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Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 23. September 12 1977
[Introduction]
Last week we published an article contributed from a reader on the nature of fascism and how it develops historically. This week in the second part, we study the seeds of fascism in New Zealand. Salient believes that the greatest danger to New Zealand in the present economic situation is the development of fascist trends. If these are not 'nipped in the bud' at an early stage, fully fledged fascism could develop in New Zealand. We encourage discussion on the points raised in the article.
During the 1920's and 1930's many of the conditions favourable to the development of fascism emerged in New Zealand. The prime ingredient of a fascist victory—disillusionment with the social democrats, and other parties promosing peaceful transition to socialism—was not present in New Zealand. The Labour Party had never been in power and had not been discredited in the eyes of the people. Thus the semi-fascist and fascist movements which developed in New Zealand collapsed after a brief but rapid rise to prominence. After the electoral victory of 1935 of the Labour Party, the ultra rightist groups coalesced with the traditional conservative parties to form the New Zealand National Party.
The basis of the growth of these fascist, and semi-fascist movements (the largest of which was called the New Zealand Legion) in the 1930's was the economic crisis. The main element of the crisis was a 40% fall in export prices between 1928 - 31. This had a major effect on internal economic activity. For example, building was reduced by 75% and short time work increased five times. The reduction of economic activity saw a reduction in Government revenue to one third of the normal amount. Lower revenue led to lower expenditure in an attempt to balance the books. Civil servants wages were cut, relief for the burgeoning number of unemployed was cut, pensions were cut, and there was extreme parsimony in the provision of social service.
Civil servants wages were cut by 10% in 1931, and by a further 10% in 1932. Workers in the private sector had their wages cut by 10% in 1931. In 1932 compulsory arbitration was abolished and the employers who had demanded this were able to make use of it to cut wages on average a further 5½%. In 1932 unemployment reached 73,000 which was over 20% of the male work force.
The massive attack on the living standards of working people met with a slow reaction from workers. Most trade unions were still suffering from their defeat in 1913 in that they had become tied into the system of conciliation and compulsory arbitration, arbitration.