BY-ELECTION PUBLICITY

Evening Star, Issue 22525, 18 December 1936, Page 1

BY-ELECTION PUBLICITY

UNSUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE SUED PAPER PROPRIETOR’S CLAIM FAILS [Pbk United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, December 17. In ;i civil claim heard in tho Magistrals Court to-day, H. W. Bullivant and Co. Ltd. proceeded against M. E. Lyons, a Christchurch city councillor, in a claim for £25, the sum alleged to bo owing for tho printing of 2,000 copies of Hie ‘ New Zealand Bulletin,’ which Lyons intended to use as publicity in tho Lyttelton byelection of 11)35. The magistrate. Mr F. F. Reid, nonsuited the plaintiff and allowed costs to tho defendant. The plaintiff was the proprietor of the ‘ New Zealand Bulletin.’ It was alleged that a representative of the paper approached Lyons and asked leave to write him up, and afterwards submitted to Lyons a proof of the article, which Lyons approved, and an order was given for 2,000 copies. The laudatory article on Lyons was published, hut in tho same issue appeared another article under the heading ‘ Georgie, Gordon, and Co.,’ which was an attack on the Government, which Lyons, as a candidate, was supporting. For the defendant it was alleged that a condition of purchase was that nothing should appear in the issue which would be adverse or antagonistic to the Coalition Parly. When the article attacking the Government appeared it rendered the issue useless I'cr defendant’s electioneering purposes.