Michael Joseph Savage 1872-1940

Michael Joseph Savage, the Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1935-1940 (he died in Office) was the best loved politician and statesman this country has ever had. I would like to begin the story as it is told - from the end of his life. Most of the information I have used is from 'From the Cradle to the Grave' by Barry Gustafson (Reed Methuen 1986) a thoroughly well written and researched book.

Savage was the man responsible for the introduction of old age pensions, state housing and many other so-called 'socialist' inventions into New Zealand society. I will be investigating the social and economic climate before and after Savage's two terms in Parliament to see whether socialist, communist, liberal or democrat best describes the Government and the changes made during this time.

His name is remembered where the names of many more recent (but inferior) Prime Ministers are forgotten.
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'Four days after his sixty-eighth birthday and a little more than twenty-four hours after learning of Lee's defeat, Savage died at 3.15am on the morning of Wednesday, 27 March 1940...Later that morning when conference met at 10.30, Fraser announced the Prime Minister's death. One delegate recalled that 'a deep silence, broken only by the sound of subdued sobbing, filled the conference hall.' p 269

'...Savage would have been deeply moved by the unprecedented tribute from hundreds of thousands of ordinary New Zealanders of all ages who stood silently in the streets as a last gesture of respect and affection. The body lay in state in the vestibule of Parliament for two days, during which some 50,000 people filed past. (Don't forget this was then a country of 2 million people. Jude) A solemn Requiem Mass was conducted at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart...The purple and black draped train took a slow twenty-eight hours to reach Auckland. At twenty stops along the 720 kilometre route, crowds of up to 12,000 people gathered, as bands played the hymns 'Abide with Me' and 'Lead Kindly Light'. Radio bulletins described in detail Savage's last journey home to Auckland.' p 271

'It was estimated that some 200,000 Aucklanders met the train or lined the twelve kilometres from the railway station to Savage's resting place at Fort Bastion...'p 271

'...the Savage Memorial, with its large mausoleum, towering column, reflecting pool, sunken gardens, and located on one of the most beautiful sites in New Zealand was certainly the most spectacular and expensive memorials ever erected to honour a New Zealand politician.' p 271


Now then...
Many homes had a framed portait of Savage hanging up in a room. There was no compulsion for this. People loved him. I can remember my parents speaking about him in worshipful tones. Even 'til this very day, if someone makes a demeaning remark about Michael Joseph Savage it will be met with cold stares and silence, for he was a good man and the following comments will prove this true.

Savage was born in Australia of Irish immigrant parents and was the youngest of seven children. There had been eight, but the first born girl had died in infancy. The family had a small holding but floods and drought (common in Australia, it seems to be one or the other) made it impossible to take a decent living from the land. Savage's mother died when he was five (probably from exhaustion) and his elder sister Rose had to leave school to help in the house. Another brother, Joe, had been dropped as a baby and was crippled as a result of the fall.

Savage left school at fourteen also and began work. He worked at labouring jobs for low wages until in 1907 aged 35, he finally washed up in New Zealand which, in the early 1900s was looking more prosperous than Australia.

Savage's mother had died when he was a child, his crippled brother Joe died in 1891 aged 21, and Rose, his only sister died in childbirth aged 31. Another brother Hugh died of typhoid when he was 29. Savage didn't have too much time for doctors all his life as a result of these young deaths. I agree with him. Where do doctors get their vanity from? They are supposed to be providing a service, not grooming their egos. The engineer who designs a town sewage treatment plant, the plumber who fixes drains, even the man who collects the rubbish bins - these are equally as valuable as any doctor, perhaps moreso.

It seems to me that Britain exported millions of its 'excess' population either in convicts chains or as settlers, and then dumped them. Little provision was made for the welfare of settlers. It was sheer chance if they had enough teachers or doctors where they were sent. Natural disasters, famine or disease wiped out thousands, but more thousands of the 'indigent' were sent out to replace the human animals. Their own people the British sent to countries 13,000 miles away, packed like cattle into ships, yet now they bring in to their home countries immigrants of different languages, different colours, different (very different) behaviours, and they make a fuss of them and feed them and house them in luxury as though they (the British) are primitive tribes welcoming gods.

This little anecdote - make up your own mind about these people:

In later years as Prime Minister of New Zealand Michael Savage went to Britain to be present at the coronation of King George VI.
'The weeks after the coronation saw Savage attending a bewildering range of meetings and functions including a reception at the Duchess of Sutherland's, part of the booze, women and invitations to stately homes' treatment Savage said was accorded state visitors. He was greatly offended and annoyed when, after he declined the offer of the company of a high class female prostitute, British officials misinterpreted his lack of interest and his bachelor status and offered to satisfy any homosexual needs.' p 207

Savage saw much poverty and grief from the poor, and much avarice and greed from the rich in his early years. His hard labouring work for little money also made him interested in unions and he became active in the Labor Movement in Australia. When he arrived in New Zealand he continued to work with the unions, and became chairman of the Socialist Party as well as chairman of the Red Feds. He was a good speaker and, although short and somewhat shabby, with poor eyesight, he was absolutely charismatic. By 1933 he was Leader of the Opposition. The Depression starting in 1929 had seriously affected New Zealand (the birthrate dropped to below replacement, in Australia one third of young people never married) and Socialism's time had come.

'New Zealand, "one of the most fertile countries on earth", Savage argued, should be able to insulate its economy to the extent that production, employment, internal purchasing power and domestic living standards were only marginally influenced by external factors. Every man and woman who wanted to work had an inherent right to work and should be given the opportunity to work. Unemployment was not only a denial of that right but a waste of productive resources and a reduction in normal spending power through lost wages and potential consumers. To give charity to people who wanted to work was unsound and potentially humiliating.
"The purchasing power of our own people' Sav