LYTTELTON SEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 81, 6 April 1926, Page 10

LYTTELTON SEAT

QUESTION OF PAYMENT LYONS AND' M';COMBS BOTH SCORE. .After Mr. M. E. Lyons, had been declared by the Returning Officer to be the member of Parliament ■ for Lyttelton, he received the salary pertaining to his office from the date of the General Election, 4th November. Mr. J. M' Combs: then came. on the scene with a petition against the return of Mr. Lyons and succeeded in his claim that he should be declared the representative of the Lyttelton electorate. A point which arose at this stage was whether Mr. Lyons should refund that portion of his honorarium whicc he received for the brief period—a little over four months—he was believed to be a xluly qualified member of Parliament, 1 or whether Mr. M'Combs was entitled to payment from the date of the election, or from the time the Election Court declared him to be the representative of the constituency, that is, from 13th March. ' The honorarium of a member of the House of Representatives is £450 per annum, but the question of what amount (if any) Mr. Lyons would have to refund, or from what date Mr. M'Combs should draw his remuneration was referred to the Crown Law Office for an opinion. The decision of the law, officers is that both Messrs. M'Combs and Lyons will have to be paid as from the date of the General Election, but in the case of Mr. Lyons only up till the date the Election Court gave its decision. Accordingly, Mr. Lyons will -lot have to refund anything, .and, in sporting parlance, Mr. M'Combs is "on a win;.