Government policy

When the civil war erupted in Spain, New Zealand was the only country within the British Commonwealth headed by a social democratic government. New Zealand’s first Labour government was instinctively sympathetic to another such government under siege from its own military, yet its official response to the crisis in Spain was barely noticeable. This was largely inevitable. New Zealand had no military resources to provide to far-off Spain, no trade links for exerting economic pressure, and it was traditionally the most dutiful of all the British Dominions, with no independent foreign policy.  

As a result there were almost no mentions of the crisis in Spain in New Zealand’s parliamentary debates. In the rare exceptions, government speakers stressed their support for Britain’s stance of ‘strict neutrality’, and gave reassurances that their modest financial aid to Spain, although always destined for the Republican side, was paid to international organisations and not to the Republican government.  

However, to the limited extent available to it, New Zealand adopted a position on the international stage which differed from its British parent. It called on the ineffectual League of Nations to become more than a talking-shop and instead commit to opposing Hitler and Mussolini. This position was expressed at the League of Nations Council in Geneva by New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, Bill Jordan. On several occasions he voted for 'collective security'  to address the Spanish crisis, in a minority of three with the USSR and China plus, on occasion, Bolivia.  

In a notable speech to the League in September 1937, Jordan declared that the Spanish situation required more from the League than the simple acceptance of a policy of non-intervention imperfectly implemented by a non-League body. He advocated instead for League-sponsored international supervision for Spain which would create the conditions necessary to stage democratic elections. This speech was warmly welcomed by supporters of Republican Spain, even though British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden is thought to have 'blue-penciled' Jordan’s speech notes beforehand to modify his stance.  

For the first two years of the civil war New Zealand Labour Party’s newspaper, the Standard, gave intermittent coverage to events in Spain, all supporting the Republican government. A Labour Cabinet minister, Dr. G. McMillan, served as president of the country’s main Spanish aid organisation, the Spanish Medical Aid Committee.  

In general, the New Zealand’s Labour government’s voice in support of Republican Spain, although undoubtedly well-intentioned, was small, stifled and ineffective.