Seddon’s South Seas Censorship A Bibliographic Curio

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XXII, Issue 1, 1 May 1989, Page 51

Seddon’s South Seas Censorship A Bibliographic Curio

K. R. HOWE

From May to June 1900 Richard Seddon visited Tonga, Fiji, Niue and the Cook Islands on the government vessel Tutanekai. In part, his trip was to enable him to rest after a bout of ill health attributed to overwork. But more importantly he wanted to push New Zealand’s imperial claims to some Pacific territory. Samoa had recently been divided between Germany and the United States. Seddon was keen to increase New Zealand’s commercial and political influence in Fiji, which was a British crown colony; in Tonga, which was a British protectorate; and in particular to annex the Cook Islands, which were also a British protectorate.

Seddon took with him his wife and some of their children, his niece Maud Hennah, together with a number of family friends including Mr and Mrs Trask and Mr and Mrs Dyer. As well Seddon had two private secretaries, a photographer, doctor, and reporter. He also took along Edward Tregear, a noted Polynesian scholar and Secretary of the Department of Labour, who had never been to the islands before. Tregear’s task was to act as some sort of cultural tour guide and, given his extreme productivity with pen, to write an account of the voyage for popular consumption.

On returning to New Zealand, Tregear rapidly produced a book of 445 pages, profusely illustrated with photographs, and with appendices containing Seddon’s key speeches to island leaders and various ‘official’ correspondence. Tregear’s account of the party’s travels and experiences is entertainingly written, often in a heavily disguised ironic tone. Yet it is invariably flattering about Seddon. The travelogue is frequently interspersed with Tregear’s observations on island customs, history and mythology, and with wonderfully florid scenic descriptions. Seddon apparently saw and approved of the text, except that he made Tregear remove the initials ‘E.T.’ from his short concluding poem of farewell 1 to ‘feathered shadows of the palm . . . scented thickets, airs of balm | Islets of coral ringed with calm’. It was a portent of things to come.

There was one other technical correction made after printing: the photograph ‘Street Scene, Suva: Perambulators’ page 173, appeared with the caption the right way but the photograph upside down. The offending page was slit from the text, reprinted with the photograph correctly positioned and glued back into the text.

The book’s cover title was A Premier’s Voyage to the South Sea Islands in Search of Health. Within, the title page repeated this title and named Edward Tregear as the author (Plate I). As soon as Seddon saw it, after only a few copies had been released, he had it immediately recalled. He left the text unchanged but insisted that the book be recovered and retitled, that Tregear’s name as author be deleted, and that many of the photographs be removed. The new version was eventually released in 1901. The cover now read simply, Rt. Hon R. J. Seddon’s Visit to the South Sea Islands. The book’s altered title page gave no reference to the author (Plate II). That Seddon should want to change the original title is not surprising. Presumably any reference to his ill health belied his robust image. But his insistence that Tregear not be acknowledged as author hints at Seddon’s more personal quirks. As Tregear wrote:

By the fiat of‘One who must be obeyed’ my name has been erased . . . .You know how the kauri grows? Nothing but lowly grass fill the acres of its shadow. I have learnt some unwilling lessons lately and paraphrase an old saying. ‘No Premier is a hero to his Under-Secretary’. 2

Tregear’s wife, Bessie, explained to their daughter that Tregear’s name was omitted because of‘something to do with his being “a civil servant”’. 3 Seddon’s censorship was not generally known, and apparently very few original copies were in circulation. Tregear must have kept uncharacteristically quiet about the matter. Neither the original nor the censored version appeared in Hocken’s bibliography of 1909. Johnstone’s 1927 supplement to Hocken’s bibliography listed the censored version in his 1900 section under ‘Seddon’ in a manner which suggested that Seddon was the author. 4 Johannes Andersen, who knew Tregear well and shared similar interests in Polynesian culture, and who became Librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1918, was apparently unaware of the censored book’s troubled history or even that Tregear had written it. In 1936 Tregear’s daughter Vera Robinson informed Andersen, still the Turnbull Librarian, of the existence of the suppressed version written by her father, a copy of which she and her mother each possessed. She wrote a card formally claiming Tregear’s authorship of the anonymous version:

