GOVERNMENT VICTORY AT ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26516, 3 September 1951, Page 6

GOVERNMENT VICTORY AT ELECTION

INCREASED MAJORITY IN HOUSE ,, ... ... <

Higher Proportion Of Votes In 69 Electorates SMALL LEAD FOR MR McCOMBS; MR F. JONES DEFEATED The National Party was returned to the Treasury Benches of Parliament by a decisive vote at the General Election on Saturday. On preliminary figures the Government has increased its majority in the House of Representatives from 12 to 14 to give it 47 seats. Seven seats are still in doubt. Four of them are held by the Labour Party and three by the National Party. Labour lost Gisborne, where Mr H. Dudfield defeated Mr R. A. Keeling by 48 votes, and St. Kilda, where Mr J. G. Barnes had a majority of 113 over Mr F. Jones. In Palmerston North the sitting National member, Mr W. B. Tennent, was beaten by Mr J. Hodgens, a former Labour member for the district, the margin being two votes. The other electorates in doubt are Lyttelton (held by Labour), Napier (Labour), Waimarino (Labour) and Roskill (National). It will be some days before absentee, postal and declaration votes are counted and the final results known, but it appears certain that the National Party will hold its electionday majority, and the figures suggest that at least one other Labour-held seat will be captured by National. The poll, the first to be held on a Saturday since 1943, was smaller than that at the last General Election in 1949. On Saturday valid votes cast totalled 973,473, compared with 995,132 on voting day in 1949, when the roll number was 57,712 fewer than that for this election. When the National Party won office in 1949, the preliminary courit gave it 51.08 per cent, of the votes cast. That was increased to 51.88 when all votes had been counted. On Saturday’s figures the percentage for the National Party was 53.9. National Party candidates’ total majority at the last election was about 46,000. This time it was about 75,000. Only 11 of the 80 electorates showed increased majorities or smaller deficits for Labour. All the four Maori electorates returned their sitting Labour members, and in every case except Southern Maori, the smallest electorate in New Zealand, with an increased majority. Communists and Independents polled badly in the 10 electorates they contested.