Who do you believe about Post Office Square? Three sources on the 1913 waterfront strike
Wellington, November 1913. Shipowners have tried to replace striking wharf workers with non-union labour, and the Massey government has sworn in special constables - many mounted and recruited from rural districts - to keep the wharves open. Unionists call them 'Massey's Cossacks'. You have three sources covering the same week. Source A is a leaflet printed by the Wellington Waterside Workers' Union headed 'Farmers' Sons as Strikebreakers', claiming that 'two thousand armed farmers rode down working men in Post Office Square' and calling for a general strike. Source B is the diary of a 22-year-old mounted special constable from Masterton, sworn in on 4 November at ten shillings a day; he records 'a mob of about 300 jeering us' and admits he was 'frightened of the reds'. Source C is a police report listing arrests and property damage for the week, which records that no baton charge took place in Post Office Square. You must decide how to use the three sources in a report on how order was maintained.
1. Which source is most reliable for establishing what happened in Post Office Square, and which is most useful for explaining why it happened? Justify both choices.
Read the worked answer
Most reliable for 'what happened': Source C.
Reliability depends on what question you are asking. Source C was created by police at the time, by people with an official duty to record arrests and damage, for government and court use rather than to persuade a public. Its content is specific and checkable against charge sheets and court lists. That makes it the strongest source for the sequence of events - and for testing the leaflet's claim that men were 'ridden down'.
But reliability is not completeness. Police record what they charge; an absence of baton charges in the report may mean none occurred, or that the writer did not record it. C is reliable on the narrow factual question, not on how the crowd experienced the week.
Most useful for 'why': Source A.
A was produced by the union during the dispute to mobilise members and to justify a general strike. Its numbers ('two thousand armed farmers') contradict both B ('about 300') and C, so it is weak evidence for crowd size. Its value is that it shows the union's framing: rural specials as class enemies, and the strike as a fight worth widening. That framing is exactly what a report on 'how order was maintained' needs.
Best practice: C for events, A and B for attitudes and motive.
2. Explain how the purpose and audience of Source A limit its usefulness as evidence, and what it is still good evidence of.
Read the worked answer
Purpose and audience
A is a printed leaflet, cheap to produce and meant to be read quickly and passed on. Its audience is union members, wharf labourers' families and other unions whose support the Federation of Labour needed for a general strike. Its purpose is persuasive: to outrage, to recruit, and to make inaction look like betrayal. Language such as 'rode down working men' and 'armed farmers' is chosen for emotional force.
How this limits it
Persuasive sources exaggerate. The figure of two thousand mounted men is contradicted by the constable's estimate and is not supported by the police report. A historian who quoted A's numbers as fact would be repeating propaganda.
What it is still good evidence of
First, union strategy: the leaflet shows organisers deliberately linking the wharf dispute to farmers and to a wider class conflict, which explains why the Federation of Labour called a general strike. Second, contemporary attitudes: it shows how special constables were represented and why they were feared. Third, it dates the escalation - a leaflet calling for a general strike tells you the dispute had widened beyond one port.
The judgement to make is not 'A is biased, so useless' but 'A is reliable evidence of what the union wanted workers to believe, not of how many horsemen rode into the square'.
3. A classmate argues: 'Source B is the best source because it is a private diary, so the writer had no reason to lie.' Evaluate this claim.
Read the worked answer
Where the claim is right
A diary is usually written for the self, not for an audience, so there is less pressure to flatter a reader or protect an institution. B records fear honestly ('frightened of the reds'), which an official report would not. That makes B valuable for motive and emotion - why an ordinary young man from Masterton accepted ten shillings a day to be sworn in.
Where the claim is weak
Privacy does not equal accuracy. Three problems:
- Vantage point. A mounted man in a crowd sees one slice of the square. B's 'mob of about 300' is an estimate from inside the confusion and cannot settle numbers.
- Selection and memory. Diarists record what matters to them - fear, pay, cold - and may omit or not know about arrests or injuries.
- Interest. B still has a stake: admitting that specials charged without orders would implicate him. Being private reduces distortion, it does not remove it.
Better judgement
B is the best source for the experience of policing a strike and for the recruitment of rural specials, and it corroborates the pay rate and the rural origin that A is complaining about. It is not the best source for what happened in the square. A historian should use B with C, and treat agreement between them as stronger evidence than either alone.