‘Everything In’: Why New Zealand Applied Conscription as a Mobilization Tool Much More Extensively Than Australia and Canada, 1940–1945

Scholars have tended to play down the extent to which the New Zealand government applied conscription as a mobilization tool during the Second World War, typically by making comparisons with Britain. Through examining the plethora of measures that were introduced, this article contends that conscription was in fact utilized in an extensive manner across the military and productive spheres. It then draws comparisons with Australia and Canada – altogether more apt benchmarks than Britain – to conclude that New Zealand applied conscription to a much greater degree than those other two nations for military, strategic, political and social reasons.