BAY OF PLENTY SEAT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 291, 13 November 1941, Page 6

BAY OF PLENTY SEAT.

The National Party’s decision to contest the Hay of Plenty seat at tiro by-election, unhappily rendered necessaryby the Uealn on active service of Lieutenant A. G. iiultquist, has not been made without the fullest consideration of the party’s desire not to divide tUc people during the war. The Labour Party could not subscribe to this policy, for when the VVaipuwa seat was rendered vacant by the death of the sitting member it nominated an official candidate against the National Party’s nominee, and Ministers of the Grown conducted a vigorous campaign! in liis interests. Labour’s defeat was decisive. In the last by-election, in the Waitemata electorate, the National Party refrained from taking an active part, an Independent forcing a contest with the Labour Party’s representative and being narrowly defeated. In the circumstances the Party is now acting with complete justification in deciding to be officially represented in the Bay of Plenty by-election. To do otherwise is to ignore the fact that an Independent candidate, who would carry the support of the opponents of Labour, can be nominated, and there would be, after all, little difference between an official and unofficial Nationalist candidate. The wishes of the electorate would also require consideration and without doubt have been studied in the decision reached.