To Free the World: Harry Holland and the rise of the labour movement in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific
Author:
James Robb
Publisher:
Steele Roberts Aotearoa
ISBN:
9781991153883
Date published:
29 April 2024
Pages:
472
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$50.00
"He devoted his life to free the world from unhappiness, tyranny and oppression," reads Harry Holland's memorial in Wellington. Militant unionist, socialist agitator, writer and organiser, Holland was a firebrand leader of workers - both in Australia, where he was jailed for sedition during the Broken Hill miners' strike of 1909, and in Aotearoa New Zealand, from the time he arrived at the start of the Waihi Strike in 1912, to his death at the tangi of the Maori King in 1933. Elected to Parliament in 1918 and Labour Party leader from 1919, Holland was the "compassionate champion of the common people." He campaigned against military conscription and war, forged a political alliance with Maori, supported strikes by indentured labourers in Fiji, defended the Samoan Mau movement in its battles against the New Zealand colonial administration, and condemned the mass layoffs and wage-cutting during the Great Depression. When Labour was elected to government in 1935, its new leader Michael Joseph Savage cabled Holland's widow, Annie: "Harry's life of service enabled us to win."
Author:
James Robb was born and raised in Wellington. In 1978 he graduated from Victoria University, and for several years worked in car assembly plants, meatworks and other factories, and wrote articles for the socialist press. More recently he was a high school teacher for fifteen years, living in Auckland with his wife and three children, and is now working in a metal recycling plant. James's novel The Chain was published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa in 2012, and he writes regular posts for his blog A Worker at Large.
