M.P. DEAD.

SIR GEORGE HUNTER.

HAWKE'S BAY LANDOWNER.

WELL-KNOWN SPORTSMAN.

GENEROUS GIFT FOR SOLDIERS. I . * (By Telegraph;— Special to "Star.V) . -•'' WELLINGTON, this day. The death is andnunced of Sir George Hunter, M.P. for Waipawa, and wellknown sportsman. Sir George Hunter, whose father was the first Mayor of Wellington, was born there in 1859. As a young man he went to the Hawke's Bay district, where he became a large landowner at Porangahau. He was at various times chairman of the Waipawa County Council, president of the Council of Agriculture, and president of the Hawke's Bay A. and P. Association, He was a life member of the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club.

Sir George was returned as Parliamentary member for Waipawa in the Reform interest in 1896, and ■ was also a member of Parliament from 1911 to the time of his death. He was knighted in 1921. After the war he gave £30,000 worth of land for soldier settlement. His Racing Connections. Sir George had been a member of the Wellington Pacing Club for over 40 years and a member of the committee of the Hawke's Bay Jockey. Club for 43 years, two years' of which he was vicepresident and chairman. With Dr. Earle and Mr. R, H. Nolan he sat as one of the three judges for the Racing Conference, the first appointed under rule 108. In conjunction with his brother, Mr. Paul Hunter, he bred horses at Porangahau for many years.

With Cynisca, first raced conjointly with Sir Geo. Clifford, by whom she Avas purchased from v.ar In-eeder, Mr.. E. Cutts, Sir George, Hunter won the Wellington Cup three years in succession. The Hawke's Bay Cup was won with the same mare. Five years later Sir George won the same cup with Searchlight, purchased from Mr. Stead. He also won the Egmont Cup' with Whisper, the Napier Cup with Sirius and many other races with those useful .mares Cynisca and Whisper, and houses bred on the station at Blackhead, near Porangahau. Sir Geo. Hunter's death makes another by-election necessary.