I hereby certify that the book of travels, called “The Visit of Hon. R. J. Seddon to the South Sea Islands”, was written and edited by my Father, the late Mr. Edward Tregear. Signed, Vera Robinson. (Daughter.) 5

Andersen was delighted with this information: There’s a rarity in this official publication where you would never look for rarity! . . . There are two copies extant at least; but as they [Tregear’s wife and daughter]

seem to value them I didn’t ask Miss [sic] Robinson to send me one of them. I did ask her though to send me any further copy of the kind she might find which is a hint, further than which I did not feel I could go. Isn’t this collecting an interesting business? 6

Seddon’s wish to deprive Tregear of authorship may also have been aggravated by an ongoing antipathy between Tregear and Mrs Seddon. And by his own admission Tregear was ‘touchy & irritable beyond endurance now & then’ on the Pacific journey. He was not sure whether such moods were caused by ‘the heat of the tropics or not having my own women folk to pet and guide me in wrong headed moments’. 7 There also seems to have been some trivial rivalry between Seddon and Tregear during a severe storm soon after leaving New Zealand. Tregear boasted that he was the only one not stricken with sea sickness. The rough and tempestuous weather between ports, misery to others (for a more awful lot for sea sickness never sailed together) was delight to me, for the plunge and rush of mighty seas day & night only gave me buoyancy & sense of freedom, so good a sailor am I. 8

Seddon’s son later claimed that Seddon was the only one not to succumb to the ‘pitiless tossing, heaving and rolling’. 9 Apart from the new title page, the other addition to the book was placed direcdy opposite the tide page —a signed photograph of Seddon. He is seated at a desk with papers and books, impeccably groomed and resplendent in suit with large buttonhole, pen poised, looking most learned. Unsuspecting readers might be excused for thinking that he was the author.

The original binding of the text was left untouched in the censored version. But twenty four photographs, each occupying a separate leaf, were cut out, leaving only thin butts. Since the photographic pages had been counted (but not numbered) in the original pagination, the censored version contains some rather odd pagination, especially where all the photographic pages between pages of text were removed. Thus, for example, page 82 is followed directly by page 85, page 86 by page 89, page 330 by page 333.

But the razor gang was not always consistent. ‘Mr. Hoerder’s Tennis Court, Levuka’ (page 181 in the original) has been deleted from a censored version in the Turnbull Library, but remains in a censored version in the Bagnall Collection, Massey University Library. Ironically too, the excision and correction of the ‘Street Scene, Suva’ in the original version, as mentioned above, was not done for the censored version where the photograph remains the wrong way, on page 167. Yet one deletion in the censored version (‘Natives of Aitutaki’) was a technical correction: it was included twice in the original version, pages 295 and 303. It remains in the censored version at page 303.

Another group of deleted photographs is also readily explained —‘A Tongan Belle’ page 87, Visitors in the Distance: Fiji’ page 171, ‘A Fijian

Beauty’ page 199, ‘A Fijian Beauty’ page 409, ‘A Fijian Maiden’ page 411 (Plate III), are with one exception pictures of women with large naked breasts. The exception, page 409, is a woman with large covered breasts. One can imagine Tregear incorporating such pictures with tongue in cheek. He was ever out to challenge the prudery of the times.

There was some censorship of partial male nudity too with the excision of two photographs of the same Fijian warrior —‘“This never missed Fire”: Fiji’ page 169, and ‘Enraged: “Say it again!” Fiji’ page 393. The angry looking warrior carries a club, wears a grass skirt and his midriff is covered, though his legs, thighs and breasts are exposed. Perhaps the thighs caused offence, since a photograph of a similarly clad ‘A Fijian Warrior’ page 167, but with a knee-length white lavalava under his grass skirt, was left alone; it is on page 165 of the censored version. A bare breasted ‘A Fijian chief page 373 (in both original and censored versions) also remains, though he is visible only from the waist up.

