THE BY-ELECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 32, 8 February 1943, Page 3

THE BY-ELECTION

LABOUR PARTY WIN

"GENERAL SATISFACTION"

"I have never known the result of a by-election give such general satisfaction," said the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) today, commenting in an interview on the Christchurch East contest. "The Nationalists and Herringites are apparently as well pleased as the Labour Party, although their candidates were so heavily defeated. I appreciate the valiant efforts of Mr. Holland and Mr. Lee to accomplish, with their comments, what they failed to do with votes. "There can be no doubt that the result of the election is a great disappointment to Mr. Herring and Mr. Lee and their colleagues. They had passed round the word that they were going to win. In an advertisement which appeared in the Christchurch newspapers on Friday the following appeared: Tolling day majority. Horace Herring, M.P., and the rest R. 1.?.' Unfortunately for them, it is Mr. Herring, R.I.P. Without doubt their true feelings were expressed by Mr. Herring when he said, 'I am very disappointed with the result.' "As for Mr. Holland's claims of a Nationalist advance, all I have to say is that a few more advances of this nature and the Nationalist Party will be off the map altogether. "The fact remains," Mr. Fraser continued, "that Labour has retained the seat by a large majority and will welcome to its ranks a member of Parliament who in fidelity to principle, loyalty to the war effort, and general capacity will prove a worthy successor to the late Mr. Armstrong. UNAVOIDABLE BURDENS. "During the course of the war period, the Government has necessarily introduced and enforced measures of a restrictive nature, and has necessarily and unavoidably laid burdens upon the people which the unthinking, no doubt, resent. The common sense and intelligence of the people of New Zealand are reflected in the Christchurch East result. "The peculiar characteristic electioneering methods of Mr. Lee and company will be adequately met in the future, and wherever used, will prove a miss-fire just as on this occasion. "Mr. Holland, who is 'gratified' by the result, considered it necessary to emulate and propound a very considerable part of Labour's platform to obtain even the votes he did manage to retain. "The outstanding factor," Mr. Fraser concluded, "is that after seven years of office, three of them under war conditions organising the country and its resources for our war effort, when the war effort had to be built up from the very foundations, when regulations had to be passed, when mobilisation had to take place, when compulsion had to be used in a thousand different ways, Labour has lost only one seat, and that a historically Conservative one. This must be a record for any New Zealand Government I also take the result of the Christchurch East by-election as a complete endorsement of New Zealand's war effort."