Unemployed Organizations in New Zealand, 1926-1939, with Particular Reference to Wellington

Abstract

This thesis attempts to trace the history of the organizations set up by the unemployed of New Zealand during the years 1926-1939, in their attempts to do something about the conditions forced upon them by economic circumstances. There had, of course, been unemployment before, which had always been accompanied by various forms of protest on the part of those out of work, but 1926 marks the beginning of a new stage. For it was in that year, with unemployment relatively bad, that organizations began to be formed, which were the fore-runners of those of the depression of 1930-35. These organizations, which were of two different kinds, were entirely distinct from the Unemployment Committees set up by the local bodies. The first type of organization was that formed with the encouragement of the local representatives of the organized Labour movement. Close personal or institutional affiliations to the Trades Councils were the distinguishing features of these organizations. The other type was a specifically unemployed organization along the lines of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement of Great Britain, founded in April 1921, by members of the British Communist Party, during the post-war depression. In New Zealand, the moving spirits in this second form of organization were also members of the Communist Party. Organizations of the type urged by the Communist Party were informed, under a variety of names, in each year form 1926 to 1930. These organizations would be set up as unemployment worsened with the slackening of seasonal work at the end of the autumn, but they could never manage to keep themselves in existence until the next year. It was not until the mass unemployment of 1930 that a permanent organization of this second type was finally established in New Zealand under the name of the Unemployed Workers' Movement.