Something New

 We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.

“FROM SUFFRAGE TO A SEAT IN THE HOUSE” by Jenny Coleman (Otago University Press,  $NZ45); “TAKING THE PUNCHES” by Mike Edwards (Harper Collins, $NZ36:99)

            For well over a century, New Zealanders have been very good at patting themselves on the back because New Zealand was the first nation state in which women gained the right to vote in general elections.  It’s all part of the old “social laboratory of the world” myth that surrounds the Liberal governments of John Ballance and Richard John Seddon. Kate Sheppard now appears on one of our banknotes, our progressivism is duly honoured, and that’s that.

Unfortunately this myth is radically flawed. While New Zealand women may have been eligble to vote by 1893, it took another 26 years before they could stand for Parliament (in 1919) and yet another 14 years before a woman served as an MP (in 1933).  This was fully 40 years after women’s suffrage had been achieved. In those forty years many other countries, which had been tardier in accepting women’s suffrage, had overtaken New Zealand and already had women in their assemblies and parliaments. In comparison, New Zealand was not all that progressive.

Jenny Coleman chronicles this story in precise historical detail. From Suffrage to a Seat in the House is subtitled “The Path to Parliament for New Zealand Women”. Coleman is very balanced in her account. While noting all the obstacles that stood in the way of women’s parliamentary representation, and celebrating those first-wave feminists who moved things on, she is also ready to note both the men who pushed for women’s representation and the lack of action by many women’s groups.

To set the scene she begins (Chapter 1) by recapping the story of New Zealand women’s enfranchisement. It was only in 1879 that all men had the legal right to vote (until then only property-owning men could vote). In 1867, rate-paying women were entitled to vote in municipal elections and the number of property-owning and rate-paying women increased with the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act in 1884. In parliament men like James Wallis and Julius Vogel lobbied for both women’s suffrage and women’s representation, but faced the common arguments of many MPs that women would be a distraction in parliament and besides, they should stick to their proper domestic sphere. As much interested in temperance and the limitation of the sale of alcohol (Coleman plays this fact down) Kate Sheppard and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union campaigned vigorously for women’s suffrage, having their monster petition presented to parliament. MPs did realise that the logical consequence of women’s suffrage would be women’s elegibility to stand for parliament. But this was not allowed for in the Electoral Act of 1893 as, to win the favour of MPs in passing the act, pro-suffrage women and men had agreed to the “half-loaf” of granting women’s suffrage alone. With women on the electoral rolls, there were now 130,000 new voters. Suffrage having been won, however, many women’s groups dropped “suffrage” from their name and concentrated on other, often non-political, issues.

Under the premiership of Seddon (Chapter 2 and 3) many bills for women’s parliamentary representation were introduced, with such titles as the “Removal of Women’s Disabilities Bill”. Bills were at first sponsored by Dr Alfred Newman or George Russell, who both lost their seats after 1896. Thereafter, Tommy Tyler became the chief advocate in parliament of such bills, but they were all voted down. Jenny Coleman shows in detail how parliamentarians often resorted to facetious and frivolous arguments to oppose women’s representation. Also, knowing that women were now voting, many MPs would claim to be in favour of women’s greater political emancipation just before general elections, but would somehow forget the topic once they were safely back in the House. Much male feminism was purely for show.

One problem at this time was that the Liberal Party had become so dominant it began to break up into factions. Despite being a persuasive speaker, the prohibitionist Tommy Tyler was often at odds with, or part of a faction opposing, Premier Seddon, which did not help his advocacy. To make matters worse, even women’s groups noticed that most women were quite apathetic about the whole issue. It was not pursued with the same urgency as the earlier campaign for suffrage (see p. 97). The newly-formed National Council of Women was more concerned with general issues of women’s (and children’s) welfare and did not make women’s parliamentary representation a priority. Like the WCTU, the NCW now promoted women’s role in society and on local boards and municipal councils.Very much a gradualist organisation, it also deplored the confrontational tactics of the contemporary English suffragettes.

The situation changed as, under Joseph Ward, the Liberal government gradually disintegrated and Bill Massey’s Reform government came in. (Chapter 4) Shortly thereafter, the more radical Labour Party emerged and for some years New Zealand had three major parties, all vying for women’s votes. That New Zealand had women’s suffrage but not women’s parliamentary representation became more anomalous. By the very early 1900s, women were already represented in Finland, in most state parliaments in Australia, and in many state assemblies in America. By 1918, seven Euopean countries had women in their parliaments. In 1918, English women over the age of 30 gained the right to vote, and at the same time gained the right to stand for parliament.  (In England the so-called “flapper vote”, allowing women to vote at the age of 21, did not come until 1928 – but that is not part of Coleman’s story.)

