Camera obscura

A sign of the changing nature of New Zealand’s shopping facilities. We were by now on an inexorable journey to modernisation American style.

Malls sprang up throughout the larger towns and cities across the country. People now drove into the mall car park and walked around under cover. Gone were the days of Friday night walking the Golden Mile – every city had one.

We don’t know the location of this building but the sign tells us of LJ Reception Lounge and Woolshed Restaurant. Does anyone know where? It’s about 1964. Today there is widespread concern about immigration, its impact on the employment and housing markets much debated. Ninety-six years ago there was similar hysteria, with World War I veterans lobbying government. Ostensibly their argument was also economic.

On July 1, 1920, the ‘‘influx of Asiatics into the Dominion’’ was high on the agenda at the Auckland Provincial Conference of the RSA. Mr E. Hay, delegate from Waiuku, felt the fact ‘‘that Chinese women were coming in in ever increasing numbers’’ was ‘‘even more serious than the admission of male Chinese’’. Fear of population explosion was one concern. Fear of interbreeding was another.

Mr Maddox, from the Waikato, related a tale of a Hamilton returned serviceman who invested both personal savings and a grant from the Repatriation Department into a fruiterers business only to be undercut by a Chinese immigrant. The failure of the business was put down to the presence of the foreigner.