CHAPTER TWO

Auckland libraries, the Auckland Provincial Council, and library legislation.

‘Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do is leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much overestimated.’

The development of libraries in the Auckland Province did not hinge significantly on the passing of the first New Zealand library legislation in 1869. The settlers had already established many small libraries within town and rural areas before the legislation was introduced. The 1869 legislation served to publicize the public library model which had already been introduced in Britain, America and Australia and highlighted the need for local and central government intervention in library provision.

It was the introduction of the 1875 and 1877 public library acts which activated the first real debates in New Zealand over library provision. Under the provisions of the 1875 Public Libraries Powers Act libraries were required to register as incorporated societies to ensure that they could legally accept donations and funding, and to enforce their rules and by-laws. The 1877 Public Libraries Subsidies Act created a mechanism through which the Government could distribute subsidies to libraries, carrying on a tradition established by the Provincial Councils.

There were several other acts passed during the mid-eighteen-seventies, which worked in conjunction with the library legislation and put pressure on local and central government to provide social, cultural and leisure facilities. Legislation relating to county, education boards and municipal government all contained clauses directly related to libraries and associated areas of public recreation. The rationale behind the inclusion of such clauses was a belief that library provision enhanced social stability through controls over recreation and leisure. Libraries were also seen as an extension of the education system, as schooling for most people ended at primary level. They also provided a venue for group activities and mutual improvement creating community harmony.

The impact of politicians, such as Onehunga MP, Maurice O’Rorke, who was responsible for drawing up most of the New Zealand library legislation, cannot be measured merely by the number of libraries which emerged after the introduction of the library legislation. O’Rorke had identified the public library model and free library provision as a means to justify an end. He considered that libraries had a significant part to play within the education system, which was his major area of interest.

From the beginning of settlement, problems had arisen in resourcing the construction and maintenance of public services. As the population of the Auckland province increased and spread outwards into small towns and boroughs demands were made on the Provincial Council and the Highway Boards for the provision of better roads, sewage or drains. Somehow amongst the mud and disorder of these newly established communities, funds were scraped together to build a community hall or a small public school. Adjoining libraries or reading rooms were added to these buildings providing a small respite from the chaos outdoors. Modelled on subscription libraries of Great Britain, libraries were expected to provide a place where the settlers could catch up on the newspapers, both local and British, where books could be exchanged, and where literary and philosophical groups could hold lectures and debates, all in a bid for self or mutual improvement.

The library, although generally added onto another community facility, was considered a major community asset. When they were first opened and interest was high, donations of books poured in. However, after a while the need to provide further literature for members became a major problem. The money raised from subscriptions and the odd soiree, could never hope to buy enough to keep pace with reading needs. A case in point was the Warkworth Library which opened in 1859, with a collection of 184 titles, and 19 financial members. It did not take long for the readers to read the entire stock, and, with a £1 annual subscription, funding for stock needed to be found elsewhere. Who better to approach for assistance than the local governing body.

From August 1853 the Auckland Province was governed and administered by a Council which was dominated by a small group of wealthy businessmen and landed ‘gentry’ who had limited powers over by-laws, roads, public health, works and charitable trusts. In his study of the occupational makeup of the Council H. Hanham claims that only three artisans or shopkeepers make it onto the Council, the rest, suggests Robert McGarvey, were ‘drawn from the ranks of the more prosperous citizens’ who joined ‘in order to gain their own political and economic ends.’ The Council governed the region for 23 years until the abolition of the provinces in 1876. The first expenditure allocated to libraries by the Auckland Provincial Council was L100 towards the establishment of a Library and Reading Rooms for the members of the Council. The member for the Bay of Islands, James Busby, moved that the amount be placed on the estimates ‘towards the formation of a Library.’ A Library Committee was established to work towards this aim. The members appointed were James Busby, Frederick Whitaker, John Watson Bain, James Thomas Boylan, Allan O’Neill, and William Powditch. In 1855 a further £600 was placed on the estimates for the construction of the library, and from 1856 until the abolition of the provinces, the Auckland Provincial Council library provided a substantial level of literary material for members of the Council and selected ‘friends’.

With only an annual grant of £100, the Provincial Council library accumulated a significant collection of material covering a wide range of interests. A catalogue of books held in the Provincial Council Library in 1873 shows the scope of reading materials enjoyed by the members of the Council. Amongst the Miscellaneous section was Edward Edward’s Free Town Libraries published in 1869, no doubt a useful text in the development of library legislation for the Librarian and Council member Maurice O’Rorke.

The catalogue divided the large assortment of texts under headings such as legal, historical, political, philosophical, biographical and literature. A scan of the catalogue shows that hardly a novel could be traced amongst its large collection of books. The Literature section listed the assorted works of De Foe [sic], Shakespeare, Locke, and De Quincey. The Curiosities of Literature by I. Disraeli, Calamities and Quarrels of Authors by B. Disraeli, and the Anatomy of Melancholy by Burton are but a few of the more interesting sounding titles listed. The Art, Natural History and Science section held books filled with practical advice such as the Weale’s Series which covered not only mathematics, but also pneumatics, the power of water, mechanics, tubular bridges, limes, masonry, mineralogy, quarrying, roads and lighthouses, steam engines, gas works and railways. These were useful tools alongside the guides and handbooks produced by Hochstetter, Fenton and Swainson on New Zealand.

A journal listing the books taken out and returned from the Council during 1856 to 1866 shows a regular use of the library for reference works such as Macaulay’s [sic] History of England, and J.T. Smith’s Local Self Government, and fewer issues of the more recreational reading such as Kane’s Arctic Explorations in 1854-5 or Tales from Blackwood. Whether the absence of novels was dictated by some politician’s views on the role of fiction in the library, can not be ascertained as this library was a specialized library, but certainly the politicians had time to enjoy armchair travel and exploration. The subject of the travel books covered a broad spectrum from Tennant’s Ceylon, and Kohl’s Austria to those covering the Pacific such as Smythe’s Ten Months in the Fiji Islands and Stoney’s Residence in Tasmania.

