WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1927, Page 17

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE REFORM REVERSE. ITS SIGNIFICANCE. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star. 1 ') WELLINGTON, October 3. Now that the newspapers have done their best to explain the reverse suffered by the Reform Party in the Raglan by-election, and the party itself has striven to belittle the success of Labour, it is plain enough for everybody to see that the Government has sustained a very disconcerting rebuff in one of the strongest of its strongholds. The local papers urged half a dozen excuses for the failure of the Government's candi date, in which, most ungraciously, the inexperience and incapacity of the poor man himself were included; but their coitiilusions, to put it mildly, were ludicrously inconsistent with the obvious facts. The total votes pol|ed at the by-election last week were fewer than the total polled at the genera! election in 1925. the figures falling from <271 to 6050, the total votes cast for <lio Reform candidate declining bv 2445 and the votes for the three candidates f«r tho other three parties represented nt the general election increasing by 1026. In addition to the Labour, Liberal and Country Party candidates, there was «n Independent Reform candidate in the Held last week, and the 108. votes cast for this gentleman brought the total votes arranged against tho selected Reform candidate up to 4035, leaving the Jiovernment s nominee in a minority of 2000, or with little more than one-third ot tho votes polled.

A Lame Excuse. riio Evening Post," with lrss than its usual perception and 110 logic at all, declared, in effect, that the return of 'lio Labour candidate was due to th'j miscarriage of a defective system of election. "Either on a sccond hallo'., with which at the instance of Sir Josep', ward, the country experimented in 101!and 1911," it said, "or under the propor tional system which the Labour Part-, favours, the victory of the Reform car. didnte would have been certain." The i i V nssunies - " f course, that if the p.had been no Liberal candidate in tic bold the 1005 supporters of .Mr. Parker would havo cast their votes for the Ktjform candidate; but no one who lm* iollowed the trend of partv feoling in tho country during the last'year or two will assume anything of * the kind Observant people know better. Nor would tho votes for the Countrv Party or tho Independent candidate have passed automatically to the Reform candidate had either of these gentlemen or both of them elected to retire. Three ••r tour weeks ago a bank manager, addressing a gathering of farmers in the Haikato district, gave it as his conMdered opinion that a Labour Governlnont would do more for the men on the land than tho present Government. \va-> doing. A responsible authority of this kind would know his audience. The Prime Minister's Optimism. The statement made bv the Prime Minister to the Press on'the day following the election was characteristic of the delightful optimist who is content to wait with Mica wberian complacency for something to turn up. -One result of the ilaghiu bv-election," Mr. ('oates told the report' r.-, "i< dp- to vote splitting on the part of those opposed to the poliev of the Labour 1 lie a L r .;'t'i"_'a le of tils votM c-1-it against the m- • -..*sful Labour

candidate shows that tho great majority in the electorate are definitely opposed to the principles and policy of the Labour-Socialists. The seat has gone to the Labour party on a minority j vote, but I predict with confidence that j to-day's verdict will be reversed at the j general election, provided that there are i 1 not too many candidates anxious to I demonstrate their opposition to th<' ; principles of the Socialistic party. I feel sure that one result of this content will be to consolidate the forces in the community which arc definitely opposed t the platform of the Labour party." These arp very plausible generalities, but they do not account for the decline of the Reform vote in less than two years by 244.5, from 4470 to 2025, nor do they make it at all clcar why the Liberals- and Country party should efface themselves for the purpose of staying' the debacle. Vote Splitting. The Prime Minister and liis colleagues have no more right to be calling out against vote-splitting than have the local papers. Mr. Coates must be aware that it was a minority of the electors of the Dominion that gave hiin his overwhelming majority in the present House of Representatives, and he cannot have forgotten that only a week or two ago he and his big battalions arrayed themselves against a bill, introdued by Mr. J. McCombs, the Labour member for Lyttelton, which aimed at preventing the wastage of votes he now professes to deplore. The Hon. F. J. Rolleston, the Attorney-General, and Mr. J. A. Young, the Minister of Health, with a somewhat broader conception of popular representation than had their chief, dared to vote for the principle of Mr. McCombs* bill and for their courage were severely taken to task by the '•Dominion," which went the length of implying that they had been disloyal to their party. For tho Prime Minister himself there always is the excuse that he has not yet made himself acquainted with the details of more th,an one system of election and that the less chivalrous members of his party prefer the bridge that has carried them safely over an election to one that might test their right of passage more severely.