GREY BY-ELECTION.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16221, 25 May 1918, Page 11

GREY BY-ELECTION.

CAMPAIGN NOTES

(speciai, TO "THE PRESS." CREYMOUTH. May 24.

Tho Holland stock has shown somewhat of a slump during tlio week. The Labour candidate supporters have lost a great deal of their former confidence, and thev now declare that the contest will be a very close one.

Mr Coates has had splendid rccoptions wherever ho has gone, and his meeting in the Opera House, Greymouth, last night was ojie o£ the best political gatherings ever held here. The building was packed. Mr Coates suiyrised everyone by tho able way in which he handled the political questions of the j day. He made it clear that he was not tho nominee of the National Government —as ho humorously expressed it, he was ''a poor lone creature that belonged to no one but himself and his wife." Ho made his attitude on the question of conscription very plain. These remarks were greeted with loud applause. When question, time came, Mr Coates was kept busy. Mr supporters wero scattered all over the hall, andi they fired questions at the candidate. Mr Coates parried all tho attacks with tho utmost good humour, and camo through tlio ordeal with flying colours. One of tho interrogators accused Mr Coates of claiming to bo a Liberal, a Reformer, and a supporter of Labour. Mr Coates denied the polite insinuation, and said -that while his supporters ineluded members of the three parties, ho himself pinned his faith to Sir Joseph Ward, who he believed was the only statesman who could steer tho Dominion through the period of financi.il stress that would inevitably follow tho war. He would support the National Government only so far as its win-the-war policy was concerned. At" the conclusion of the address, Mr SI. Hannan, who contested tho seat in tho Liberal interest in the by-election following, the death /of Sir Arthur Guinness, moved a voto of thanks to the candidate for his able and interesting address. In sneaking to tho motion, Mr Hannan stated that Mr Coates being a resident of Greymouth and a native of the town, he (the speaker) thought it would a disgrace to tho Grey electorate if it went out of the district for its Parliamentary representative, which would be tantamount to I saying that they had not/ a. local man ! fit to represent them. Mr _Coates in the past liad always been a Liberal, and had supported the mover of tho resolution when ho had stood for tho seat iu the Liberal interests. Thej fact that Mr Coates and the speaker had supported Mr Webb, at the ballot-box against an outsider did not mean that they had endorsed Mr Webb's platform; thev had voted for Mr Webb because the "latter was the,only resident candidate in tho field, and at the time had taken exception to a political reject of a neighbouring constituency being electcd to tho Grey seat. In tho present campaign, Mr Hannan said, he again took up the stand that it would bo a disgrace to them if a resident of the town were defeated by a political reject from another contre. Ho trusted that tho Liberal party would support Mr Coates in this election.

Tho motion was seconded by Mr James MeGinley, president of the Waterside Workers' Union 3 and carried bv acclamation.

The Labour Party hold a demonstration in Greymouth to-morrow. Tho speakers will be tho Hon. J. T. Paul and Mr A. Walker, M.P. (Dunedin), Messrs E. J. Howard (Christchurch), Fraser (Wellington), and Holland.