OROUA SEAT.

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9798, 7 May 1924, Page 4

OROUA SEAT.

TROUBLE. IX REFORM CAMP. RIVAL ASPIRANTS FOR LABEL. WELLINGTON, May 6. Some trouble has arisen over the selection of a Reform candidate for the Oroua electorate, lor which seat the lion. Mr. Guthrie, who'contemplates retiring irom politics, will. not be a candidate. Tlie local Reform organisation recently selected Mr ooriMii Elliott as its candidate, it is stated, by a majority of one vote. Mr Hugh Moli.txre, who also sought to •obtain tile Reform hall-mark, lias now sent the following letter to the local Refoim committee: “in confirming my conversation v/ith you, i neg to put on record my protest against the peculiar methods employed in the selection of a Reform candidate for the Oroua electorate lor next election. When I was approached by officials of the committee, it was stated that a selection would be made by a committee, the whole personnel ox which was read to me. I agreed to abide by the decision of the members of that committee. However, I was astonished to learn that, after the meeting on Friday, May 2, at which tiie selection ivas made, a number of additional members had been added to the committee, some as late as that evening. As this obviously violated the original conditions laid down and afforded an opportunity for political manipulation and is apt to lead to underground engineering—to say nothing of hole and corner methods and the use of loaded dice, against which' the Reform party has so strenuously set it. face in the past. I have, m these circumstances, no alternative but ±o state that I am not in any way bound by a decision contravening both the letter and spirit-of the agieement and hold myself free as to the future to take such steps as - the best interests of the Reform party warrants, and should i see fit to do so. to appeal for the tvider approval* to the wider constituency of the electors at large.”—Special.