Concern about the influence of foreign companies on New Zealand life and well-being is deep rooted. When working on a history of the Christchurch suburb of Addington I came across an example of this concern in 1926/27. Through the years, residents of Addington suffered from a variety of nuisances and inconveniences – from stock being driven along suburban streets to and from the sale yards, to smoke and noise from the railway workshops, to the presence of criminals, drunks and drug-users because in the suburb were a prison (until the 1990s), a Samaritan home (in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) and the Salvation Army homes on Poulson Street (up to the present).

The residents of Addington grumbled and attempted to have the sale yards moved or the prison closed down, but mostly put up with it all. They drew the line in 1926/27 when an American company, Vacuum Oil, applied to the City Council for permission to install big underground tanks for the storage of petrol at the corner of Hazeldean and Park* Roads, close to houses. *Since renamed Grove Road. Ed.

At a meeting of the Addington Burgesses* Association, Edward Parlane (a union official and later a Labour City Councillor) declared it would be a big mistake to place such tanks in a residential area. A resident who lived a few metres from the site wrote to the Press to say that the risks and dangers of storing petrol in a residential area should not be tolerated for one moment.

*There were lots of Burgesses Associations in Christchurch in the early to mid-20th Century. The word burgess relates to “burgh”, “burgher”, etc. and really just means “citizen of”. They were formed in different suburbs as pressure groups to make sure attention was paid to the suburbs' interests by “authorities” like the City Council, Drainage Board, Tramway Board, etc. and to promote the welfare of the suburbs generally. Their nearest equivalent today would be a body like the Addington Neighbourhood Association. JW.

The Council, on receiving an assurance the tanks would not lead to insurance premiums rising and that the tanks would not be hazardous, granted the application (Robert Speight, Professor of Geology at Canterbury College, told the Council that only a “really serious earthquake” which would “wreck the town” would break the pipes and lead to fires like those which had caused loss of life and damage to property in San Francisco in 1906 and Tokyo in 1923. But he thought the risk of such an earthquake devastating Christchurch was “infinitesimal” and could be disregarded!)

Several Councillors spoke against granting the permit. JK Archer, the city’s first Labour Mayor, “said that to grant the permit was to betray the City to a foreign company, which had no interest in Christchurch”. In the debate Councillors supporting the proposal dismissed the arguments that property values would be depreciated and that insurance premiums would rise. One charged that the Mayor was “very largely responsible for the feeling that was prevalent in Addington against the erection of the tanks” because of his bias against “what he called a foreign company”.

“I Am Afraid The Dollar Wins”

By a narrow margin, nine votes to eight, the Council granted the permit, prompting the Mayor to comment “I am afraid the dollar wins”. At a meeting of the Burgesses Association which followed, the Chairman expressed the hope that at the next elections the residents of Addington would remember which Councillors had voted in favour of the application being granted “and preferred to regards the interests of the Vacuum Oil Company ... more than those of the Addington people. The petrol will come to Addington” he concluded, “the business will go to Christchurch and the boodle to America”.

The Mayor, Archer, was present and told the meeting he wanted it understood “that he was taking the side of the residents against an American oil company. He could not see why all the Addington people should suffer because of the interests of one company”. Attempts were made to rescind the Council’s resolution approving the tanks, and the Addington community set about raising funds to obtain an injunction to restrain the Council from issuing the permit.

When the Council rescinded its motion, then passed it again, the Mayor accused some Councillors of being “the representatives of the Vacuum Oil Company”. Two of the Councillors who had supported granting the application showed up at a public meeting in Addington only to have the meeting pass a resolution that it would be in the interests of the community if those Councillors who had voted in favour of the tanks resigned “to allow their places to be filled by others who have a clearer conception of their duty to the ratepayers”.

The Fight Did Not Last Much Longer

Early in 1927, a deputation from the Vacuum Oil Company asked the Mayor if the Council would cancel the permit to place the tanks in Addington and allow them to be installed instead at a site on Moorhouse Avenue. The Mayor’s announcement that he had suggested to the deputation “that they might feel disposed to give the Addington ground as a children’s playground” provoked laughter around the Council table.

The petrol tanks became an issue at the Council election held in April 1927. The fears of Councillors who had supported the installation of the tanks in Addington that they would have to face the music at the polls proved real. The vote in Addington was heavily for Archer as Mayor and heavily against Citizens’ Association Councillors. Of the Councillors prominent in their support for installing the tanks in Addington, only one retained his seat.

Archer retained the Mayoralty with a comfortable majority and the election returned, for the first time in New Zealand, a Council with a Labour majority, of 11 to five. The indignation of residents of Addington at the interests of a foreign oil company being put ahead of their own interests played a small part in an historic political development in New Zealand.