Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1916. PAHIATUA ELECTION

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 42, 18 August 1916, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1916. PAHIATUA ELECTION

About the tamest electoral contest on record has resulted in the return of the official Government candidate for the Pahiatua seat. This result was universally expected, but the narrowness of the margin comes as a surprise to the public. It is only by 83 votes that Mr. G. H. Smith, the Government nominee, ' has secured his election. As the Labour candidate polled 241 votes, Mr. Smith only represents a minority of the electors who went to the poll. Either under the second ballot or under the.more scientific system which would have divided Mr. Macfarlane's votes among the two leading candidates, the candidate of the National Government would have been defeated. It may, of course, be pointed out that Mr. Ross equally with Mr. Smith was a supported of the National Government. Mr. Ross" declared himself a supporter of the Government, though the Government did not support him, and he came out in opposition to the candidate for whom the Government had declared. To claim all Mr. Ross's votes for the Government and say, that the electors of Pahiatua have carried a vote of confidence in the Government by 2959 to 241 would be straining the position.

The result at Pahiatua really reflects the popular mind with substantial accuracy. The people are in no mood for party politics just now. Their interest in the real war is too absorbing to permit of their sparing time arid attention for a party campaign. They accordingly favour a National Government as the only guarantee *of the domestic peace which is a necessary condition of the due concentration of the national strength upon the prosecution of the war. They therefore support the Government now'in office, as they supported it a. year ago, but the enthusiasm with which they then regarded it is not so great. They support the Govel *njnent as a means to an end, as a safeguard against the dangers of division in the face of the enemy. But trie most ardent champion of unity cannot overlook the fact that a Government which though representing both the principal parties seems in some of its recent performances 'to have pooled their weak points rather than their strong ones. The chilled enthusiasm of. a people which is still faithful to. its National Government is reflected in some measure in the contest at Pahiatua.