The connection between ‘Home’ was amplified by the ample provision of books on Britain such Marsh’s The History of the English Language, Miller’s Impressions of England and Its People, and Hearn’s Government of England. The library also provided the members with a large assortment of periodicals from Great Britain such as the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review, Westminster Review, Saturday Review and the Examiner (London). The library was not without its regular supply of newspapers from New Zealand such as the New Zealand Herald, the New Zealander, the Aucklander and the Southern Cross.

By the mid-fifties there still was no major library provision in the city for the settlers, apart from a small collection held at the Mechanics Institute. The Auckland Mechanics’ Institute had been operating out of a small cottage in High Street since its inception in 1842, when it had opened its doors with approximately one hundred books for its one hundred financial members. (Figures 5 & 6). Its popularity had seesawed over the years and on 31 May 1851 an editorial in the Auckland Independent and Operatives Journal questioned whether the Institute was fulfilling its role as a place of education for young men to improve their intellectual facilities. The editorial suggested that the subjects provided at the Institute were not appropriate for young boys who wanted ‘to read but didn’t have the capability to fully understand.’

In 1856, when the Council allocated L300 in its estimates towards the construction of a new hall for the Mechanics’ Institute, there had been a substantial upturn of interest in the institution. Membership numbers had risen to over 150, and the library housed over 1,000 volumes. The plans for the new building included plenty of space for a proper library and reading room, and substantial lecture hall for Institute and community use. In a begging letter to the Council, the President, John Bennett, requested assistance ‘on account of the number of young men engaged in commercial and other pursuits who have not family circles in which to [spend] their leisure hours, and to who [sic] such an attempt to provide a safe place of resort and occasional entertainment might be acceptable and valuable’

By 1863 problems over pursuing the ideology behind the establishment of the Institute had come to the attention of the Provincial Council. It was clear that although the original objectives had been to assist the working man towards self-improvement, the working man was not supporting the Institute. A deep mistrust in middle class patronage and their ideas about the ‘needs’ of the working class and a location distanced from the working class quarters of the city, kept the working man away and consequently led to the Institute being taken over by a middle class clientele. Joseph Newman, the member of the Provincial Council for the Southern Division, agreeing with the 1851 editorial, suggested that the problem lay with those who ran the Institute as the ‘class of books to be found in the Institute was of a class not likely to be beneficial to the working classes.’

Another function of the Institute was the provision of lectures. Although aimed at enlightening the working man, the lectures offered often depended on who could be found to speak, and therefore the subjects covered were on a wide range of topics rather than being carefully selected to educate the listener. The lectures provided often proved informative, but a draw card was more often that the hall was heated and one could relax and enjoy good company. For some it provided the venue for a cat nap at the end of a hard day.

Applications for financial support from the Council were made annually, often using the plight of the youth of the city to stir support for their continuance. In 1864 the member for Onehunga, James Gallagher, argued that the Institute needed the Council’s support as there was a real need to keep young men from the public houses and off the streets. He suggested that if the Institute was failing to gain support the administrators should approach the successful Institute in Onehunga for assistance and advice.

Rumours about the sale of books from the library led the member for Raglan, Joseph May, to query whether stories he had heard about cheap fiction being purchased by the Institute by selling off valuable books from stock were true. His queries over the provision of cheap and ‘pernicious literature’ appear to have gone unanswered while members turned instead to considered the fate of the library. After much discussion a decision was made to grant a further £50 to the both the Auckland and Onehunga Institutes, by a vote of 10 against 9.

Over the next two decades the Council helped support the Institute with intermittent subsidies. In the seventies it provided funds for technical classes for mechanics. During 1874 classes were offered in arithmetic, mathematics, mechanical drawing, architectural drawing and Maori. They were held two nights a week with a recorded attendance of 85 people per session. By the mid-seventies the institute was ailing again, membership was down and the small grants provided by the Council could no longer be expected to maintain the institution.

With a growing population in Auckland, the Institute could not expect to fill the majority of the settler’s needs for recreation and reading, particularly if, as Judith Elphick suggests, the literacy level of men and women in the Auckland Province was as high as 91.45% by 1874. If the Institute was the major library provider, where were the settlers getting access to reading material? Was the gap being filled through the provision of newspapers? Or did circulating and subscription libraries fill the gap in the market?

During the late sixties a number of small library providers had emerged within the Auckland region. Many were aligned with religious and church groups and libraries had been established within mutual improvement societies. The Auckland Catholic Literary Institute, the Wesleyan Church Young Men’s Literary and Debating Club, and the St. James Mutual Improvement Association all had regular weekly meetings where members could exchange books, listen to speakers and participate in debates. Some associations were directed at the young men of the Auckland Province. Groups such as the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society and the Young Men’s Christian Association had been running improvement classes since the mid fifties. There was also a Reading Room and Library within the Auckland Institute and Museum which was being slowly built up through bequests from members. In 1876 when it transferred to its Princes Street quarters it had accumulated over 3,000 volumes. This library, although vast by most libraries’ standards, was only accessible to members of the Institute.

In 1863 an editorial by G. Mitchell appeared in the Southern Cross suggesting that local government needed to support the efforts of the Auckland settlers in the establishment of a library. ‘The want of a proper library, accessible to all classes of the community, has long been felt’he wrote. Acknowledging the presence of several circulating libraries in the city, he claimed that ‘none of these libraries met the general requirements of the community…. The private library could never pretend to mould the tastes of the reading public - they must go with the prevailing humour.’ Mitchell argued that a public library was one sure way of ensuring that the many youths of the city acquired useful knowledge just as their fathers had done in the old country. A public library was needed to complete the education of New Zealand youth, by ‘cultivating their taste and maturing the[ir] judgment.’ His call was to remain unheeded for almost two decades. Meanwhile a number of subscription libraries such as Varty’s, George Chapman’s, and R.Thompson were established in the central city. They catered to a wide range of reading tastes. Advertisements for Varty’s Circulating Library stated that ‘albeit situate at the very antipodes, and amongst a comparatively small population, nevertheless offers advantages scarcely inferior to those of London itself, while the rates of subscription are precisely the same - viz., Single subscription: One Guinea per Annum’. R. Thompson invited the inhabitants to visit his library in Shortland Street (Three doors from the Royal Exchange Hotel) where they could borrow books, ‘by the best Authors…at the rate of 1d. per day per volume.’

