PARTIES ARRIVED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18565, 24 November 1923, Page 11

PARTIES ARRIVED.

I Z♦ > ' >v » '7 V ' CANDIDATES IN FIELD, i . , ■ | 550 FOR GOVERNMENT. \\ ' W •LIBERALS, 460: LABOUR, 412. SHE FIGHT FOR GLASGOW. TRIANGULAR CONTESTS. - Pj Telegraph— Association—Copyright(Received 4.45 p.m.) ■ A. and N.Z.- LONDON, Nov. 22. The three parties have now selected the majority of their champions. The Conservatives are contesting 550 seats, the Liberals 460, including 70 out of the B1 divisions in the Home counties, and Labour 412. Twenty Labour candidates are women. The Independent Labour Party has issued an appeal for £35,000 to finance "5 out of 412 Labour candidates, though the membership of the party in only 31,760.

There are numerous local arrangements jn different part?, of the country designed -to avoid triangular contests. Thus Mr. Arthur Henderson, who represented East Newcastle in the last Parliament, speaking at Newcastle, complained that there was no Liberal candidate in Central Newcastle and no Conservative candidates were contesting West and East Newcastle. This, he said, looked like an unholy alliance to defeat Labour.

On the other hand, owing to the Libprals in Manchester agreeing not to contest Mr. J. R. dynes 1 seat a series • of three-cornered contests has been avoided, the exception "being Rusholme where a Communist has been nominated.

Unless a way out of the difficulty is found there are likely to be eight triangular contests in Glasgow.

A spell of bitter wintry weather % is making electioneering difficult in the country districts. There have been heavy snowstorms in many, parts of the country. Twelve degrees of frost Ave registered at Aldershot and 15 degrees at Glasgow. . -

The following statistics of the last l general election in . November, 1922, are I of value for comparison with the present election. The establishment of the Irish Free State reduced the membership of the British Parliament from 707 to 615, including 13 members form Northern Ireland. At the last general election there were 1419 candidates, distributed among the parties as follows:^Conservative .. v . 491 Labour -». • • •> • 411 Liberal . • .. * • 331 National Liberal . * . • 139 Others - . • • • • • 47 The women candidates totalled 32, the Liberals and National Liberals leading with 16 women candidates. The Labour Party had nine women candidates and the Conservatives five. The results of the electiqp were:— Conservatives .*, »« 347 Labour . . •»: • • 142 Liberal . . ♦ • » * °4 National Liberal .*. »• 65 Communist- . .* »« 1 Prohibitionist •« • « 1 Nationalist * • • ► • * Sinn Fein • .•> *«t • * Others • • •» »• 4 There were 253 contests in which more than two candidates competed for one scat. Some of these were three-cornered and some four and even five-cornered. The table below shows the number of such contests in which each of . the four parties gained 1 seat: —- 139 won by Conservative. V. 76 „ „ Labour. 20 ,j ~ Liberal. - 4 18 „ „ National Liberal. For Glasgow's 15 seats at / the 1922 general election there were nine threecornered or more contests. Labour won 10 seats —six in three-cornered contests, and one in a four-cornered contest; Conservatives won four—two in three-cornered contests; and a National won one against a Liberal" candidate. _ In Manchester — - -seats—there were onlv tbrpe tb-oe-c"'"**™"' /-nptAs+c V'lBervataves won - seven seats and Labour three. . . ... .