CHRISTCHURCH BY-ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1212, 22 August 1911, Page 6

CHRISTCHURCH BY-ELECTION.

. ' STATEMENTS DENIED. ffly Telegraph.—Special Correspondent.) ' Christchurch, August 21. In endeavouring to explain av;ay the largo vote received by Mr. Hall at Hie b.v-election for the Christchurch North seat last week some of the Government journals have drawn extensively on their imagination. The statement by tho Christchurch correspondent of a Wellington paper frays, for instance, that "hundreds of siocioty ladies have been engaged in a house-to-house ca'nvass during tho past fortnight," and that, on the day of the ejection, "fully a hundred motorcars were running in the interests of the party." It is doubtful whether fifty women, all told, were canvassing for Mr. Hall, and n number of those so engaged could not be reckoned "society ladies." It is a fact, also, that tho total number of vehicles of all kinds engaged in bringing Mr. Hall's supporters to the poll did not exceii fifty. The "magnificent organisation" of Mr. Fall's side exists mainly in the writer's imagination. Considering all tilings, it was excellent, but it was the creation of a fortnight, and it left many loopholes which will, howover, be fillet! up before the struggle in No vein bar. On the other hand, as is generally known, tho Prohibition organisation loaves no loose ends, and probably every available Prohibition voto was polled.