BY-ELECTION FIGHT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20635, 10 December 1941, Page 4

BY-ELECTION FIGHT

CANDIDATE’S REGRET CONCENTRATION ON WAR POLICY OF GOVERNMENT i • Keen regret that the district should be witnessing the spectacle of a byelection at a time when the whole world was being plunged into war was expressed by the Labour candidate for the Bay of Plenty seat, Mr. Chas. Mills, at a meeting held in Ormond last night. He repeated that the blame for the election lay with the National Party, which had insisted on nominating against the representative of the party by whom the seat had been held. (With the authority of the Prime Minister, Mr. Mills stated that the Government would refrain from nominating candidates for the Temuka and Hauraki seats, which had fallen vacant as the result of deaths in the National Party’s ranks. It ysas contended by the Opposition that the arrangement did not affect individual seats rendered vacant by the deaths of members of Parliament, but the Government view was that it was bound not to oppose the nominees of the National Party in electorates where seats became vacant through deaths of its members, said Mr. Mills. Government’s Consistency The Government’s attitude had been consistent throughout in respect of this arrangement, and it was the fault of the National Party alone that politics were being forced upon the electorate in which the late Lieutenant A. G. Hultquist had set up so fine a record of service before going abroad with the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The Labour candidate was supported by Mrs. M. Dreaver, M.P., Waitemata, who made a brief address, and confined herself mainly to the women’s point of view in politics and government. Mrs. Dreaver took occasion to reply to what she described as unwarrantable aspersions upon the Government’s war policy, and declared that in no country, save in Britain ; itself, was the war taken as seriously and as resolutely as in New Zealand. Members of the Labour Party, whether in the Government or in the industrial field, realised fully what was at stake in this struggle, and \ were determined that nothing should j stand in the way of a worthwhile ( contribution to the victory of the < democratic countries. 1

The meeting, which comprised between 80 and 100 electors, was presided over by Mr. W. Jonasen, and the speakers were accorded votes of thanks.