GREY BY-ELECTION

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16216, 20 May 1918, Page 6

GREY BY-ELECTION

THE NOMINATIONS

(SPECIAL TO "THE PRESS.")

GREYMOUTH, May 18

Nominations for tho Grey seat closed to-day. Mr Thomas Eldon Ctoates, solicitor, Greymouth, was nominated by Messrs Felix Campbell, Pat. Butler (Reefton), Michael Hannan, John H. Pignell, H. Richmond, Dr. J. W. McBriarty, John Keating, Dr. Wm. McKay, and James McGinley. Mr Henry Edmund Holland, of Wellington South, journalist, was uominated by Messrs ■George Robert Hucter (Runanga, town clerk), and James Goodall (labourer, Greymouth).

Mr Coates has thus secured tho active support of the leading Liberals and Reformers, as well as tho moderate section of Labour.

In conversation with a "Press" representative this morning, Mr Coates said that ho had received a very cordial reception in tho lleafton district, and he was confident that he would be well supported, from Reefton to Ikamatua. Reefton had. responded very well to tho call for men, and those who had friends at the war resented the attitude of Mr Holland on tho question of conscription.

It might bo merely a coincidence, but in tho Reefton district Mr Holland kept conscription well in the background, and dealt considerably with local questions, such as the development of tho Maruia springs. Mr Holland declined to answer somo of tho questions put to him at Reefton, on tho ground that they would bring him under the war regulations. The questions were as follows: "Will tho candidate frankly state his attitude towards, and personal opinion of, tho present war?" "Does tho candidate desire a victory for the Allies and the breaking of the military power of Germany?" "If he docs not desire the victory of the Allies, will ho discuss the alternative thereto and indicate what course ho would recommend to be pursued?"

"Does the candidate bolieve that the Allies could abandon conscription at this time and defeat a conscripted Germany?" "The candidate has stated elsewhere that conscripted soldiors aro iuforior to volunteers; does he affirm that the men who have gono to the front as balloted men in tbiß war are distinctly inferior to those who volunteered earlier, or that they have hcen found in any way unsatisfactory for military purposesP" "Does the candidate desire to see at this timo in our history a social unhcaval substantially similar to that in RussiaP" "Will the candidate affirm it as his opinion that the recent upheaval in Russia has been substantially successful in bringing the peoplo of that country nearer to an era of brotherhood?''

Taken all in all, Mr Holland's visit) to Reefton has not heen of the nature of a triumphal progress. He cvidentlv recognises that he will hiye to work all ho knows to secure a vistory.