The first allocation of funding from the Auckland Provincial Council towards ‘public’ libraries was made on 19 January 1864, when ‘Mr. O’Neill moved "that an address be presented to His Honor the Superintendent, requesting him to place on the supplementary estimates the sum of £50 in aid of the Mahurangi Library, to purchase agricultural works, &c."’ The Mahurangi Library had been founded in 1859 and had been housed in the vestry of the Presbyterian Church. In 1864, when it moved into the newly established public hall, the small collection must have looked pitiful and this may have been the catalyst in searching out funding to build up stock. The records of the Council for this period were destroyed in a fire so the reasons behind the petition to the Council for assistance can only be surmised. The motion to help fund the library was passed only by the speaker’s vote. Some members of the Council still needed convincing that it was the role of the Provincial Council to assist in the establishment or preservation of the country’s cultural institutions.

At the same meeting which heard the successful petition of the Mahurangi Library, Roderick Ross, the member for Marsden, put forward a petition on behalf of the Waipu Library, requesting aid to the amount of £25 be allocated in the estimates. In the ensuing discussion the member for Raglan, William Thorne Buckland, asked why the Auckland Mechanics Institute had not kept its promise to donate its surplus books to the country Institutes, ‘as it had promised to do so when the Council voted £700 to it on those conditions.’ The member for the Northern Division, William Swanson, declared that he did not care where the books were kept, but these books were out of the normal reach of mechanics financially, ‘ and ought to be provided by the Government, place them where they might. The Council were individually as well off as mechanics, and yet they were not above voting money for their own Library below’. No discussion transpired as to the needs or requirements of the Waipu community or the role of the library and the motion to assist the Waipu Library was defeated.

The passing of the British Public Libraries Act in 1850 did not have any immediate impact on libraries in New Zealand, although it was used as the basis for the public library legislation which O’Rorke introduced nineteen years later. In New Zealand the introduction of library legislation could be seen as part of O’Rorke’s overall plan to extend universal education and was a bid to ensure a unified basis for the development and maintenance of New Zealand libraries. As the librarian of the Auckland Provincial Council, as well as a Member of the House of Representatives, O’Rorke spent a great deal of time researching the reasons for and impact of William Ewart’s British Act. O’Rorke stated that he had ‘read all I could lay my hand on espousing the subject. It appeared to me a measure would serve this colony. I accordingly having carefully studied the various acts then in existence, some half dozen in number, drew [up] the New Zealand Act of 1869.…’

O’Rorke suggested that one of the main reasons for Ewart’s Act was that many British libraries were facing an increasingly unknown future. Some, which had been established by wealthy benefactors, had fallen into decay through lack of a regular income. Ewart’s legislation aimed at placing libraries on a firm financial footing by making them the responsibility of a municipal body and taxing the ratepayer for the privilege of library use. O’Rorke wished to confer on the New Zealand public the ‘same privileges which similar bodies enjoyed at home’.

Unlike its British counterpart, the 1869 Public Libraries Bill was introduced to the New Zealand Parliament without any fanfare. In a speech at the opening of the Auckland Public Library, O’Rorke described how he ‘got it passed without opposition in the House of Representatives and through the Legislative Council with a growl at it but without alteration. But although this became the law of the land it lay dormant for 13 years.’ The Act empowered local authorities (‘City or Town Council City or Town Board Highway Board or Road Board’) to levy a library rate of 1d in the pound, if it was the wish of the majority of the ratepayers. The management and administration would then be vested in the local body, which was empowered to appropriate land and buildings as necessary. The only other financial obligation placed on the municipal councils was that they would ‘from time to time purchase and provide the necessary fuel lighting and similar matters books newspapers and maps….and cause the same to be bound and repaired when necessary.’

However, the Act failed to follow the British lead and specify a ‘free’ lending provision. Instead it specified that all libraries established under the Act should be ‘open to the public free of charge,’ rather than being free to all borrowers. This small technical detail provided a loophole for libraries to continue charging their borrowers, as well as applying for government subsidies. Whether this omission was the reason that library provision in New Zealand continued on a subscription or circulating library system for another decade however, as stated by New Zealand library historian Austin Graham Bagnall, is questionable. The small rating base of local authorities and their lack of teeth to enforce a tax rated library system is much more likely to have been a factor. This argument is supported by New Zealand library historian, James Traue, who claims that ultimately the problem with New Zealand was that it had a ‘tradition of strong central government and weak local government’, and, because of this, the new local bodies were only capable of financing the minimum of public works, such as drainage and roading. Traue suggests that this lack of financial support for New Zealand libraries resulted in the continuation of subscription libraries and ‘a minimum and substantially user-pay public library coverage to small and scattered populations.’ It could also be argued that legislation written for a country such as Britain, where the population was densely settled and the local tax base was strong, was not appropriate within the New Zealand context where a system of local body revenue was still being established.

Within the Legislative Council the debates on the introduction of the Public Libraries Bill were more philosophical than financial. William Gisborne took charge of the discussion of O’Rorke’s ‘permissive’ first Library Bill. Priming the debate with promises of astonishing members with details of how the English Act had succeeded, he began by reminding members what a valuable asset their parliamentary library had proved to be for their self improvement. He suggested that there was no better way to benefit the education of the inhabitants of New Zealand than to make sure that they also had the benefit of libraries. By empowering local bodies to provide libraries in their district they, as members of parliament, ‘would be doing a great and good work for the Colony.’

During the ensuing debate William Nurse added weight to the opposing argument by suggesting that books provided in public libraries would not be of a quality for which the public should be taxed. The ‘Bill would afford an opportunity to the minority to tax the majority.’ Gisborne suggested that this had not been the case in Britain following the introduction of the 1850 Act. He supported this theory with extracts from a book ‘containing an account of the operation of Ewart’s Act’ and quoted an extract supporting the new ideology which suggested that ‘One of the most striking changes in regard to the working of popular libraries….is unquestionably the disappearance of restrictions as to the class of books admitted which were once of almost universal prevalence.’ Gisborne stated that books on theology and politics which had been taboo for the working class reader up to now had become less restricted. He argued that the ideology behind less censorship in books was supported by Lord John Russell, who had suggested at a public meeting in 1855 that there should be ‘free circulation of truth and error.’ After all, stated Russell, who were they to say to ‘the humbler classes what books they should read; they must allow them access to all kinds of books, and trust to the certain ultimate superiority of truth over error to instruct them and inform their minds and those of the community in general.’ Nurse’s argument that libraries would not provide suitable literature was part of a continuing assumption that the middle classes should be able to dictate the type of literature which should be read by the working class reader so they placed pressure on libraries not to provide what they considered to be ‘low class’ fiction.

