SPLIT VOTE

COMING BY-ELECTION

FOUR-SIDED FIGHT

(0.C.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Piquancy has been added to the Christchurch East by-election, campaigning for which has now begun, by the entering in the lists of a new candidate—an industrial Labour man, IV_r. O. J. F. McKee, avowedly only ip'the fight to air. a union dispute. He will oppose the * official Labour nominee, Miss Mabel Howard, and any votes he may get will assuredly come from,the Labour side. The same applies, and in much greater measure, to .those votes which will come the way of the'former Labour member for Mid-Canterbury (Mr. H. E. Herring), now fighting Labour as a follower of Mr. J. A. Lee in the Democratic Labour group. The chance, almost a certainty, of the big Labour vote in Christchurch East being split three ways is one that will-be exploited to the full by the National Party candidate, Mr. M. E. Lyons, city councillor and veteran of numerous political fights. * - Miss Howard, of course, begins with the advantage of holding official Labour backing in a constituency that for more than twenty years has been strongly pro-Labour. She has, too, as the daughter of Mr. E. J. Howard, a bond of sympathy with the older 'Labour supporters. But not many Labour candidates could face equably the prospect. of meeting two dissident Labour opponents as well as a hard-fighting National Party aspirant The goingmay be hard enough in Christchurch East to cause,the Labour Party to throw in all its reserves. In the electorate, as in all Christchurch electorates," the ' party organisation maintained by Labour and built up over the recent -favourable years is well oiled and efficient. Every Labour voter who can be got to a booth will be there. But will there be enough of them, when the dissident Labour votes are counted, to ensure a clearcut margin against Mr. Lyons, who has invariably polled well against stiffer opposition than this? Mr. Lee's candidate, Mr. Herring, is a good speaker and a former Labour member who can be relied on to give a good account of what he considers to be Ihe defects of his former spiritual home. ,' The fourth candidate, Mr. McKee, a former vice-president of the Timaru General Labourers' Union,, is, on his own declaration, there to deal with the union's treatment of his own branch.' Miss Howard is the secretary, of the Christchurch General Labourers' Union' which had a marked difference of opinion with its South Canterbury counter-part. Whether Mr. McKee will yet come to Christchmxh and take the platform against Miss Howard remains to be! seen; but he says he will, and, doubtless, both Mr.. Herring and the National Party hope that he will.,