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The Angel Isafrel: A Story of Prohibition in New Zealand

The Prohibition Movement in New Zealand

The Prohibition Movement in New Zealand

It is difficult to come to grips with Reed’s novel without some understanding of the prohibition movement which The Angel Isafrel supports. First, we need to recognize that drinking had, for many people, “become a real social problem” (Bollinger 21)2 in New Zealand. Even in 1896, it was asserted that prohibitionist agitation - extreme though their view is - has done a great deal of good in awakening the national conscience to the evil side of the drink traffic.... moderate men are far too apt to ignore these evils, simply because they have long been familiar to us. (Otago Witness 19 November 1896)3. Society’s blind eye towards alcohol abuse is evident in the early chapters of The Angel Isafrel; Moulton’s drunkenness in the opening of The Angel Isafrel is coyly summarised as “Well, he wasn't quite as he ought to be,” (Reed 11)4 and the result of the inquest is a verdict of ““Accidental drowning,” with the “rider that there was “Nobody to blame.”” (Reed 12)5. But in attempting to stir up prohibitionist sentiments, Reed’s novel does not accuse the man who drinks of wrong doing (“the trade” are, however, unsympathetic). Throughout The Angel Isafrel men are considered slaves to drink; the evil always lies in the bottle. Reading The Angel Isafrel a century later, these same extreme views present both a firm stance on controversial topic of the culpability of an intoxicated person, and an alternative point of view on the acceptability of the established “drinking culture” of New Zealand.

But what kind of behavior led to the various prohibition movements in New Zealand? As an extreme example, there were recorded occasions in Parliament where members had to be locked up by Whips in small rooms to keep them sober enough to stand up for a crucial division.... on one occasion political opponents tried to defeat the purpose of the incarceration by lowering a bottle of whisky to such a prisoner (it was E. J. Wakefield, in 1872) down the chimney on a piece of string. (Bollinger 23-4)6 .Even twenty years later in 1893, when the temperance and prohibition movements were steadily gaining ground, staff of the New Zealand Herald could not complete their evening shift for the noise of “free fights and the yells and shrieks of murder which nightly rent the air” (qtd. in Grimshaw 21-22)7 outside the bars and pubs. E. J. Wakefield’s career was by this point “clouded by alcoholism and disgrace,” (“Edward Jerningham Wakefield” DNZB)8, but the episode nevertheless suggests a degree of indulgence for drunken behavior (that the honorable members felt they could get away with being drunk in parliament) that seems shocking in the men responsible for governing the country. The television footage of a drunken Prime Minister Muldoon happily announcing the snap election in 1984, along with the high voter turn out and Muldoon’s heavy defeat at the polls that year, suggests that such tolerance is long past.

In the 1870s, William Fox (an ardent prohibitionist politician) asserted “Five hundred persons die in this colony every year from the excessive quantity of intoxicating drink which they consume.” (qtd. in Bollinger 26)9. But as Isafrel tells Mr Webster, “Drunkards do not suffer half so much as others who have done nothing to deserve it.... If the drunkards only had to be considered—let them bear it.” (Reed 18)10 - the prohibitionist movement considers alcohol to have implications stretching beyond the person who drinks it, affecting families, friends, or even strangers. Some of the tragedies Reed uses to punctuate the anti-prohibitionist sentiments in The Angel Isafrel are drawn from real examples. The mother who kills herself with rat poison (Reed 21)11 might have been drawn from any of several suicides or drunken accidents in the 1890s (Otago Daily Times 18 June 1894; Marlborough Express 9 July 1895)12, 13.

However in spite of these examples of harm caused by alcoholic abuse, contemporaries of the period often disagreed with the claims made by the prohibitionists as exaggerated. In a speech made in 1896 arguing against the perception of New Zealand as a drunken colony, William Collins claimed that the rate of drunken offences per 1000 population was as low as 7.6 in 1893, making New Zealand the second most sober colony in Australasia (after Tasmania) (Wanganui Herald 29 September 1896)14. Police statistics in 2009 are recorded as 29.3 per 10000 (“New Zealand Crime Statistics 2009”)15. The Websters voted license out of complacency and kindness, because “We said to ourselves it would be a pity to take the bread from Mrs. Bradley's children's mouths... comfortable in the thought that drunkenness could not touch our house,” (Reed 16)16. The extremist claims of the prohibition movement, as well as the severe restrictions they aimed to achieve, meant that some of the opposition to the prohibition movement (including William Collins) was not motivated out of any strong preference for alcohol, but out of an attempt at moderation. Temperance was seen as a less extreme answer to whatever alcohol problems New Zealand faced; but in spite of such moderating attempts to counteract the claims of the prohibitionists surrounding alcohol, towards the close of the 19th century a vocal proportion of the New Zealand population had joined the prohibition movements.

