Many imports were simply banned. It was against the law to make carpets from anything other than wool. To buy margarine you had to get a doctor's prescription. Until 1967, hotel bars closed at 6 o'clock. You weren't allowed to truck goods more than 40 miles. To buy Australian shares you had to apply to the Reserve Bank. You bought 5 shilling British postal notes to subscribe to overseas magazines.
am old enough to have lived through the period that some look back to with nostalgia. I grew up in a farming community during the depression years. Large numbers of people were wandering about the country looking for work, and there was often a swagger in our woodshed. However, my parents never locked the door of the house, because neighbours might have wanted to pop in to use the phone or make a cup of tea. Despite unemployment and hardship, the crime rate was far lower than it is today.
I can just remember the first Labour government which was elected in 1935 and the social security measures of 1938. Some people today seem to regard the government of Michael Joseph Savage as one that launched New Zealand into big government and large scale welfare. Nothing could be further from the truth. In an editorial last year, the Evening Post correctly observed:
It's an unpopular view, but the Welfare State founded by the First Labour Government of Michael Joseph Savage is more in tune with the current philosophies of the National and Act parties than those of Labour and the Alliance.
Even though Savage's government boosted government spending, it still amounted to only 16.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1938. Savage and Nash were fiscal and moral conservatives. Welfare was seen as a temporary hand-up, not an open-ended handout. Savage insisted that pensions should be means-tested, not paid on a universal basis regardless of wealth. His government was very conscious of the risks of state welfare undermining the role of the churches and charities. Many of its members had grave misgivings about introducing compulsory unionism in 1936, fearing that it would make unions domineering and unaccountable. By the late 1940s these fears were proving to be well founded.
The 1950s were often seen as the high point of the 'good old days' for New Zealand. Export prices were high and the adverse effects of Fortress New Zealand policies were only just starting to bite. It was a time of full employment when firms were free to hire and fire people provided they observed ordinary contracts.
The New Zealand economy was already starting to seize up by the 1950s with lower productivity growth rates than our trading partners, for reasons that include things like the introduction of import licensing and exchange controls in 1938. Some of the social legislation of the time was unduly harsh. Some children did not get good educational chances. There was a certain grey conformity and repressiveness in the national culture. As late as 1961 there were only three licensed restaurants in Auckland. BYOs were illegal everywhere. The film of James Joyce's Ulysses could only be shown to segregated audiences. Many practices held women back: for example, they often had to get their husband's permission to open bank accounts
SIR RONALD TROTTER
http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/speeches/speeches-2000/social_cohesion.doc.htm
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