STILL UNCERTAIN RESULTS OF THE ELECTION MAIN PARTIES EVENLY DIVIDED

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 141, 11 December 1914, Page 3

STILL UNCERTAIN RESULTS OF THE ELECTION MAIN PARTIES EVENLY DIVIDED

EXPEDITIONARY AND OTHER VOTES STILL TO BE COUNTED ________ PRO3WRNT MINISTER LOSES IS SEAT

[The details published below are the results of the polling as declared last night. The votes of the Expeditionary Forces, seamen, and absentees are not included. Amended returns, received to-day, are published on page 8 of this issue.]

'"Their -words to scorn are scattered" —the partisan prophecies. This General Election of 1914 proves memorably the risks of political weather forecasting. The seers of each side had taken barometric ' readings ; they had watched the straws in the wind ; they had observed the sky, and they set themselves to their task of prediction with an easy, generous confidence. One group refused to see anything but a triumph for Sir Joseph Ward, and the other had a vision of a great win for Mr. Massey. To-day the leaders are at even grips beside the Treasury Benches, and one knows not who will be the lucky occupant — 'for the element of luck is the final deciding factor after all the warring on big issues. Opinions to-day will be many and varied about the battle as a whole and about individual contests, and the deductions will be numerous enough to give a giddiness to the coolest head. Yet through the dust and smoke of the strife one can see things taking definite shape. Not all the prophecies have been brought to nought. 'The words- of the Government press and independent journals that the Ward Party would be vitally dependent o"n the support of Labour and the Social Democrats have been proved true. Another estimate — country for Massey and town for Ward and Labour —has also been, proved correct in the main. Unquestionably the historic "backbone of the country" is still with the Massey Party, although the country, as well as the town, has supplied several surprises. Outside the straight-out political issues, men will point to the influence of the licensing question and the "burrow-engineering" of the Bible-in-Schools League, and altogether enough confusion is available to bewilder the average elector. Those Wellington citizens who assembled in the city to gaze at the fateful figures were not remarkably demonstrative. Perhaps no other election in this district's history found a crowd less noisy. Perhaps the tenseness, the doubtful fortune of the parties, helped to keep the masses comparatively quiet, but this explanation alone is not enough. One is driven to that universal refuge— the war ; it is always safe to blame the war for anything abnormal. However, curiosity kept an exceptionally large, number massed in front of the Evening Post office till 1 o'clock this morning. All eyes hung on that expanse of figures in which the country's urcertain mind was reflected ; never did a crowd here have a more interesting moving picture in the drama of political and national life. And the end is not yet ; the counting con^ tinnes, and the excitement increases from hour to hour. The figures as received last night placed the state of parties as follows : — Government 38 Opposition 38 Labour .. 5 Social Democrats 3