Temperance movement in New Zealand

Although it met with local success, it narrowly failed to impose national prohibition on a number of occasions in the early-20th century.

[3] Beginning in the 1860s, many Non-conformist churches encouraged abstinence among their congregations, and numerous temperance societies were established throughout the country.

[2] Many provinces passed licensing ordinances giving residents the right to secure, by petition, the cancellation or granting of liquor licences in their district.

She traveled throughout New Zealand, including to Invercargill where a local WCTU chapter had already begun under the leadership of Eliza Ann Palmer (Mrs. Charles W.) Brown.

[12] Leavitt formed eight more unions in the five months she was in New Zealand, and she left the rest of the organizing of local chapters -- a total of 15 by the time of the first national convention in 1886 -- to Anne Ward of Wellington.

[13] Early in 1886, arrangements were made for T. W. Glover, a lecturer from the United Kingdom Alliance, to conduct prohibition missions in various New Zealand centres.

Generalisations from newspapers, visiting speakers & politicians in the 1890s allowed development of large public overreaction and fervour to the magnitude of the problem of alcohol.

These were "continuance of the "status quo", reduction of the number of liquor licences by 25 percent, and "local no-licence" which would prevent public sale of alcohol within that electorate.

[17] In 1914, sensing a growing feeling of wowserism, Prime Minister Massey lambasted Dalmatian wine as "a degrading, demoralizing and sometimes maddening drink."

[19] On 10 April 1919, a national poll for continuance was carried with 51%, due only to votes of the Expeditionary Force soldiers returning from Europe.