THE POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 134, 7 May 1928, Page 6

THE POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND.

When the electors last recorded their votes in 1926 tney were called upon to choose oetween live separate sets of candidates — Reform, Liberal or Nationalist, Rabour, Country Party and Independents. The Reform candidates secured 315,088 votes —an increase of 1U8,U61 over their 1919 total. Between 1919 and 1922 the party’s voting strength went up irom 207,UT7 to 279,933 —-that is by 72,bub votes, while between 1922 and 1925 it increased by 05,555 votes. The Reformers contested (ii seats in 1925 and averaged, on the votes polled, 472 U per electorate. Labour, the same year, increaesd its vote from I i4O,UUb id 1919 to 100,201, securing 152,329 at the intermediate election in 1922. Placing 55 candidates in the iieid, its average vote per electorate contested was 3004. The Nationalists, including the one Liberal (Sir Joseph Ward) after polling' 108,183 votes in 1919 and 179,152 in 1922, only secured 148,291 votes in 1925—a decrease of 24,892 over the 1919 vote and of 35,891 over that of 1922. They contested 50 seats in 1925, and only averaged 2805 votes in the electorates contested. The Country Party appeared for the first time in i 925 and received 5475 votes in the four seats contested, 3077 of which were recorded in Tauranga for the only candidate standing against the sitting member, Mr (J. E. Macmillan, las opponent, Mr It. Coulter, receiving the benefit of all the Opposition votes. In the other three electorates the Country Party candidates only averaged 278 votes .apiece, and as a natural consequence lost their deposits. The Independents, appearing in 1922 for the first time, polled 12,059 fewer votes in 1925 than on the first occasion. It is clear from the figures quoted that the dominant party in the State is the Reform Party, which, while it is not actually backed up by a majority of the electors, outnumbers the Liberals and Nationalists by more than two to one. Second in importance is the Labour Party, at present constituting the official Opposition over whom the Reformers held a majority vote of 132,487 in 1925. Liberals and Nationalists alike claim to be as much opposed to Labour as the Reformers, and the latter may therefore claim to represent the feelings and wishes of the majority of the electorate, so that the talk about “Government by minority,” as it has been applied to the position in New Zealand, need not seriously concern the public.