was most carefully watched and cOhstantly criticised by M.P.s, even though Parliamentary opposition in its normal form was virtually non-existent, How can this difference from New Zealand practice be explained? The answer, I think, lies in what was said earlier about the intellectual. An appreciable number of British M.P.s, on both sides of the House, and on the front as well as the back benches, are intellectuals with a keen personal interest in civil liberties. This isn’t so in New Zealand. It’s symptomatic that when the British Government acquired power to govern by emergency regulations provision was included that Parliament, if not already sitting, must be summoned within five days to consider such regulations; when the New Zealand Government acquired a similar power in 1932 there was no such provision in the Act. This meant that during the waterfront dispute of

1951, as the House of Representatives wasn’t sitting, there was no Parliamentary review of the emergerity régulations. Many M.P.s probably felt happier that way-which is precisely the point I want to ffidke. In thé Héuse of Commons they’d have been raising the roof. It’s not that there’s no intelligentsia in New Zealand. There’s been one, at least since the time of Pember Reeves, and it’s grown over the years in protest against orthodoxy and the aspidistra. I suspect that a good deal of the outcry which foreed the Government in 1951 to make 50 amendments to the Police Offences Améndment Bill was in fact Promoted by intellectuals, who weté able to recruit support from professional groups, church organisatious and similar non-political bodies in which many of them held key positions. But by and large, individuals of this type don’t hold such positions in New Zealand parties, or in Parliament, eithet because they aren’t good vote-getters, or because their party loyalty and reliability are suspect. The House of Commons may bé more seétisitive about civil liberties than is the public generally in Britain; conversely, in New Zealand the public generally is less tolerant than is the House of Representatives. The-same goes for local bodies, for that matter. To mount a soapbox or carry a bannet you reed a permit froth the City Couneil, which ean be refusedhas, indeed, béeén tefused by at least one City Cotncilwith neither thyme nor reason given. But the soapbox arid the banner are in any case obSolescent. What about the

mass média-specifically, ih Naw Zéaland, the press and the radio? The press suffers from the defects of its virtues. It is, by and large, the acme of respectability — virgin-pure and _ virgintimid. The last occasion when newépapers showéd an intérest in civil liberties was when the Police Offences Amendihént Bill was before Paflias ment; and it’s significant that the first press comment on the Bill was very cautious-only when it was clear that many respectable citizens were outraged by the Bill’s provisions did the newspapers take a firm stand. Daily papers rarely engage in controversy one with another, nor do individual papers pro-' vide a form for discussion, save within the exiguous limits of the cofrespondence columns, It is then up to the radio to provide a wide range of commert on political and social affairs in order that, from the clash of views, an ifformed public opinion may emerge. And does the Broadcasting Services do this? It does not. We have’ election broadcasts -but what share of the air do independent and minor party candidates get? I don’t suggest that all parties, regardless of size and strength, should bé entitled to a nation-wide hook-up; but in a country with as many local stations as New Zealand has, every candidate should have a right to address the electors in his own locality if he wants to. Then we have the broadcasting of Par-liament-but here we get not a wide range of opinion, but the views of the fty caucuses: orthodoxy atid bour orthodoxy. Of the wide farge of controversy provided by radio in Britain and the United States — daily and weekly political commentaries, currént affairs talks, panel discussions. un-

seripted debates, aftguments about Hbombs and taxes and strikes and capital punishment and juvenile delinquencyand for that matter about art and res ligion and sex-we have but a palé shadow, in the Lookout broadcasts and the Qtiestion Mark series. Not becausé the intellectuals in the Broadcasting Servicé like it that way, but because the Government of the day which controls the Service is responsible to the public, and the public consists of pres sure groups, and some pressure group is suré to object to anything controversial. Heré, I think, is the essence of the question. It was a vocal minority which préciired the dismissal of von Zedlitz. It was a vocal minority which insisted on harsh treatment for conscientious ob+ jectors. Vocal minorities can keep yot off the radio and off your soapbox. These self-appointed censors invert thé familiat maxim: the price of their vigilance is only too likely to be our liberty. It’s the old story of free trade and totection. The unorganised consumers enefit from free trade, the organised producérs benefit from protection, and an ofganised minority carries more weight politically than a disorganised Majority. But don’t look for scapegoats. The majority is the sum of the minori-' ties, Collectively and in principle we believe in liberty, individually and in practice the minorities we form prefer intolerance. Not till there’s an equally powerful, equally vocal minority if favour of liberty-liberty even for thé crank, the Communist, the conscientious objector-shall we narrow that embarfrassing gap between the ideals of 1857 and the reality of 1957; only then sh we develop a free trade in ideas.