James Menzies argued that it was time to reassess priorities. Money would be better spent if Parliament made provision for a national system of education through common schools. While conceding the benefits of the Bill for rural areas and small communities, he suggested that without the most basic educational opportunity the rising generation would be unable to take advantage of a public library system.

A year after the passage of the 1869 Act, a member of the Auckland Provincial Council, James Boylan, placed a motion before the Auckland Provincial Council which stressed the need for their support for libraries. As time was short at the meeting he requested that it be discussed at the meeting the following week. The New Zealand Herald reported that Boylan’s motion incorporated the idea of amalgamating the four bodies directly affected by the scheme, the Provincial Council and Government, the Mechanics’ Institute, and the Auckland Branch of the Colonial Institute. The Herald stated that ‘it is in the power of the inhabitants to require the Public Libraries Act to be carried out in the city’. The following week the New Zealand Herald declared that Council’s support would mean that thousands of volumes could be obtained from private institutions as ‘such institutions appear to be particularly successful in winning the sympathies of the cultivated’. Philanthropy was seen as a major mode of building libraries. The editorial suggested that suburban highway districts and local ratepayers join the city in maintaining the facility.

On 23 November ‘the House went into committee on the adjourned debate on the question "that this Council is of the opinion that the Provincial Government should take steps for the encouragement of free public libraries throughout the highway districts of the province. That, with this in view, the Council recommends the Superintendent to reserve a portion of the provincial revenue of the ensuing year to aid in the creation of such libraries. That the Superintendent be invited to recommend the Council appropriate a sum of money to enable him to contribute an equal amount to that raised by Highway Boards under the Public Libraries Act, 1869. Provided that during the ensuing year the contribution from the Provincial Treasury to any one Board shall not exceed £100".’ The motion was finally agreed upon after a substantial addendum was added to Boylan’s original motion. The addendum proposed the establishment of a free public library, which would be jointly funded by the Provincial Council and the City Board. It also stated that the City Board should levy a rate of one penny per pound, under the powers conferred on it by the Public Libraries Act. This levy would raise £300 per annum and once £1200 was raised, the Provincial Council would transfer its library, with the exception of their Parliamentary works, to the City Board’s control. This scheme would also enable the present Mechanics Institute and the Auckland Institute to amalgamate with the free library. The motion was carried.

A great deal of the subsequent debate focused on the proposed siting of such a library. A site in Princes Street received the most praise. However, William Swanson stated that ‘ if the Mechanics Institute moved up the hill it… would be a deathblow…. His opinion was that the position of the Mechanics Institute was far superior to that in Princes Street, for what mechanic would care to climb the hill before he could read a book. It might be very well for the gentleman who wanted to enjoy themselves and read leisurely, but it would never do for the masses.’ Some even argued that the air was purer there. The Herald editorial that morning had suggested that the ‘airiness of an unused library will not compensate for the failure of the library in not really being a great benefit of the multitude, and one of its greatest chances of success lie in its being easily accessible to the multitude,’ and reiterated its earlier claim that ‘a free public library is intended for the people and ought to be near the busiest part of the city to attract the public within its walls.’ As a parting statement Philips stated that although he supported Boylan’s scheme ‘he was afraid that in this matter Mr Boylan sought to do too much.’ In the end public apathy rather than official opposition was the stumbling block in the establishment of a free public library in Auckland. Although the issue had been resolved by Council, there was little public support for the idea.

The focus on the provision of a public library in Auckland may have raised awareness of the plight of the small country libraries. At the same time that ideas over the establishment of Auckland Public Library were being voiced, the Provincial Council began to distribute aid to the country libraries (Appendix I). Traue argues that it was this level of support to New Zealand libraries which made them different from libraries in the other colonies. He suggests that ‘support from taxes was provided within 15 years of the first settlements but the source was not local authorities as authorised by the Public Libraries Act 1850 and in the United States by similar state legislation, but the next tier of government, the provinces, and when the provinces were abolished, the central government’. Traue suggests that later legislation establishing municipal and county or shire government in Australia and New Zealand, cleared a pathway for local authorities to establish and financially support public recreation in the form of parks, museums and libraries.

Between 1871 and 1875 at least 50 libraries received grants from the Provincial Council purely for the purchase of books. (Appendix II) No money was provided to assist in the provision of a building or to pay the rent for a library. Over a period of five years approximately £200 per annum was distributed to libraries in the region. When the libraries first approached the Council for grants, they generally received a substantial seeding grant (usually about £10)(Figure 7). The following year the amount dropped to as little as £2-£5. Subsequent grants would only have provided enough to purchase a few extra books on top of the amount received through subscriptions, whereas the initial grant would have purchased at least 20-30 books.

Although the first libraries had been established within the Auckland city boundaries it was the outer areas which managed to secure the major part of the funding allocated by the Council during the early seventies. Most of these libraries were north of Auckland, between Whangarei and Kumeu, where small settlements dotted the route North to Russell and over to the Hokianga Harbour. Whether the Councillors felt that the city readers were already well provided for through the Mechanics Institute and a number of small circulating and subscription libraries in Queen Street, or whether the urban libraries failed to apply for assistance is unclear. Only Newmarket received funding in the Auckland urban area.

There were some separate allocations of funding placed on the estimates for the Mechanics Institutes of the Province. The discovery of gold in the Tokatea Range at Coromandel and at Thames had swelled the population of these areas substantially. Large townships of up to 10,000 people suddenly grew over night in areas which had previously been sparsely populated. During the seventies and eighties Coromandel saw the establishment of four institutes, the Tokatea Institute (pre-1873), Kapanga Institute, the Driving Creek Institute ( pre-1881), and later the Coromandel Institute (registered in 1888). These institutes were established mainly through the efforts of local businessmen and school teachers, and, in the case of the Tokatea Institute, by the mine manager and the miners themselves. The Thames Mechanics Institute was established in 1869, and by 1875 had run its course as an institute and was incorporated into the ‘free’ public library, which received financial aid from the Carnegie Corporation.

