1916: Peter Fraser Incarcerated
December 9, 2020
By AHNZ
On 23 December, 1916, future Labour 1.0 Prime Minister Peter Fraser was in the Wellington Magistrates’ Court for sedition. He was sentenced to a year in jail, which he served. Later, Fraser became a Minister and then Prime Minister for Labour 1.0
New Zealand has a long history, far from over, of new immigrants refusing to adopt our culture and instead seeking to impose their way of life on us. Like Michael Joseph Savage, Robert Semple, Paddy Webb, and Harry Holland, and Thomas Brindle, Mr Peter Fraser found working life not to his liking. Instead, they came to New Zealand and convinced men in the workforce to make them their advocates. Fraser had found this niche for himself from the age of 16 so when he came to New Zealand in 1910 he had his performance honed.
Only fools and horses work! Far more money and power in Victimhood Culture if you can kiss babies and tell the masses what they want to hear. Peter Fraser was a top man in the Socialist Democratic Party almost as soon as he came to our country. It was as organising secretary that he and the ex-president of the same, Thomas Brindle, was arrested for opposing the conscription of the Great War.
Since 1915 New Zealand’s political rulers, the National Ministry, had quite un-democratically decided we were going to join The Great War. Massey and Ward, Reform and Liberals, merged their wings and worked together to ruin the nation rather than the usual theme of taking it in turns….the Minister of Defence, James Allen, soon put in place were the National Registration Act and the Military Service Act (1916) which forced New Zealanders into their army. – National Registration Act, 1915; AHNZ
“I have my doubts the League women or New Zealand-Irish MPs such as James McCombs & Henry Thacker, or Industrial Workers of the World were really against the war as a principle. Rather, they seem to be taking the opportunity to insert their own socialist agenda into the discourse and grow, for example, the Labour Party.”- ibid
Irony or Hypocrisy?
To take the Devil’s Advocate position, I think Fraser would not say he was against conscription per se. Bossing people around and locking them up if they don’t obey is what The State is all about after all.
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Image ref. Conscientious objectors at Hautu Detention Camp, 1943; Te Ara
Ref. This is the mug shot of a Conscientious Objector to the government-powered hysteria raging on 23 December, 1916. The mainstream, encouraged by their Government, had adopted the memeplex of the Great War.
For the majority their opinions, desires, values, and work were re-assigned to Group Think spiced with anxiety and paranoia. But it was not enough to be the majority. The dissenters had to be punished and forced to comply too. Initially voluntary, the enforcement phase led to convictions for ‘sedition’ and even concentration work camps. Some men were kidnapped and sent to the war in Europe to be tortured as was, famously, Archie Baxter.
Within 20 years of this photo the man, Peter Fraser, was a Minister of the Crown and the next Prime Minister of New Zealand. It’s a reminder that periods of group hysteria come periodically and pass away again. Those who survive moral panics with their own conscience and life intact become the leaders of the new consensus.
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