DUNEDIN NORTH SEAT.

Evening Star, Issue 19839, 12 April 1928, Page 9

DUNEDIN NORTH SEAT.

ro THE EDITOR. Sir, —As a worker in Dunedin North, I feel I must write to ventilate a business that is giving a few genuine friends of Labor a great amount of thought and worry. 1 will be asked why, as a friend,’ I write to the Dress. Well, as a worker, 1 know to my sorrow and disappointment that the usual meeting of union workers is very poorly attended, and the only Labor paper has a very small circulation among the workers. 1 wish to get the oar of the greatest number of my fellows, and so, even in this matter, I am about to deal with, 1 choose the evening paper. I take it that as workers, and as sympathisers with them, it is a wish of a great number of us to see a Labor member representative for Dunedin North in the next Parliament. 1 have noticed that Mr J. W. Munro is back again in harness, after a long absence from the active affairs of the party, and is now the president of the local Labor group. I think that it is likely, seeing that a very great feeling has arisen against the present Government, that this local Labor group will again put Mr Munro forward to fight on behalf of Labor. If it docs, then it cannot hope for anything else but defeat. Of coarse, it will be argued that a Chinaman, in the present state of things, were he to stand, would defeat the Government candidate. Maybe so. There were many things said against the Massey Administration, but all these were discounted by the result of the poll. But now the name of the Reform Government stinks in the nostrils of more than the Labor men, and Labor has a great «fiance of victory. But the conditions nevertheless require a live man to win and hold Dunedin North for Labor. Mr Munro has many likeable qualities, but paying attention to local business is not one of these. It cannot bo denied that in this respect he lias been tried twice and found very much wanting. During two Parliaments to which he was elected his constituents found it very difficult to communicate or have personal interviews with him. Even in off times of Parliament this was so, fo- did lie not leave the district to live in another, somewhere down the Harbor? Constituents sent letters to him dealing with local questions, but only to find that their member did not even acknowledge the receipt of such letters. And although Mr Munro may not have intended it to be so, the want of action looked like and was felt to be nothing else but rank discourtesy. It is unfortunate that Labor is very often lacking the right, sort of man, and so suffers defeat. Our late member is one of those who, while well intentioned and a good fellow, is wanting in political application. He was not defeated by that anonymous last-minute letter of Mr Tuple,y’s, nor by the Coates full page advertisement. Mr Munro lost the scat by sheer want of attention to local inquiries and the calls of his constituents. This is too serious a fault for Labor to overlook. It is to be hoped that organised Labor will profit by the warning now given, and by a wise choice of candidate, win the seat for Labor.—l am, etc., D.P. April 12.