In 1874, three years after the Provincial Council began granting subsidies to the small libraries within the province, the Clerk of the Council sent out a circular to the libraries. The reasons for the timing of the circular are unclear. At the time it was dispatched O’Rorke was beginning to draft the Public Libraries Powers Bill and he may have required data from the libraries to provide him with information to support his Bill. Or, the Council interest may have been purely statistical. It is interesting that the information sought through the questions on the circular was very similar to what was later required when registering under the 1875 Act. Libraries were requested to furnish information relating to membership numbers, annual subscription costs and the number of books held in the library. The legal document which was drafted under the provisions of the 1875 Act went a bit further and libraries were required to supply information about committee members and their occupations, and details about the constitution or bylaws, and the financial status of the company such as value of stock held and subscription numbers.

What is particularly interesting about the 1874 Provincial Council circular is the request for information on ‘the Titles, and present condition of Books granted to Library out of the Votes of the Provincial Council in aid of Country Libraries.’ Libraries were asked to ‘specify which of the said Books have been most called for.’ This request may have been due to the increasing publicity in Britain about the ‘fiction nuisance’ The Council may have wanted to investigate whether the ‘correct’ type of material was being purchased with Council funds. The circular also included a request for suggestions about the interchange or circulation of stock within the province. This may have been included through a desire to introduce a system of circulating library loans similar to that existing in several country areas of Britain. Or it could have been purely an attempt to prevent duplication of book stock in a bid to get the best value for money. The negative response from the majority of the libraries over circulating stock was epitomized in the response from Te Arai library. In short, the librarian Charles Haseldin declared that ‘I would not advocate the interchange of books with other libraries some people are so dirty in their habits and have so little regard for books that I should be afraid to put any belonging to other libraries in their hands.’

The circular generated replies from 40 libraries. (Appendix III) The replies indicate that many of the ‘libraries’ had a very limited number of books. Yet the people answering the circular nevertheless considered the holdings to be a ‘library’. Many of the libraries had very small membership numbers. In some areas only a dozen or so members were noted, and, going by the exaggerated numbers submitted in a financial return to the Council by Maungakaramea in 1883, these numbers could well have been orchestrated to attain grants. Included within some of the replies to the Council were copies of the official rules and regulations of the institutions. The formality of the documents gives an indication of the seriousness of the business in hand when the Committees were established to set up the library. Rules for meetings, committees, book issuing procedures, policies dealing with the late return of overdue books, and rules for library use by either members or visitors were spelled out at length. An example is the Rules for the Whangarei Literary Institute published in 1872. (Appendix IV)

However, these rules and bylaws were not legally binding and because of complaints over the problems associated with lack of formal recognition the Provincial Council established a Select Committee to Report on Country Libraries on 13 May 1875. Its brief was to examine problems experienced by country libraries. The Committee reported back a week later that a country library had reported that it was having problems with subscribers who failed to return their books when their subscriptions expired. The Committee felt that the question of ownership of the books was the major problem and that once libraries addressed this problem, all others would be resolved. The Committee recommended that the Superintendent of the Provincial Council be asked if there were any existing laws in regard to the legal ownership of the property of country libraries in the Province. The Committee wanted a decision made so that the trustees could legally insure the stock in their care. The Report of the Select Committee although tabled, was not acted upon until it was taken up by O’Rorke and its recommendations incorporated into the 1875 Public Libraries Powers Act.

Recognizing the failure of his earlier bill to help establish the free public library model in New Zealand, O’Rorke tried again by introducing the Public Libraries Powers Bill in 1875. O’Rorke informed Parliament that in the last session of the Auckland Provincial Council the member for Rodney had brought to his notice the difficulties suffered by libraries who were unable to enforce their rules and regulations. O’Rorke had examined the Imperial Statutes but no precedent could be found. He then examined the laws affecting the North American colonies and had found an act which he thought could be adapted to suit the New Zealand situation. His Bill made provisions for groups to file a declaration of intention to establish an institution with the Registrar of the Supreme Court of the Province. Up to 1875 libraries and athenaeums had had to petition parliament to pass an act to enable them to become legal societies. By incorporation and registration, ‘public libraries, mechanics’ institutes museums and other such like literary or scientific library committees and their trustees’ would be given power to accept donations and endowments, such as money or land, on behalf of the membership. It would also enable them to make by-laws which were binding on their members. Any fine incurred could be recovered by action in any Court. When introducing the Bill, O’Rorke argued how important it was to ensure that libraries be able to enforce their bylaws and rules, but he failed to ensure that libraries were placed on a stable financial footing by specifying municipal responsibility in the provision of library services.

After setting down the problems faced by libraries and the solution he had devised, O’Rorke used the opportunity to espouse his beliefs on the role of the library as an institution for higher education. He argued that the library provided a place where ‘the youth of the colony, after they had passed from their schools, might continue their education, and thereby arrive at a higher attainment than would have been the case without such a means as public libraries afford.’ The Bill passed through all its stages without interference.

Closely following the passing of the 1875 Act were the 1876 Counties, Municipal Corporations and Education Acts. Embodied within each of these Acts were clauses which gave local bodies and municipalities powers to act in the provision of recreational facilities for the ratepayer. Section 328 and 329 of the Municipal Corporations Act empowered local bodies to purchase and provide land and buildings which would be ‘used as pleasure-grounds, gardens, libraries and museums, music-halls, gymnasiums, or for any other purpose of enjoyment or recreation’ and to use borough funds to support these facilities.

The primary function of the Counties Act was to hand over control of public works from the now defunct Provincial Council to local counties. However, embedded in Section 191 of the Act was a clause which gave power to county councils to ‘erect establish and maintain or otherwise aid athenaeums, mechanics’ institutes, museums, and public libraries, not conducted for the purpose of private profit,’ and control and manage reserves for public recreation.