Other categories of excised photographs are less easy to explain. The

deleted ‘Tennis in the Tropics, Suva’ page 159, and ‘Mr. Hoerder’s Tennis Court, Levuka’ page 181 both feature Seddon’s party at play. Yet the photograph of them all on the ‘Tennis Court, Suva’ page 143 remains. Were three tennis photographs too many? Hoerder’s tennis court may also have been deleted because of the German connection. Three other photographs of German presence were deleted by Seddon —‘German Consul’s Residence, Levuka’ page 407, ‘Hoerder and Co.’s Store, Levuka’ page 375, and ‘An Industry at Levuka’ (Hoerder &Co Viola Soap & Oil Works) page 391. Yet there remains in the censored version the photograph ‘German Consul and Family, Levuka’ page 181 (page 187 in the original version). Tregear’s theory that Seddon demanded the stage for himself is supported by the excision of a series of photographs of Seddon’s accompanying family friends —‘Mr. and Mrs. Dyer at Rarotonga’ page 247, and ‘Nelson in the Tropics (Mr. and Mrs. Trask)’ page 387. Also cut out was a portrait of‘Captain Post, s.s. “Tutanekai” page 343, who was ‘an old family friend’, 10 and a group photograph of‘The Officers, s.s. “Tutanekai” ’ page 347 who were also ‘well known’ to the Seddons. A portrait of a splendidly attired ‘Mr. R. Garner-Jones, Levuka’ page 383 was also removed.

Overall, the only individual portrait of a European in the censored book is of Seddon himself. Everyone else is more distant in group photographs. Three photographs of Seddon’s own family members were deleted —‘The Queen of Tonga, Mrs. Seddon, and Mr. Seddon’ page

103 (Plate IV), ‘Mrs. Seddon and the Queen of Niue’ page 225, and ‘Miss Seddon and Miss Hennah’ (her cousin), page 331. There seems no immediate explanation for these excisions since photographs including these three appear elsewhere in the censored version. Finally there are three miscellaneous photographs that have been excluded ‘King George returning from opening of Parliament’ page 83, ‘Domestic Pleasures: Rarotonga’ page 255, and ‘Miss Large’s School, Rarotonga’ page 341. All three seem quite unexceptional, and elsewhere there is a photograph of the Tongan King going to the Parliament, and of Miss Large’s school. Seddon’s censorship created not just a bibliographic curio, but one which in microcosm gives some inkling as to his ego, his public prudery, the social perceptions of his family, and to his imperial politics.

REFERENCES 1 Tregear to W. P. Reeves, 7 January 1901. Reeves, William Pember. ‘Letters Written ... by Men of Mark in New Zealand’. Micro MS 182. Alexander Turnbull Library. 2 Tregear to W. P. Reeves, 7 January 1901. 3 Extract from a letter by Johannes C. Andersen to an unspecified person, 19 February 1936. Typescript, slipped inside censored version of Tregear’s book, accession number 115,707, Alexander Turnbull Library. I am grateful to Diane Woods of the Library for drawing my attention to this letter. 4 A. H. Johnstone’s entry is: ‘SEDDON, Right Hon. R. J. Visit to Tonga . . .’, Supplement to Hocken’s Bibliography of New Zealand Literature (Auckland, 1927), p. 39. 5 Card attached to censored version of Tregear’s book, accession number 8926, Alexander Turnbull Library. It is quoted by Andersen in the typescript extract from his letter, 19 February 1936. 6 Typescript extract from Andersen’s letter, 19 February 1936. The subsequent bibliographic history of the original version of the book is also slightly less than satisfactory. Bagnall’s New Zealand National Bibliography , Volume IV (Wellington, 1975), p. 317, lists both versions of the book under Tregear’s authorship and correctly notes the recall of the original version, the deletion of Tregear’s name as author, and the removal of the photographs. Yet Bagnall adds the curious comment that the original version was ‘Allegedly written by Eugene McCarthy’. No record of the reason for his statement has been found. Perhaps confusion arose because McCarthy was the official reporter on the Parliamentary trip to the Cook Islands in 1903 ( Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives , 1903, A-38, p. 2). He was not a member of Seddon’s party in 1900. I am grateful to Diane Woods for this information on McCarthy. 7 Tregear to W. P. Reeves, 14 July 1900, ‘Letters Written by . . . Men of Mark’. 8 Tregear to W. P. Reeves, 14 July 1900. 9 T. E. Y. Seddon, The Seddons: An Autobiography (Auckland, 1968), p. 115. 10 Seddon, p. 115. 11 Seddon, p. 115.