THE WAIRARAPA PETITION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11187, 8 February 1897, Page 6

THE WAIRARAPA PETITION.

[Per Press Association. I WELLINGTON, Feb. G. Tlie heaving - of the motion to remove the petition against Mr Buchanan’s election from the file, was continued before the Chief Justice and Judge Conolly. Adam Armstrong - , the Eeturning-officer for Wairarapa, was examined with respect to the advertisement which was published on Dec. 12. In an affidavit he said that he had mistaken the twelfth for the eleventh. He now exjdained that this was wrong, and said he never really signed the advertisement, or gave it to Brown, a journalist, at all. The latter took away on the 11th tlio form of the advertisement, in order to set it in type, and the next day it was to be corrected. On the following day the figures were ,altercd by taking one off Buchanan on account of a double vote. Sir E. Stout then proceeded to argue that the real official declaration was on the Bth, the day when Armstrong returned tne writ to the Clerk of the Polls, and that no other declaration could then bo made; hence the petition was too late . He contended that there was no declaration on Dec. 12, and even if so it was a day too late according to the Act, and the petition, consequently, was a day too late as well. Mr Skerrett, in reply, contended that there was no such thing as a declaration distinct from the public notice, and that the public notice made by the Eeturn-ing-officer on Dec. 12 was the only declaration, and the time for lodging the petition must be counted from that. The return of the writ to the Clerk of Polls was certainly distinctly from tho official declaration. Judgment was reserved.