A STRENUOUS ELECTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 2 November 1925, Page 8

A STRENUOUS ELECTION.

JOHN BALLANCE AT WANGANUI. The tremendous strain of politics has not been confined to the present day and probably there has never been a more strenuous contest between parties than the election of 1891, when the followers of John Ballance defeated the Atkinson party at the polls. Wanganui was a hard seat for the leader of the Liberal party to hold, and not many years before, William Watt, one of the old Tory party, had defeated him by less than ten votes. Ballance never once got an overwhelming majority, and now, at the election referred to, he was being pressed very closely by Gilbert Carson, his opponent. Ballance knew that the fate of his party depended on his own return to Parliament, and had put up a great fight, using his matchless eloquence to the best advantage. When polling day came lie was completely worn out, and when waiting for the_r numbers to come in, "which showed that if he retained the seat it would be by a narrow majority, lie fainted three times, and it was at this contest that the seeds of the illness, which finally carried him off, were sown.