Probably the most significant Act was the 1876 Education Boards Act. It set down the conditions for the ‘Establishment and Incorporation of Education Boards through the Colony of New Zealand.’ The Act included a section which allowed the Governor to temporarily place ‘any public library, mechanics’ institute, museum, or educational institution of like character’ under the charge of a board or local school committee. Clause 29, if implemented, may have formally drawn the management of libraries under the umbrella of educational institutions. If this was part of O’Rorke’s long term plan for libraries, it fortunately did not come to pass. O’Rorke believed so ardently that the prime role of the library was to supplement the public school by ‘carrying forward the education of the people from the point where the public school leaves off…. The Library is the People’s College,’ that it may have been part of his agenda to see the nation’s public libraries placed within the education system. His hypothesis that libraries served as educational institutions may have been the basis for his support of the clause in the 1877 Public Libraries Subsidies Act which entrusted the Boards of Education with the distribution of books or cash allocated by the Colonial Treasurer. Boards would have the ultimate say over what libraries were able to purchase with government money.

In the midst of the passing of library legislation the abolition of the Provincial Councils took place. On 9 August 1877 O’Rorke presented a motion to the House requesting that the House consider, on Wednesday next, an address to be presented to his Excellency the Governor, that the sum of £5,000 be appropriated in aid of the public libraries through the colony. The sum would be distributed on a pound for pound basis to free public libraries, founded under the 1869 Public Libraries Act, while ‘other libraries’ would receive grants of 10s for every pound raised. O’Rorke suggested that a government subsidy would preserve the funding base already supplied by Provincial Council grants. He suggested the grants which had been distributed to libraries in the Auckland Province between 1871-75 by the Council had proved worthwhile and had encouraged existing libraries and had aided in the establishment of new ones. How many libraries were established because of access to subsidies through the Council is hard to ascertain. An indication of the importance of the funding is clear in the returns to the Provincial Council from the 1874 circular, which showed that in some libraries the books purchased through Council grants made up over half of the stock.

When the debate was taken up on 15 August O’Rorke was unshaken in his belief about the role libraries had to play within the education system. He claimed that at ‘Home’ it was no longer considered correct that education ceased when children left school. The role of the public library was to further education by providing access to books and learning. O’Rorke evoked the sense of privilege and class of those who sat in the House and enjoyed access to books, by reminding them that ‘it was an undoubted fact that the public libraries at Home were a boon to the working classes.’ By helping the working class, he concluded, they could improve the well being of the country.

Queries were raised over the meaning of the phrase in the motion relating to ‘other libraries.’ Hugh Murray Aynsley suggested that there were in fact so few really free public libraries that ‘there should be no distinction made between the two classes of libraries.’ He concurred with O’Rorke that the government should provide a facility for ‘the young people of the country and especially the youths after leaving school by providing them with libraries where they can obtain information that would do them good.’ He suggested that the subscription-based library system was based on class and stated that in most libraries only those who could afford to pay a subscription had the right to go in every part of the library, whilst the general public had limited access. Aynsley felt strongly that the children who left school to help support their families were denied the basic right to extend their education by a limited access to books. Although the Colonial Treasurer had stated that ‘the Government would not pledge themselves at present to supporting the voting of this money’ O’Rorke’s motion was passed with the words, ‘by way of members subscriptions’ added to the end of the original motion.

On 26 September 1877 Edward Wakefield introduced another Public Libraries Bill. At the second reading on 4 October he stated that the object of the bill was to ‘simply provide the machinery by which libraries which were in existence under the provincial system might be continued.’ Wakefield stated that he felt that the 1869 Act had proved to be quite useless so he had included a clause in the bill which would repeal it. However, since presenting the bill he had discussed the subject with several others and had come to the conclusion that it was better to leave out the clause which proposed the repeal of the Act. He stated that he would propose to have it struck out when the bill was in committee.

O’Rorke stated that he supported the bill, but suggested that it was indeed premature to repeal the 1869 Act as ‘the House this session had passed a resolution offering inducements to public bodies to come under its operation.’ He suggested that the object of the bill was ‘a laudable one - namely, to give permanent support to libraries in country districts - and he though its proper designation would be the Country Libraries Act.’ O’Rorke went on to say that he felt that it was important for the large libraries in the cities to ‘be maintained by rates, as was done at Home, aided by a contribution from Government funds, as in the case of the Highway Boards.’

Tolley points out that Wakefield’s bill carried several new clauses which had not been fully explored in the previous acts. One point of major significance was Section 4. For the first time the act included ‘a statutory definition of a public library.’ The bill specified that any library ‘supported or partially supported by voluntary subscriptions in any district, or any library established under ‘The Public Libraries Act 1869’ or ‘The Public Libraries Powers Act 1875’, shall be deemed a public library.’ Section 7 specified that admission be free of charge ‘provided that no person not being a contributor of any sum not less than five shillings a year shall be entitled to take books out of any public library.’ This clause specified that only libraries in boroughs were expected to be free of charge.

Section 2 specified that it ‘shall be the duty of the Colonial Treasurer to apportion the grants for public libraries among the several provincial districts in proportion to the population, and to entrust to the Education boards thereof the distribution, in books or in cash, as they shall see fit, of such sums as shall be allocated by such Boards to libraries…in accordance with, and in proportion to, the amount of voluntary subscriptions received by the respective libraries. This clause would later create dissension in Parliament.

The first subsidy from the government of over £1000 was made in 1878 and was distributed between 49 Auckland libraries (Appendix V). Although a high percentage of these libraries were in the northern area, there were some south of Auckland in Bombay, Tauranga, Pukekohe, Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Papakura. The urban libraries which were allocated funding were the Mechanics Institute, Onehunga and Newmarket. The grants allocated ranged from £2 for the Howick Library, up to £175 received by the Mechanics Institute. Most libraries received between £12 -19, with the Institutes receiving the most substantial amounts. The Thames Institute received £121 and Tauranga Mechanics Institute £103.

From 1878 to 1883 annual grants continued to be made although information on the size and the libraries to which they were made cannot be located. Annual grants of £5-6,000 were made until 1886, when the depression meant the withdrawal of government support until 1897. The debates, which occurred each year when the question of subsidies was raised in the house, were often prolonged and angry. A close analysis of these debates reaffirms that politicians continued to see the role of the library either as a vehicle of control, as an extension of the education system, or as an institution for the public good.

Debates were dominated by questions about the ‘problem youth’ of New Zealand. It was claimed that there were too many young men with too little to do. William C. Smith suggested that for many working class in the country there was only a hotel or library available for leisure, so if the library were to close there would be only one avenue open for those requiring leisure activities. Time in the hotel was seen to be a wasteful use of leisure time. He also reminded Parliament that as a high proportion of young single men was supporting the education of the country’s young families through taxes, it was not too much to expect that they receive something back in the form of education for themselves..

