EDEN BY-ELECTION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 19 March 1926, Page 5

EDEN BY-ELECTION.

MISS MELVILLE REFUSES TO " f , WITHDRAW. (BY TELEGRAPH PRESB ASSOCIATION.) AUCKLAND, March 18. A request from a large deputation of women that she reconsider her decision to stand as an 1 Independent Reorm candidate for the Eden seat metwith an unqualified refusal from Mias Ellen Melville to-day. The deputation contended that Miss Melville had broken her pledge not to stand- in opposition to the selected Reform candidate.

Miss Melville, in reply, gave it clearly to be understood that she had not the least intention of withdrawing from her position. She had not, in facr, given any pledge. What she had given was an undertaking; it was a contract between two parties, and when it whs broken by one side it was not binding on the other. The Reform Party, in the first place, had not kept faith with her. She believed that that transpired in the delegates’ room on the night of the selection L was in order, but she alleged there were grave irregularities preceding that date. She intended to make these alleged irregularities public at her approaching meeting-

The members of the deputation held a meeting afterwards and expressed the opinion that if Miss Melville persisted in her present attitude they could not be associated with her in any way in future, and further they thought it only right to make public the subject matter of their decision.