Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. [Volume 39, Number 19, 1976.]

Alternative History

Alternative History

The alternative views of New Zealand history are a powerful attempt to return history to the people. Not here the concentration on the ambitions of individual politicians, with occasional bows to egalitarianism. There is a very heated engine driving the refrigerator, and we begin to get some idea of it here.

Many articles (including pieces by Owen Gager, Pat Hickey, Jwger Kuczyaski and Willis Airey) centre on labour history and the trade union movement in the turbulent times of 1890-1913. As Kuczynski puts it "Such was the state of working and living conditions at a time when New Zealand was being praised as the promised land of the workers not only by liberals and reformers, but also by responsible trade unionists all over the world".

Between the mystery and the reality lies a great gulf, a gulf enshackled by the famed IC & A Act, - the act whose avowed intention was to control the differences between labour and capital and whose reality reduced workers' wages considerably. The description is succinct and timely.

"Humph! needs proofreading!

More contemporary notes on the working class movement are contributed by Bruce Jesson and an extract from 'The Peoples' Voice". The inclusion of this last is a little hard to justify - it falls between the stools of analysis and polemic and gives neither a good account of the 1951 events nor a dear message to the people of the time. And why is the 1951 lockout referred to as the "Waterfront Dispute" (one later paper even calls it a 'strike')? Have we not yet exorcised the liberal demons?