And it is the prohibition movement that chiefly concerns us; Reed’s vision of a South Sea utopia in the final chapter of The Angel Isafrel demands a national prohibition as catalyst. But as outlined in a meeting of the New Zealand Alliance and Prohibition League in 1895, the prohibition movement was “not going to try... to force prohibition on an unwilling people. They would not have it... unless it were to be obtained by the voice of the people.” (Timaru Herald 14 June 1895)17. The insistence on a democratic process for the implementation of prohibition was seen as a vital component of the movement; the prohibitionists recognised that success could only be attained with willing co-operation, having learnt from the failed attempts in America (William Collins cited figures from 1874, that in Boston there were 11,592 arrests for drunken misconduct under prohibition, while only a year later under the licensed provision of alcohol there were 10,825 offenses) (Wanganui Hearald 29 September 1896)18. New Zealand already had the beginnings of a democratic approach to liquor licensing; the Licensing Act 1873 allowed the populace of a district to prevent the granting of a liquor license if a two-thirds majority could be obtained (Bollinger 24-5)19. This power was gradually extended to licensing polls that could revoke existing licenses, until in 1893 a triennial vote was established whereby a district could vote to enact local prohibition provided they could win a three-fifths majority (Bollinger 31-2, 38)20. The three-fifths requirement was a cause of some contention, seen by prohibitionists as unfairly allowing two-fifths of the community to dictate to a majority, while the opposition considered it as allowing a majority (whatever the size) to dictate what the minority eats and drinks (Otago Witness 19 November 1896)21. Nevertheless, “The Clutha district voted No-License in 1894, and was gradually followed by a large number of others, in spite of the three-fifths handicap.” (Bollinger 43)22. These successes increased the prohibitionist momentum, and calls were made for a national referendum to settle the question decisively, as Reed dramatizes in The Angel Isafrel (Bollinger 43)23. In reality, the first national prohibition poll was held in 1911, although since 1902 votes for No-License across districts had outweighed the votes for Continuance (Dalton 30; Bollinger 43)24, 25; nevertheless, national prohibition was never enacted in New Zealand.

Ironically the most significant outcome of the prohibition movement in New Zealand may not have had much to do with alcohol; instead, it was through the heavy efforts of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), one of the major players in the prohibition campaign, that women were granted suffrage in 1893 - making New Zealand among the first countries in the world with truly universal suffrage (Bollinger 37)26. The popular conception was that a woman’s vote would be an anti-liquor vote, arising out of the various threats alcohol was seen to pose to domestic harmony and financial security (Bollinger 37)27 - set after the success of the suffrage movement, Isafrel is still adamant “That any woman... will not vote against the liquor traffic, I cannot believe”. (Reed 52)28. Women were petitioning for the right to vote in licensing polls by 1884, and the formation of the WCTU in 1885 soon led to a series of petitions being presented to parliament, the last in 1893 with 32,000 signatures leading to the enfranchisement, just ten weeks before the election that year (Dalton 20; “Katherine Wilson Sheppard” DNZB)29. It is perhaps unsurprising that shortly afterwards the prohibitionists were given the victory of local option polls, given the sudden flood of new votes that popular opinion claimed would be in favour of prohibition (Dalton 22)30. A. J. Grigg claimed that this popular conception of the women’s vote was a myth, and that in fact women would simply be led by their men (qtd. In Dalton 22)31. But in The Angel Isafrel, the reverse is played out, with women taking responsibility for influencing at least one man to vote in favour of prohibition; Reed’s women go one better than simply following their own choices. While Reed, writing three years after the enfranchisement, considers (through Isafrel) that perhaps the women have not to some extent realised the responsibility that accompanied the great gift, and the great moral force that it was given us to wield.... our efforts have in some cases been misdirected, and we have not achieved those high results which might have been expected of us (Reed 44)32.But in spite of these reservations, it is unquestionably the efforts of the women of New Zealand who orchestrate the success of the national referendum in Reed’s novel, so that when the utopian success of prohibition is attained, “the glory of the women of New Zealand would be in every land” (Reed 100)33.