MR FRANKLAND REPLIES TO MR STEVENS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 440, 3 November 1908, Page 2

MR FRANKLAND REPLIES TO MR STEVENS.

[to the editor.]

Sir, —It was not with much amusement, but with deep pain, that I read Mr John Stevens’s letter in your issue of 29th inst., as also the reports of his speeches at Himatangi and Glen Oroua. Why he should be amused at the assertion that he and I are both Government supporters I cannot divine, nor—-I make bold to say—will any of your readers be able to divine a cause for amusement. The assertion that he and I are both Government supporters is the simple statement of a fact, and every one in Manawatu knows it. That I, at any rate, am a Government supporter I proved in a very practical way three years ago by retiring from the electoral contest when I found that my continuance in it would hand over the seat to an opponent of the Government, and by thereafter spending both time and money freely in helping to secure Mr Stevens’s election by acting as the secretary of his committee in Foxton—the town which, as your recently published figures show, gave Mr Stevens his largest majority. That, although I support the Government, the Government are not on the present occasion supporting my candidature, is a fact which I believe the electors are perfectly well aware of, and one which I have never attempted to dispute. I have always represented myself as a candidate who is supporting the Ward Government. Not as a candidate whom the Ward Government is supporting. I have yet to learn that any one has said, “ that Mr Frankland, or any one else, except Mr Stevens, is the Liberal candidate chosen by the Government for this electorate. ” What we all say, and rightly say,is that lam one of the two Liberal candidates who are pledged to a support of the Ward Government. It is ridiculous to say that, under the provisions of the new Second Ballot Act, I “ attempt to split the Liberal vote ” by contesting the election ; and I venture to say that the electors of Manawatu, whether Liberal or Conservative, are not so gullidle as to believe it. Mr Stevens is reported as having said at Glen Oroua that if I imagined I should get into the Second Ballot, I was very much mistaken. If so, andjif he and Mr Newman engage in the final contest on the 24th of November, he will obviously not have had his chances prejudiced by my candidature: while, in the contrary event, i.e. if in spite of Mr Stevens’s prediction, I do get into the Second Ballot, and fight that last contest either with him or with Mr Newman (or, for the matter of that, with Mr Gardner), then although my candidature will have injured Mr Stevens personally, it will not have injured the Government or the Liberal Party. For, if my final contest is with Mr Stevens, a Government supporter, will be elected, whichever of us is victorious ; while, if my final contest is with Mr Newman or Mr Gardner, I shall have given presumptive exxenre by beating Mr Stevens at ll e First Ballot, that I have a better prospect than he of saving the seat for the Government Party against either an enemy or an independent. And my candidature will, therefore, in that event have strengthened the Liberal Party. However, on Mr Stevens’s showing (unless he has been rnisreported), we reed not even discuss these last-named eventualities, since, according to his prediction, I am not to reach the Second Ballot. If I do not reach it, how is my candidature going to do the Liberal Party any harm ?—I have, etc.,

F. W. Fkanki,4nd