THE FRANKLIN SEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19040, 10 June 1925, Page 10

THE FRANKLIN SEAT.

PARTIES VERY ACTIVE. GOOD REFORM ORGANISATION. * LEADERS TO TAKE PART. With the poll in the Franklin byelection only a week distant both the Reform and Labour parties have brought their campaign to a high pitch of activity. The party leaders will shortly take ,a share in the contest, the Prime Minister, Mr. Coates, on Monday, and the leader of the Labour "Party, Air. Holland, to-morrow. The Prime Minister will arrive from Wellington next Monday and will address a public meeting at Pukekohe the same evening. Mr. Coates' other engagements have not yet been announced officially. Mr. Holland is due to speak to-morrow evening at a meeting in the Gaiety Theatre, Otahuhu. He is to speak at Papakura, Papatoetoo and Pukekohe on Friday, Monday, at\d Tuesday evenings respectively. The Reform candidate, Mr. E. D. McLennan, addressed meetings at Hunua and Patumahoe on Monday, and at Alfriston and Manurewa yesterday afternoon and last evening respectively. Votes of thanks and confidence were passed at all the meetings. Mr. J. S. Montgomerie, the Labour candidate, visited Ardmore and Papatoetoe on Monday, and Howick last evening. The Reform organisation in Franklin, which scarcely needed to bestir itself during Mr. Massey's lifetime, lias developed remarkably in the past fortnight. Active committees have been formed in all parts of the electorate, districts have been mapped put for them, and almost everything is in readiness for the polling day. Mr. A. E. Davy, the party's organiser, states ,thab in his political experience he has never seen a plan of campaign carried out so quickly and effectively bv all concerned. The meetings addressed bv the candidate have been most enthusiastic, and at every one a vote of thanks and confidence in the candidate, and of confidence in the It e■ form Party has been carried.' I.he kirgest number of. dissentients counted at any meeting was three. At many of the smaller country meetings all present have remained to form a committee and work in the candidate's interests. At Otahuhu. where the voting was even, if hot slightly adverse to Reform, at the last election.. Mr. McLennan received- an uiiooposed vote of thanks and confidence. The contest in 1922 was against a Liberal candidate, and, reports from the Otahuhu district show that a much larger Reform vote may , be expected, since there are many Liberals in the neighbourhood, and a very large proportion oi their votes will probably go to Reform. • Supporters of the Reform Party have made up their minds to leave nothing to chance in this contest. There is genera* satisfaction -among them on the selection of Mr. Coates as Prime Minister, as. is shown by the Pukekohe people s direct invitation to him to address a meeting next Monday. Mr. McLennan, who at the beginning of the campaign lacked experience as a platform speaker, is considered to have improved remarkably. At all his meetings he has had the assistance of the member for Roskill, Mr. V. H. Potter. The Labour Party is very well satisfied with the reception which its candidate is having in different parts of the electorate. Those in charge of the campaign consider the personal merits of the candidates are fairly equal, both being farmers of long residence and good standing in the electorate. . Personalities are entirely absent from the contest, which thus becomes purely and simply a trial oi strength between the parties. ; lhe chief subjects of controversy at the meetings are' Labour's, land policy and the existing ordec of things. . The farmer electors' are not greatly interested : m any campaign issues except land tenure and rural finance. •• , - Labour representatives say there has been . something in the nature of, concerted opposition at their ! meetings in towns on the;, railway, principally in the form of repeated hostile questions to the candidate. In the country, however, the farmers 'attending the meetings seem to have been genuinely anxious to find out, what, Labbur proposes to do for the man on the land, and particularly for the settler carrying a heavy burden of. mortgages on land bought at pre-slump prices.