Questions were raised over the clause which gave power to the Education Boards to distribute the subsidies allocated to libraries within each region. Richard Hobbs asked if the Act allowed the Education Boards to compel libraries to purchase books, or to withhold grant money if the lists of books prepared by libraries were deemed unsatisfactory. He cited the case of the Mangapai Public Library where the Education Board had deliberately gone against the wishes of the Library Committee and had ordered books ‘of parties who have rendered themselves objectionable to the committee’. This kind of censorship arose not only against particular authors or works but also in the anti-fiction question. In 1872 the Maungakaramea Public Library Committee recorded in its minute book that the Education Board had rejected its list because too many novels had been requested. Mahurangi Library also recorded its annoyance ‘at the fact that they had been unable to have a free hand in the purchase of the books that they passed a resolution concluding that this provision in the Act showed little faith in the mental capability or the moral character of the members’. At the conclusion of the debate John Ballance stated that the Education Boards only possessed the right to distribute the money and that the Committees should be at liberty to expend their grants as they deemed best.

On 3 October 1877 James Alexander Bonar, the MP for Westland, moved that Athenaeums and Mechanics’ Institutes come under the 1875 Public Libraries Powers Act. He stated that no less than seven separate acts had been passed for libraries in the previous year, and in this session there were ‘upwards of five similar bills coming under its operation.’ Dr. Pollen suggested that an amendment could not be made during this session. But he thought ‘a Bill for the purpose indicated out to be brought in next session.’

In August 1878 Hon. Colonel Whitmore moved the second reading of the Literary Institutions and Public Libraries Bill in the Legislative Council. It had originated from a resolution passed in the Legislative Council in 1877 and was designed to incorporate the current three acts into one cohesive act. The Bill proposed to repeal the earlier acts, included Bonar’s proposal and granted extra powers to trustees. This Bill, unlike its predecessors, was lengthy and cumbersome. It contained over 49 clauses. Many were already found within the previous acts but others, such as the clause which gave exclusive power to the Education Boards to allocate funds as they saw fit, were new. Tolley suggests that passing this Bill would have ‘rendered nominal the authority of particular library committees’ as it proposed ‘extensive powers of control and inspection over libraries.’ The third part of the Bill related to subsidies. It authorised the Colonial Treasurer to issue subsidies in accordance with advice from the Boards. Whitmore proceeded to disclose that it included ‘ a grant in aid of evening classes, which, the Hon. Colonel Brett would be glad to learn, were not to include classes for young women’.

Issues, such as the need for intervention from both the Education Boards and the Government, were raised by members. De Renzie James Brett claimed that two third of the books in outlying districts were of a trashy and sensational nature, while those in large centres had assistance from ‘clergymen and educated people to see that only proper books were purchased’. Clearly there was a need for country libraries to come under the supervision of the Board of Education. George Marsden Waterhouse suggested that it was a novel principle to subject libraries to Government interference when Government finance was seen to be only a short term measure. While it was reasonable that Government have rights of inspection while they provided funding, why should it continue in the long term? He stated that he was also concerned over the presence of trashy and ephemeral literature to be found on some library shelves, but felt that it was hard to guard against their inclusion. He suggested that it would ‘altogether destroy the desire to call these institutions into existence if they were to place the choice of books to be bought under the control of any Education Board’. John Hall stated that he was the chairman of his library committee and he questioned the process by which libraries were to be established under the Bill. He asked why ‘they should take these people into a Court of law, and make them employ lawyers to draw affidavits, declarations, and all that kind of thing, in order to establish such a simple thing as a country library?’ Would it not be simpler to let the Committee go directly to the Board of Education as they were to become a kind of superintendent of libraries? Was it really necessary to make small public libraries go through such an elaborate and expensive process for such small amounts of government money?

In the later stages of the debate Hon Sir F. Dillon Bell raised the issue of appropriation of funds. He asked whether the Bill would be received in the other House if ‘sent down in its present shape’ The Speaker responded that it appeared to be in order and with the ‘concurrence of the Council he would, on the third reading, expunge all the clauses which interfered with the privileges of the other House, in accordance with the Home practice as stated in "May", p.575’, he suggested that Dillon Bell communicate with the other Speaker if he was concerned.

On October 10 Charles Bowen opened the debate in the House by questioning the need for such a Bill. He suggested that the Bill as it stood ‘before them interfered with institutions as they now existed, without doing any good whatever to those institutions.’ He questioned if a library which had L1500 in library property was likely to hand over control of the property to the Boards to gain the small subsidy of £20 - £30 a year. He argued that the Bill dragooned libraries into a common system which had them reporting annually to Education Boards, as well as being registered and inspected by them. He considered that the Boards already had enough to do without this extra burden being placed upon them. He suggested that the Bill be read a second time in for six months

John Ballance, the Colonial Treasurer, denied that the duties placed upon the Education Boards were onerous. Hodgkinson claimed that the Government should not be exercising supervision over the expenditures of libraries. He was concerned that ‘there was a feeling among public bodies that they should go begging to the General Government, and he thought it would be better not to encourage that system.’ Gibbs stated that he though the Bill was an attempt to interfere with ‘the liberty of these institutions, which had been started in many places under great difficulties, and the people had taken great trouble in preserving these libraries, which had been of very great use to country districts.’ He suggested that in some areas, such as his, libraries would be encumbered by increasing management expenses through the tie to the Education Boards.

Wakefield agreed that not only was the bill far too cumbersome, but the machinery to operate it would be very expensive. He stated that his idea of framing a Bill for libraries was to make it as simple as possible because ‘the people who had the establishment and management of those libraries were very plain men, many of them farmers, who did not understand the technicalities of administration, and would not have time to go into them if they did understand them.’ He considered that the Bill was not worthy of amendment and should be taken apart and re-framed.

