THE HOLLAND PAPERS IN CANBERRA TURNBULL COPIES OF MANUSCRIPT AND ANNOTATED PAMPHLETS

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1 May 1974, Page 33

THE HOLLAND PAPERS IN CANBERRA TURNBULL COPIES OF MANUSCRIPT AND ANNOTATED PAMPHLETS

Doug Munro

Few of the major figures in New Zealand political life during the 1920 s and 1930 s left personal papers behind. Henry Edmund Holland (1868-1933), the leader of the New Zealand Labour Party from 1919 until his death, was one of that small number; but his papers are housed not in New Zealand but in the Australian National University Archives in Canberra. 1 It thus stands to reason that the Holland Papers would be included in the Turnbull Library’s programme, begun in 1969, of arranging for the copying of New Zealand source material in Australia. 2 The Turnbull Library made the initial request in April 1972. It was asked that all the manuscript material be microfilmed together with a selection of Holland’s superb pamphlet collection. A few pamphlets were specified, otherwise the criteria for inclusion depended upon whether the pamphlet had been heavily annotated by Holland. Little over six months later the project was completed and nine reels of microfilm sent to Wellington.

Unfortunately, the microfilm frames were not separately numbered but the arrangement of the material follows a logical pattern. Reel 1 begins with two pamphlets by Holland which the Turnbull Library did not already possess. 3 The rest of Reel 1 and part of Reel 2 contains the manuscript material whilst the remaining microfilm is consumed by a selection of pamphlets arranged alphabetically by author or by title where no authorship is given. The manuscript items require little comment. They are all listed in Patrick O’Farrell’s biography of Holland whilst the material relating to the Pacific Islands has been listed in greater detail elsewhere. 4 What does stand out is the amount of material that has been lost: the extant correspondence is particularly meagre by comparison with what there once must have been. Holland, unlike Nash, could not have been a systematic hoarder.

It is necessary, however, to comment at some length upon the manner in which Holland marked his pamphlets. He was an inveterate annotator but one who lacked any sense of discrimination and proportion. Some pamphlets are only lightly or moderately marked, some are disfigured by block underlinings whilst others are heavily annotated in some places but left quite untouched elsewhere. So much so that it is often difficult to escape the conclusion that Holland’s erratic and seemingly arbitrary annotating merely reflected his mood of the moment. Yet if Holland’s annotating is wanting in system and judgment it is not without some degree of rhyme and reason. A pattern of sorts can be discerned for he seizes upon statements which strike a responsive chord

and mercilessly underlines passages confirming his preconceptions and ideals. This was because Holland compensated for his lack of schooling through a heavy and sustained reading programme, but one which was severely one-sided. Understandably enough, he confined his reading to literature agreeable to his own opinions—those of a militant socialist — and nearly all of his 1515 pamphlets emanate from the pens of ‘progressive’ left-wing writers. His annotating and also his writing was thus scarcely critical or perceptive as Holland was possessed with ‘the selfeducated man’s naive respect for congenial intellectual authority’. 5

Some further less obvious points could be kept in mind when evaluating Holland’s annotations. In the first place one ought to distinguish between Holland’s first hand experience and his second hand knowledge. He was not a widely travelled man, his world-experience being limited to an Australian upbringing, adult life in New Zealand and a visit to Fiji and Samoa with a Parliamentary Party in 1920. An aloof man in any case, his peculiarly insular existence was aggravated by a retiring nature. When Parliament was in recess he tended to shut himself away, there to find solace in his reading, writing and correspondence. Seldom, therefore, did Holland annotate on the basis of a first hand acquaintance with the issue at hand.

A distinction might also be drawn between Holland’s general interests and the issues with which he was passionately concerned. The greater his interest (and presumably his knowledge) in a particular issue, the more heavily he would annotate a pamphlet on that subject. Take, for instance, indentured labour, an issue which aroused his deepest feelings. 6 He could invariably be relied upon to mark out such passages in his pamphlets 7 and his copy of the Apia Citizens’ Committee’s Samoa’s Problems (Apia 1920), which contains a sizeable section on indentured labour, was annotated with gay abandon. Yet despite the excessive underlining it will be apparent to anyone already conversant with Holland’s views on the subject 8 why certain passages were underlined in preference to others. Despite initial appearances to the contrary there is some rationale behind the manner in which Holland annotated and once this is appreciated his annotations usually make sense and attain at least some value to the researcher.

The value of Holland’s annotations will vary for different researchers. At best they will yield only a marginal return for the time spent in consultation. The manuscript material, by contrast, is of unquestionable importance and richly merits being examined by those interested in the New Zealand of Holland’s day.

References 1 The Holland Papers were given by Roy Holland to Patrick O’Farrell so the latter could make a political biography of Holland the subject of his doctoral

dissertation. O’Farrell, at the time a Research Scholar at the ANU, presented the Papers to the University’s Archives. His thesis was subsequently published as Harry Holland: militant socialist (Canberra, 1964) 2 Ray Grover, ‘New Zealand manuscripts held in Australia’, The Turnbull Library Record, 4 (n.s.) 2 (1971), pp 67-73 3 The Crime of Conscription (Sydney, 1912); The Tramway Spy (Sydney, 1908) 1 O’Farrell, Harry Holland . . . , p 222; Doug Munro, ‘Pacific material in the H. E. Holland Papers’, The Journal of Pacific History, 8 (1973), pp 86-87 • r * O’Farrell, Harry Holland . . . , p 85 6 See the wry remark of P. S. O’Connor, ‘The problem of indentured labour in Samoa under the Military Administration’, Political Science, 20:2 (1968), p 20 7 E.g., Annie Besant, From Within the Iron Ring: being an appeal from British Labour (London, 1918), p 10 8 Holland, Indentured Labour: is it slavery? (Greymouth, 1919)