REFORM VICTORY

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 146, 18 December 1919, Page 9

REFORM VICTORY

RESULT OF GENERAL ELECTION '

MR. MASSEY'S SOLID LEAD

SOME LABOUR GAINS

SIR JOSEPH WARD DEFEATED FOR AWARUA

Many confident predictions were falsified when the results of the General Election were announced last night. The Reform claim is now forty-eight seats, and of the remainder nineteen are assigned to the Liberals, eight to Official Labour,' three to Independent Labour, and two members are classified as Independent. The Liberal tally shows: Re-' form forty-thres, Liberal twenty, Labour ten,. Independent, seven. The outstanding fact is that on either assessment Mr. Massey has a clear working majority. There are twenty-four new members. The result which aroused most interest was the defeat of Sir Joseph Ward, Liberal Leader, by Mr. J. R. Hamilton. Sir James Carroll and Mr. A. E. Glover, old members who were also deemed invincible, have been defeated. One Minister has been beaten, the Hon. J. B. Hine, ■who lo3t the Stratford seat to Mr.- R. Masters. Some of the results are still liable to be altered when absentee and seamen's votes, of which there are very many, come to be counted. For example; Mr. Sidey is only ten votes ahead of Mr. J. T. Paul in Dunedin South. -Interest in the General Election was probably keener than at any previous contest; but it was not accompanied by any display of hilarity. The crowd before the Evening Post board was very great, but it was on the whole orderly. The first return to reach The Post was from Westland (ten booths) at 7.20; and this was followed at 7.22 by a return from Wallace. In both of these constituencies the poll closed at 6 o'clock. Te Kohanga (Suburbs) was the first local return to arrive, at 7.28, and at 7.30 the Melrose voting was announced. At 8.5 the first certain result was given, the election of Mr. Fraser foi Wellington Central. The candidates, as they appeared on The Post balcony, were greeted with a mixed demonstration of cheering and hcoting. Most of them contented themselves with addressing the reporters and those people who were near to them.