‘The Debates of the Past’: New Zealand’s First Labour Government and the Introduction of Conscription in 1940

A key impetus behind establishing the New Zealand Labour Party during 1916 had been to present a more unified front against conscription. Yet in 1940, it was the First Labour Government – comprising several leaders of the 1916–1918 resistance – that decided men should again be compelled to serve. While recent studies have described this as a swift and reluctant change in attitudes occasioned by the Allied defeats in France, numerous documents and speeches suggest otherwise. Senior ministers had in fact accepted the notion of wartime conscription by 1938, before waiting for a moment when the political and military circumstances favoured its introduction.