The Press Thursday, December 19, 1929. The Hutt By-Election.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19806, 19 December 1929, Page 10

The Press Thursday, December 19, 1929. The Hutt By-Election.

Though it is just possible, it is not likely that the division of the six hundred absentee votes "will be so heavily against the Labour candidate for the Hutt seat as to wipe out his majority. It may be narrowed: but, on the reasonable assumption that the Reform and United candidates will receive absentee votes in more nearly equal proportions than they did ordinary votes, the voting would have to be about rive to one against Mr Nash before his majority disappeared; and that is improbable. The return of a Socialist is unwelcome to every supporter of the Reform Party; but if the improbable were to happen and an extraordinary preponderance of absentee votes to turn the scale against the Labour candidate, that result would be even more regrettable. The present is a thoroughly bad Government, dangerous because of its very ineptitude; and any electoral decision that weakens its weak hold on office is better than one that seems to tighten it a little. The Government will have to get on as it can without Mr Wilford, and will do so even more lamely than it did with his help; it will also have to get on, if the unlikely does not happen, without his vote, which Mr Kerr was to make good. One vote may or may not make the difference on a critical division; but the plain fact is that the Government will be in greater difficulty than ever, and in so far as the return of Mr Nash contributes to that difficulty or makes it more obvious, it is more acceptable and valuable than the return of Mr Kerr, which would have helped to conceal it a little, if not to ease it. It is also to be said that Mr Nash adds more than the United candidate could have added to that political strength of the House which can .be assessed from a non-Party standpoint; and this is no small matter. The Reform Party's candidate was fighting a contest of peculiar difficulty, in an electorate where Reform strength has not for years been consolidated, and where the growth of Labour strength through rapid industrialisation has been most marked; but he met the situation with less than the force and wisdom hoped for and necessary. The Reform Party, if it has some reason to be disappointed, has also one good reason io be satisfied; and it has none to be discouraged.