In New Zealand it was obvious that, during the First World War, women had taken up an expanded role in industry and in positions of authority. It was also clear that women were playing a larger part in local administration. Coleman looks in detail at the formidable Ellen Melville, one of the first New Zealand women to be called to the bar, running her own legal firm, and in 1913 becoming the first woman to be elected to the Auckland City Council. She remained on the council for the next 33 years.

While support for women’s representation grew, however, there was the major obstacle of what was then New Zealand’s upper house of parliament, the appointed (not elected) and generally conservative Legislative Council. Jenny Coleman chronicles the tricky manouevres that were required for the Legislative Council to agree to the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Bill. It was finally passed in September 1919, and women could now stand for parliament. Coleman sums this tale up thus:

“Why did it take so long for women to stand for parliamentary election and why was this legislation finally enacted in 1919? Following the enactment of women’s suffrage there was a sense of politicians and the country in general basking in the achievement of being the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote. But with an added 130,000 voters, they soon realised that women’s votes mattered. This did not bring about any noticeable change in the behaviour of politicians for most of the parliamentary term, but it did come into play during debates on bills promoting the removal of women’s political disabilities, and in the lead-up to general elections when members postured on the campaign trail. But many women believed it was too early for women to be granted full parliamentary honours. [Some women’s groups] echoed Ballance’s view that women’s education in politics was still in its infancy, and on that basis they did not support women’s admission to parliament.” (pp.166-167)

Coleman further notes (p.168) that there had not been the same sort of urgent agitation that had preceded the granting of women’s suffrage – there was nothing like the WCTU’s monster petition of 1893.

Of course the story does not end here. Chapter 6 follows the fortunes of the few women who stood for parliament between 1919 and 1931. Three stood in the general election of 1919, three in 1921, one only in 1925, one in a by-election in 1926, five in 1928 and 2 in 1931. None was elected. Again the most formidable figure here was Ellen Melville who (usually as a Reform Party candidate) stood in nearly all these elections. If there was any justice, her brains and resilience should have made her New Zealand’s first woman MP.

Rather anti-climactically, the first New Zealand woman MP was the widow of an MP who had just died. At least part of her election could be attributed to sympathy for her in the by-election after her husband’s death. Labour MP Elizabeth McCombs (widow of Labour MP Jim McCombs) entered the House, representing Lyttelton electorate, in September 1933. Coleman makes it absolutely clear, however, that it was not only sympathy that brought her into parliament. Elizabeth McCombs already had much experience in local politics. She was a very capable speaker. As MP, she sponsored and promoted many bills relating to women and children, but she did not confine herself to that as she was also one of the Labour members who most often criticised the policies of the United-Reform coalition government during the Depression. Her confidence was such that, as Coleman reports “At one point she even suggested the minister of finance should consider going away to reflect on his sins and not return to Parliament.” (p.261) Regrettably, Elizabeth McCombs became ill (partly from overwork) and died in June 1935, less than two years after she entered parliament. Coleman’s “Conclusion” reminds us that it was not until 1947 that a woman became a cabinet minister, 54 years after New Zealand women’s enfranchisement, and also that for many years women MPs were far and few between. Up to 1969, fifty years after the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act, only eleven women had ever been elected to parliament.

There are many things to admire in this book, quite apart from Jenny Coleman’s precise documentation of her sources. One is her complete non-partisanship with regard to the parties to which pioneer feminists belonged. As an historian, I have lamented the fact that people often assume somebody who was progressive on one particular issue must therefore have embraced all the issues which people might now consider progressive. This is to completely misread what history is.

Remember, as this book reveals, on many issues Ellen Melville was a very conservative person. She stood for the centre-right Reform Party, she clearly regarded the young Labour Party as dangerous subversives and revolutionaries, and when she was on a trip to England she helped the very conservative Tory MP Lady Nancy Astor in one of her re-election campaigns. On the side of the angels with regard to women’s representation, but maybe not so much on other matters.  

Likewise, Coleman shows an important first-wave feminist making an argument that might now be considered as somewhat racist: “Kate Sheppard spoke of woman’s anomalous position in being represented in Parliament yet unable to represent herself. She drew attention to the fact that ‘any naturalised Negro or Chinaman was elgible to take his seat in Parliament, but the most refined and cultured woman could not do so’.” (p.106)

Autres temps, autres moeurs, I guess, but still a reminder that we should not have to endorse everything about historical figures whom we admire.

