AUCKLAND ELECTION—CITY CENTRAL SEAT.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 42, 22 December 1911, Page 13

AUCKLAND ELECTION—CITY CENTRAL SEAT.

The election is over —and we have .won! "We have not got oux man. into the talking shop, but we have scored nearly two tttiousand votes in ijhis electorate for Socialism, and that in Hhe teeth of the fiercest opposition posflible.

Even the most ardent supporters of political action amongst tie Socialists are proud of the result, although they would have liked to see our candidate in the second ballot —and had be got there it is more than possible that he would have won, although in that case the votes that would have won him the seat could hardly have been called class-conscious Socialist votes. I believe it is safe to say that all the Socialists who could vote for Savage did so, and had he got into the second ballot, then those others who would have voted for him would not have voted for Socialism, but would have merely voted against the man who had held the seat.

For myself, I am well pleased with the result. For well nigh three years I have fought alongside Savage in the Socialist Party—sometimes in prosperity, sometimes in. what seemed to be •diversity. I have never been much enamoured of politics, and I think that the first time Savage and I voted against each other was on the question as to whether we should contest this election. Savage was on the side that won that time. I was in the minority, and since then I have sometimes been afraid that my comrade was going into the "talkee shopee." I know that he was far too good a man to go there. Anyway, my fears have been dispelled. Savage is still in the workshop —that is, he is free to work for industrial organisation.. The political battle is over for three years. The industrial battle is still on, and will be on tdl the time. The work which Savage will do on the industrial field will, I think, be of more lasting good than the work he would have tried to 3o on the political field.—TOM BLOODWORTH.