50 Meetings, Only Halfway In Hobson

Northern Advocate, 7 November 1946, Page 8

50 Meetings, Only Halfway In Hobson

It’s a tough assignment, this electioneering. Ask your candidates in the Hobson electorate, which stretches for nearly 200 miles from Cape Maria van Diemen to Pouto, Kaipara Heads. That electorate, unlike some of the large ones farther south, has. virtually no sizeable pockets of unsettled territory. This may be gauged by the fact that there are 115 polling places in the Hobson electoral district, the list of which is now complete. Candidates expect that travelling mileage will run literally into thousands. One of them commented on the fright a district fuel rationing controller would have received in receiving an application to cover the Hobson electorate in 1946!

TOTAL 92 MEETINGS

Labour’s challenger in Hobson, Mr H. K. Ha trick, started his campaigning ‘way back in the first few days of October. He is now up around his fiftieth meeting—about half-way through. He has the terrific total of 92 meetings, to be held in 40 days. The sitting member, Mr S. W. Smith, is saying it all in under 60 meetings, held over a period of 30 days. Neither candidate “works” on Sundays, although each may have a meeting or two on odd Saturdays. For the main part, they are five-day-a-weekers. Not so the Maori candidates ror TaiTokerau, or Northern Maori. So far, eight are believed to be in the lists, but it is not expected that the conenders, other than the official nomin-

(Special) KAIKOHE, This Day.

ees of the two principal parties, will make an intensive coverage. Nationals' Mr J. Henare is hard at it, and has given the North a whirlwind campaign, speaking only at principal centres and omitting many small settlements. SIX ON A SUNDAY Actual total of his meetings is not available. His Labour opponent, Mr T. P. Paikea, is sparing no physical or vocal effort to retain his seat in the House. Mr Paikea, when the shouting dies down, will have addressed no less than 71 meetings in 22 days—an average of 3.5 a day. Even then, five meetings have been deleted from the original

Unlike the pakehas, he does not exempt Sundays. On one remarkable day, November 10, he intends to speak at Awarua at 9 a.m., Ngawha Springs at noon, Te Ahu Ahu at 2 p.m., Waimate North at 4 p.m., Oromahoe at 6 p.m., and Te Tii-Purerua (on the northernmost arm of the Bay of Islands) at 8 p.m. Six meetings in one day, with about 50 or 60 miles of travelling thrown inWhen he stops to eat. no one knows. In the seven days starting November 7, he will have had 32 meetings—and who could possibly blame him for having “had” 32 meetings?