No shouting!

During war time extraordinary measures are sometimes taken that were supposed to be for the public safety.
Things like censorship of mail and prosecuting people for making seditious statements all led to a type of hysteria about doing the wrong thing and that it would harm New Zealand’s war efforts.
In part, it was also to control a public reaction to conscription which was not popular.
It led to an odd law, called the anti-shouting law.
Those conscripted soldiers had a discipline problem. Quite a number did not want to be there and drinking became an issue.
And it was made worse by people who wanted to buy them a drink because they were serving their country. Which led to no shouting drinks or the anti shouting law.
The War Regulations were enacted in 1914 allowing the government to make other laws as emergency regulations to keep law and order. The Anti-Shouting law was part of it.
The temperance movement had been in New Zealand since the 1870s with clubs springing up around the country. Most of them did not last long.
When Wellington lawyer Richard Clement Kirk founded one in Petone in 1905 it was expected to go the way of all the rest. And it did within a couple of years.
Pundits quipped that the men that founded temperance leagues were the sort that would not shout a round anyway.
The law came into effect in 1916 and publicans had to enforce it much to the despair of their patrons. People could not even hand over the money to someone rather than pay themselves.
Their customers quickly dropped away - pub owners said their trade dropped by a third in days.
And the quickest way to get around it was to buy alcohol and drink at home, meaning people were still getting drunk, just somewhere different.
Then the persecutions began. Plainclothes constables were sent into pubs to check the law was being followed.
There were loud protests, most notably from the trade unions and the Licensed Victuallers’ Association.
Over time the enthusiasm from police to keep going faded. There were, after all, so many more important things to do.
Officially the law was repealed in 1920 - it had lasted only four years.
But while it had not served its purpose - the lawmakers tried a new measure modeled after an Australian law - of 6pm closing.
The six o clock swill that saw huge numbers of rounds bought just before the deadline and men stumbled home wildly drunk continued until 1965.
And Richard Clement Kirk who tried and failed to keep a temperance league going in Petone, had been born in Mongonui in 1861, went on to be mayor of Petone for a couple of terms. He died in 1927 and is buried in the old Taita Cemetery.
Photo by John Arano.​