THE MAYORALTY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 55, 6 March 1914, Page 8

THE MAYORALTY

TWO LABOUR CANDIDATES The United Labour Party's Wellington main branch met last evening, when j the following letter was Tead from the Social Democratic Party's municipal j campaign committee : — "The following resolution was carried at the monthly meeting of the Wellington Social Democratic Party on Monday evening last, and was unanimously endorsed at a meeting of representatives of various trades unions held in the Trades Hall on Wednesday evening, when it was further .resolved that the resolution should be forwarded to the United Lahour Party and Mr. M'Laren, to the various industrial and trades unions of Wellington, and also to the prees : — 'The Social Democratic Party, Wellington, will agree that its selected Mayoral' candidate, Mr. H. E. Holland, shall appear with the United Labour candidate, Mr. David M'Laren, before a joint mass meeting of members of all bona fide industrial and trades unions, the Social Democratic Party, and the United Labour Party, at Wellington, admission, to which meeting shall be by membership cards of the various organisations, the candidates to debate the principles and programmes of their respective parties, and a secret ballot of those present to decide which of the two candidates shall remain in i the Mayoral contest as the candidate of Labour The defeated candidate to immediately withdraw from the contest ' " The reply sent was as follows: — "In reply to yours of sth March we desire to say that the United Labour Party's candidate for the Wellington Mayoralty (Mr 12 M'LarMJ) was selected a month ago. Since then your party has come into the field to split the Lahour vote, and by abusive attacks hae sought -in every possible way in injure hie chances of success. The candidate your party has selected . . . stood against Mt. W. M. Hughes, M.P.. the selected Labour candidate for Weeb Sydney, and then the Sydney Worker denounced him as an anti-Labourite. The result of fcbs election was — Mr. Hughe© polled 12,874 votes', and Mr. Holland 620* which showed, what .the workers thought of the tatter's conduct. We have confidence that a similar result will obtain in this coming election. . . /Our party stands for a sane, constitutional Labour policy. We repudiate absolutely the visionary policy and destructive methods, both political and industrial, of your party, and any agreement between us is, therefore, out of the question. At the last Mayoral election the poll for our candidate was 9486 votes. This alone clearly stampe him as having the confidence of the workers of Wellington." The Social Democratic candidate starts hi& campaign almost immediately.