Gisborne questioned whether the House should be debating the bill at all, as one of the clauses stated that money would be ‘issued and paid from the Consolidated Fund out of monies to be appropriated by the General Assembly for public libraries.’ He asked the Speaker to give a ruling on whether ‘the Legislative Council had power to deal in such an appropriation clause.’ George Grey suggested that the point raised made it undesirable ‘to proceed with the Literary Institutions and Public Libraries Bill until a question of privilege with reference to it, which has been raised, has been considered by the Speaker, and his decision given thereon.’

The debate was adjourned until the Speaker had looked in to the matter. The Speaker declared that ‘he was clearly of [the]opinion that this was a Bill that ought not to have originated in this House.’ He referred to sections 2,8, 16, and 42 and stated that the Bill’s ‘initiation in the Legislative Council was an interference with the undoubted privileges of the House of Representatives.’ The Bill was dropped from the session papers.

By 1900 most New Zealand libraries still operated on a subscription basis. Although grants from the government had been resumed in 1897 most municipal councils had failed to utilize the provisions of the 1869 Act. Even as late as the turn of the century, when Andrew Carnegie began to make grants to provide library buildings in New Zealand, ‘only three or four of the 18 libraries which benefited, provided a free service.’ Bagnall has claimed that the political and economic situation which faced New Zealand meant that it was almost impossible to adopt the English pattern, and that by extending the American system of rental collections, New Zealand libraries were able to combine a free collection of material of permanent interest and value while charging the user for titles of high demand. Thomas and Edith Kelly suggest that this is, in fact, exactly what happened in many British public libraries. They state there were few ‘free’ libraries, and many ‘resorted to the device of running a subscription lending library, for their wealthier users, alongside the free library.’ Some libraries even had to subscribe to circulating libraries to ensure that they had stock numbers to meet their readers’ needs.

The Libraries and Mechanics’ Institutes Act 1908 consolidated the three previous Acts. However, the debates at the time of its introduction show that politicians recognised that the country’s library services were fragmented between those managed by local authorities, where a rate had been struck, and those ‘public’ libraries and mechanics institutes managed by trustees and supported by a subscription system. There was still a great deal to be done before there could be a unified system throughout the country.

The proceedings of the Auckland Provincial Council and the debates within the General Assembly are invaluable in determining local and central government responses to the settlers’ demands for assistance for their libraries. They provide an interesting overview of the attitudes of the middle class politicians and how they saw the role of libraries in New Zealand society. Debates over the provision of subsidies exposed clear divisions between those who believed that the library functioned for the public good, and others who felt that it was not government’s place to support institutions which provided leisure and recreational reading.

Some suggested that if the library provided an avenue for adult education it should be supported by the state, just as the public schools were. Supporters of this view, such as Gisborne, argued that ‘the establishment of libraries diffused knowledge. Knowledge was power, and in a young colony like New Zealand there was a vast field for the exercise of that power.’ The country, Gisborne stated, was a vast and manifold resource and it ‘behoved the House to give every facility to the inhabitants of the colony, by collecting information obtained in every part of the world and embodied in books, to obtain the fullest advantage’. William Russell, MP for Napier, on the other hand, argued that it was a mistake to subsidize adult education as most libraries he was acquainted with already had enough reading material to occupy the minds of the readers of the district for the next 2 -3 years. He considered it wrong to subsidize institutions where the community displayed so little interest that they could not continue without government aid.

Another point of conflict was over the provision of fiction or novels in libraries. William Barron, the member for Caversham, was very clear in his belief that the subsidizing of libraries would justify the cost. It was better to have money spent on libraries than in the publichouses. He did not consider it problematic that funds were spent on novels ‘of a kind that would impart the most solid and useful instruction, as well as that amusement which was in itself not to be despised.’ Swanson however, argued that the aim of the Provincial Council in subsidising libraries had been ‘to set people to working and thinking, not wasting their time’ and therefore, although some libraries were allowed to purchase standard novels such as Dickens and Thackeray, it had only occurred after a very great struggle.

Discussions on whether it was the role of libraries to educate or entertain, exposed the rift between the North and South Islands. Implications that some libraries purchased too much fiction, were addressed by Seymour T. George, the member for Rodney, who stated ‘whatever might be the case in the South… that was not so in other parts of the colony, and particularly in the North, where they looked for scientific and useful works. They did not choose novels, but preferred to read agricultural, historical, and scientific works.’ True or false, it would seem that some members considered that the library should be seen as ‘the natural outcome of the present educational system,’ not as a place for leisure or recreation.

One area that most politicians could agree upon was the issue of the use of the library for the control of leisure and maintenance of public order. M.W. Green argued that there was a need to grapple with the problem of larrikinism, particularly in the cities. He suggested that many of these youths had no home fireside to look forward to in the evening and were often driven out into the streets. ‘If there were no places lighted, warm, and pleasant, and in which there was congenial society, and books which they could read and thus improve their minds, they could only expect that these youths would roam the streets and give expression to the exuberance of their animal spirits in some way that would violate the law…’ John Sheehan, the member for Thames, suggested that the subsidy system established by the Auckland Provincial Council had resulted in the founding of about seventy-five libraries. These institutions played a significant part in aiding the education of the population (men) to become good public citizens. Gisborne concurred that aid for libraries was a ‘reproductive expenditure of the highest sense’ and that by giving access to working men to ‘read and study books during the rare intervals of their arduous toil’ was one of the most important contributions libraries could make.

Sir George Grey reiterated that libraries should be seen as a necessity not a luxury, particularly when many working class children had to be withdrawn from school to assist in supplementing the family income. As these were the very people who contributed to taxes to educate others, it was the government’s duty to provide a means to enable them to continue their studies in ‘after life’. Support for libraries would ensure that ‘the people of New Zealand, should be a truly educated nation, such as the world had never yet seen.’

In a speech given at the opening of the Auckland Public Library on its new site on 26 March 1887, O’Rorke discussed the motivation behind his almost single handed endeavour to procure municipal responsibility for library provision. He stated that it was his belief that lending libraries needed to be self supporting. ‘A borrower’, he stated, ‘should pay for the privilege of borrowing a book and reading it at his fireside and perhaps for the delight and edification of his children.’ The pleasure of having books in the home was one to be paid for. The expectations of the poor were that even with a ‘free’ library system they would still have to stand in the library to read a book, one segment at a time as time permitted. Although an advocate of education for the people, O’Rorke still clearly considered that the People’s College was limited to the size of the person’s pocket.