By the way, although humour is not a major part of this book, you may get some wry laughs out of the fiasco (reported at pp.198 - 211) that was the 1926 by-election in which Ellen Melville stood.

From Suffrage to a Seat in the House is an excellent piece of historical research and a great corrective to misconceptions New Zealanders have had about the historical nature of women’s suffrage.

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I cannot think of any topic further removed from women’s political emancipation than the topic of boxing. The only reason I pair From Suffrage to a Seat in the House with Taking the Punches is that these two extremely different books arrived for me to review in the same week. Taking the Punches is subtitled “The Life of Legendary Boxing Promoter Mike Edwards”, who is credited as author, although a note tells us that the experienced journalist Phil Gifford and David Kemeys provided “assistance” (perhaps meaning ghost-writing) in the production of the book.

I admit at once that boxing is alien territory to me, and especially New Zealand boxing. I have never been to a live boxing match and the only way I’ve ever encountered prize-fights is in the movies or in telecasts of international heavyweight championship matches. At the very least, then, I can be grateful to Taking the Punches for enlightening me on the topic.

Mike Edwards is a Pakeha in a sport which, in New Zealand, is often dominated by Polynesian fighters. He prepared to be a boxer himself under the respected trainer George Cammick, but as he wryly admits, “My only claim to fame was to lose an Auckland welterweight title final by split decision.” (p.15) So he moved into being a promoter, although the living it earned him was sometimes so precarious that he really supported himself with a sports photography business. At one point he asks: “Who would want to be a boxing promoter? It’s like being on a treadmill you can’t get off as you forever chase the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. More often than not you’re losing money, but you go on hoping for the big one, that boxer capable of taking you all the way to a world title fight or, better still, a win and a belt.” (p.23)

Mike Edwards spins many yarns about the rough edge of the game. He recalls being physically threatened by boxers who were defeated in matches. He remembers a rival promoter who attempted to sabotage a bout before it began by cutting the ring ropes. There were crooked promoters who would switch fighters at the last moment. There were big-time promoters from overseas who refused to front up with money they had promised to New Zealand promoters and contestants. Mike Edwards once prepared to sue the wealthy and powerful American boxing promoter Don King, but had to back off when he realised he would never be able to pay the huge fee an American lawyer demanded. And the press could be a pest. Edwards once won $20,000  in a libel suit when the old scandal sheet Truth claimed that he had not paid a boxer for two fights.

Then there’s that vexed question about  how honest decisions are in boxing. Rather cautiously, Edwards tells us:

“I’ve never been involved in any fights that have been fixed by the judge or referee. That’s not to say there have never been any, especially back in the day when certain types of gangsters took an interest in some boxers. I must admit the hometown boy usually seems to get the nod from judges if a fight is close, but that’s almost certainly human nature rather than a fix going in.” (p.76)

Edwards promoted men who are big names in the game in New Zealand – Lance Revill (whom he called “Golden Boy”), Monty Betham, and others. He discusses his business partnership with Sir Peter (the “Mad Butcher”) Leitch. And although he never promoted or coached David Toa, he gives his opinion of the man’s fighting technique anyway. Along with the big names, there were also the glamorous venues that were sometimes hired for what Edwards calls “black tie” boxing – those prestige matches open to wealthy punters who could afford the very expensive admission price. Edwards promoted matches staged in the old Mandalay Ballroom, Trillo’s restaurant and the town hall. But away from the glamour, he says “The vast majority of those in the sport, let’s call them the minnows, are often part-timers, fighters who occasionally get a chance to enjoy the limelight of the centre ring. As often as not, it’s not for long, but they are happy to get the overseas trip, with all expences paid and a small financial reward.” (p.184)

What interested me most was what Edwards had to say about the poor organisation of boxing in New Zealand and the lax laws about who can and cannot box. Apparently a health certificate alone allows a man to register as a boxer. Edwards envies the stricter regulations that are applied in Australia, where any man over the age of 35 is forbidden to box unless he passes very rigorous fitness tests. For my own enlightenment, I also learned much about boxing as a sport, how referees rewards points, and what the men in the corner of the rink do.

In the end, though, I do have to ask what exactly this memoir’s intended audience is. Edwards will sometimes make a caustic comment about some individual he has known in the game (trainer, promoter or boxer). But he will always end with a conciliatory comment on what a great guy the man really is. Clearly, he is not looking to make enemies; but it does sometimes mean he pulls his punches. I think, taking the book as a whole, that it would most appeal to somebody who is already immersed in boxing. For the rest of us, it can be very confusing to follow the parade of boxers’ names, the records of how many bouts each fighter won, and the accounts of who won on points or by a true KO.