The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1911. To-Day's Elections.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 1670, 14 December 1911, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1911. To-Day's Elections.

We have already dealt pretty fully with the political position as it may bo affected by tlie second ballots today. The developments at the last moment have been remarkable, and it would seem from tho evidence offering that tho Opposition Party is throwing tho weight of its influence and support into the lap of Labour and Socialism. If this results in the return of representatives of these two sections, then Mr Massey is surely providing knives with which to cut Lis own political throat. It would be a strange thing if the Labourites and Socialists who are in to-day's ballots should turn out to be the "pudding" in the see-saw of parties in the new House. Mr John Payne, the Labour candidate for Grey who is opposing the Hon. Geo! Fowlds, said : "At present the Opposition have a majority, and I am satisfied that after the second ballot they will still have a majority. They are far more true to democratic principles, and will do infinitely more for the workers than the gingerbread aristocracy that has grown up from Liberalism. I believe that the Opposition are anxious to clean up the terrible finance of this country, and that they will be fair to the workers, because they realise, what the Government realised too late, that the workers are a power behind the ballot box." Tho ex-Leader of tho Opposition, Sir AVilliam Russell, who is returning to New Zealand, was interviewed in Melbourne on Wednesday on the position, and he said he thought tho New Zealand Opposition Party would win on the second ballots, and considered a close result likely. He also added, by tho way, that the prohibition poll did not represent the true opinion of the people. In spite of temperance legislation, statistics showed that the consumption of alcohol per capita of the population was not diminished. The fight to-day in Wellington city is particularly keen, and the results tonight will be anxiously awaited by Feilding folks as well as by the people of the whole Dominion. On page 4 we publish the full fist of the elected members and those in the second ballot, so that our readers may bring themselves up to the moment in these matters.