Otago seen from south Dunedin

Press, 18 March 1985, Page 20

Otago seen from south Dunedin

A History of Otago. By Erik Olsten. John Mclndoe, 1984. 270 pp. $39.95.

(Reviewed by

Jim Gardner)

Otago still holds a special place among New Zealand provinces, particularly the four largest. All the latter have suffered strong regional erosion, but Otago has retained more of its provincial identity than the other three. However, it would be wrong to overstress Otago’s differences. They are of degree not kind, and fall within the framework of New Zealand’s lowkey regionalism. Professor Olssen has written a new history which is also “new history.” Academic historians generally understand by that phrase “history from below,” history from the point of view that underprivileged, history which stresses social tension and class struggle; in a word, “conflict” history. Olssen is probably our leading Labour historian, and has been greatly influenced by American sociological models. Canterbury already has its “new history,” written by Stevan Eldred-Grigg in much the same spirit. For whatever reason, this companion volume lacks the appropriate word in its title. The key words in Olssen’s account are “elite” and “dominate.” His main thesis is that Otago did not escape the class tensions of the Old World. However, it is not simply “the elite v. the rest;” there are perhaps a score of groups linked to the term. The most frequent descriptions are "commercial,” “professional,” and "Presbyterian,” and his usage tails off into “various local elites.” There is no "university” elite, though it is the most conspicuous in Dunedin. The author would, of course, be a current member of it. He could qualify as Otago’s latterday William Pember Reeves. Like Reeves, Olssen sometimes acknowledges the legacy of “liberal conservatism” generated by the

enlightened members of Otago’s elites, but he generally takes a hostile “class” view of their peers. He asserts that employer “dominated” worker in Otago. This seems too strong a term for Otago’s open and mobile society. Olssen’s assumptions are urban as well as Left-wing. I would describe his book as mainly Dunedin history with some Otago background. For this approach he makes “no apologies:” Dunedin had no volume in the 1948 centennial series; the countryside had 20. Yet Alex McLintock told me that he regarded his “Otago” as incorporating Dunedin’s history. The Otago rural histories are mostly quite inadequate, and Olssen is not justified in using them to support his claim. The author might have chosen a more accurate title, or sub-title. Nevertheless, Olssen has something to go on. He is not breaking new ground by stressing the role of a provincial capital; Dunedin was more prominent in this role than any other of the main centres. However, these points do not justify Olssen’s brief, even perfunctory treatment of towns and rural districts. Early Otago pastoralism is dismissed in about four pages; the rural side of politics is almost absent. Sir John McKenzie, Otago’s outstanding politician, is given a few lines as member and is briefly anonymous as Minister. By contrast, there is a full gallery of Dunedin Labour figures. Indeed the heart of Olssen’s book is somewhere in south Dunedin’s suburbs, where New Zealand Labour had perhaps its most solid origins. These sections constitute some of our finest writing on urban social life — home, suburb, workplace, union, recreation. Olssen’s real heroes are the anonymous Dunedin workers (along with the goldrush miners). Independent, rambunctious, roistering and harddrinking, they defied masters and clergy in defence of New World freedom. Such is the author’s addiction to the word “booze” that it almost

emerges as historical emblem of his Otago democrats. The most controversial aspect of Olssen’s “Otago” is his treatment of Presbyterianism. He writes as an avowed outsider, and seems determined to stress the negative aspects of a provincial church which has been a leading force in our religious history. How would he view a trade union history written in similar vein? As he begins in 1848 with the impossible and irrelevant “City of God” vision, there is only one way for his Presbyterianism, and that is of course downwards. It is not surprising that Olssen gives so much space to Lloyd Geering, a “conflict” figure, while neglecting more important contemporaries such as H. J. Ryburn. The climax of the book is Chapter 12, in which the author deals with his organising theme, “the issue of provincial identity.” It turns out to be not a distillation of history, but a vision in the mind — the minds of Brasch, Baxter, Frame, McCahon, and other kindred spirits. Its basic component is Otago’s “Calvinism,” with which its choicer souls have long had a love-hate relationship. They have transmuted their religion through bitter experience of Otago society and exhilarating struggle with Otago’s wilder landscape. They have found that they have to live with the unpredictability of God, man and nature. (One might have added, “government”.) However, in my experience cheerfulness will keep breaking through this Otago gloom. Whatever one may think of Olssen’s thesis, he demonstrates the breadth of his scholarship and sensitivity. This “Otago” is stimulating, robust, selective, and exaggerative. Olssen enjoys going for the big hit, and many, of his generalisations soar away magnificently. But he is too often tempted to play across the line of simple language, with the usual results — especially when he takes a swing with his heavy American baseball bat.