REFORM CANDIDATE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1929, Page 12

REFORM CANDIDATE

MR. H. F. JOHNSTON CHOSEN

SELECTION BY BALLOT

A meeting of Eeform Party supporters held at Petone on Saturday night selected Mr. Harold F. Johnston, the well-known Wellington lawyer, as the Eeform candidate for the Hutt seat at the coming by-election made necessary by the appointment of the Hon. T. M. Wilford, K.C., as High Commissioner for New Zealand. The selection was made by.ballot, Mr. V. E. Jaeobson being the other candidate for the party nomination.

There are now four candidates in the field for the seat, namely:—

James Kerr, United. Harold F. Johnston, Eeform, Walter Nash, Labour.

H. D. Bennett, Independent,

The meeting of Eeform supporters was presided over by Mr. H. E. Leighton. The Leader of the Opposition (the Eight Hon. J. G. Coates) was present.

-Mr. Coates said that the party was indeed fortunate in having two men coming forward of such vigour andinitiative as Mr. Johnston and Mr. Jaeobson ready and willing to serve the people of the Hutt electorate.

A resolution indicating the unanimous determination of the meeting to use every endeavour towards assisting whichever nominee was finally selected as candidate was recorded.

The two nominees 4h_en addressed the meeting, both emphasising the necessity for co-ordinated effort and their preparedness to leave the final selection, to the meeting, while each pledged the other to assist, to the fullest extent, towards the return of the selected candidate.

The ballot resulted in the selection of Mr. Johnston. The result was received enthusiastically, the meeting again pledging its wholehearted support.

Committees representing various parts of the electorate were immediately arranged for. Mr. Jacobson was elected chairman of Mr. Johnston's election committee, and Mr. D. M. Eobertson will assist with the organising. Upon Mr. Johnston's name being submitted to the party leader as candidate for the Hutt seat, |Mr. Coates expressed pleasure in confirming Mr. Johnston's nomination as the official Reform candidate, and remarked that he believed the people of New Zealand would be pleased to know that a man of such undoubted ability as Mr. Johnston ,was to contest the seat in the Eeform interests.

Mr. Johnston, who was born in Wellington in 1875, is the fourth son of the late Sir Charles Johnston, member of the Legislative Council, and at the time of his death Speaker of the Legislative Council. He received his education at the Wanganui Collegiate School and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated as B.A. in 1897. He was a member of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the English Bar in 1897, and later in the same year he- was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of tha Supreme Court of New Zealand. Mr. Johnston served with the London Scottish in the Great War. He was president of the Wellington Law Society in 1928, and ia now a member of the council, of the society. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee to the T. G. Macarthy Board of Governors. ME. NASH'S CANDIDATURE. Three meetings of friends and supporters of Mr. W. Nash, the Labour candidate, have been arranged to be held during the next few days. The first meeting will be held in ■ the Labour Hall, Petone, at 8 p.m. to-mor-jow. All persons who are willing to help in Labour's campaign are cordially invited to attend. The second meeting will be held k in Eandwick School on Thursday night at 8 o'clock, and a third meeting of friends and supporters has been arranged for the Oddfellows' Hall, Lower Hutt, next Monday night, also at 8 o'clock.

Mr. Nash's principal committee room has already been opened at 183, Jackson street, Petone. The telephone number is 46-220. Any inquiries regarding the enrolment of electors, meetings, or Labour's campaign generally will be dealt with on the ringing of that number. Mr. Mark Fagan, secretary of Mr. Nash's committee, is in charge of the committee room.