THE REFORM VOTE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2363, 20 January 1915, Page 6

THE REFORM VOTE

" AN INCREASE OF 85,644 i I ELECTION FIGURES ANALYSED ' In a statement made to the Press yesterday morning Sir Joseph Ward, Leader of the Opposition, is credited ■ with the following pronouncement regardiug the results of the elections:— "I have seen the full official figures, aud they show beyond all question that . the Opposition secured a very substantial majority of votes at the polls. Of the 510,601' votes polled,. 272,025 wore cast for the Opposition, and 243,476 for the Government, so that, taking the 3 whole country as one constituency, - Ministers are now holding office with a minority of 28,649." 5 This statement was brought under f the notice of the Prime Minister, who s made the following observations on tho j point raised: — 1 "I have not had time thoroughly to, » analyse the figures as quoted by Sir J Joseph Ward, but I gather that his contention is that the Reform Party 5 is in a minority as compared with the total of the votes for the heterogeneous groups which at present make up the Parliamentary Opposition. Supposing such is the case, "what then? It is well known that iii New Zealand there are some electorates which are much larger in population than others, and it just happens that in the former the different sections of the Opposition got ' most of their majorities. But the fact 3 can not be explained away that in the " 76 European electorates a majority of ' Government supporters were declared 3 elected; that is to say, 80 Government 9 supporters were declared elected as against 37 of their opponents—a Bmall " majority, it is true, but there are numr bers of people in New Zealand to-day, many ot whom did not vote _ for our 1 candidates at tho general election, who wish to see our majority increased in 1 order that there may a strong, stable 1 Government to carry on the of the country until the next election comes along, whether at the end of three years or sooner. The people of I New Zealand do not want a dissolution at present, but I am confident they I would prefer that rather than seeing the destinies of this country committed even for a little while to 6uch a comj bination as those who, with scarcely any other idea in common, are united | to opose the present Government. "One other point remains to be noted—the- remarkable growth of the Reform vote. In 1908 our vote'was , 126,733; in 1911 it had risen to - 157,832, an increase of 31,099 votes; but - in 1914 the total vote of 243,476 showed a still further increase of 85,644 votes. And I am quite confident it will show another substantial increase when the ■ numbers go up on the neyt occasion.'