ISLINGTON BY-ELECTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22860, 15 October 1937, Page 11

ISLINGTON BY-ELECTION

LABOUR GAINS A SEAT DR. L. HADEN GUEST RETURNED (Received October 14, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON. Oct. 13 A Labour gain resulted from the byelection in the north division of Islington, following the death in August cf Colonel A. W. Goodman, who held the seat as a Conservative. The polling at the by-election was: Dr. L. Haden Guest (L.) . . 13,523 Sir Wilfrid Sugden (C.) . . 12,227 Majority for Labour .. 1,296 The voting at the election in 1930 •was: —Colonel Goodman (C.), 20,/44J Mr. R. S. Young (L.), 17,359; Conservative majority, 3385, Colonel Goodman had held the seat since 1931. Dr. Haden Guest was elected for Southwark North in 1923 and 1924 as a Labour member, but resigned from that party and his Parliamentary scat in 1927, and joined the Conservatives in 1928.

One statement which he made, in a letter to Mr. Baldwin, was. that he was "profoundly disturbed by the growing tendency in the Labour Party to place the interests of foreign conntries above those of the British Empire." Ho was also dissatisfied with the attitude of Labour toward the defence of British lives in China. At the by-election after his resignation he was heavily defeated and a Liberal was returned. in the course of a tour of the Dominions after resigning from the Labour Party, ho visited Auckland in 1927. It was following this tour that his letter to Mr. Baldwin, which brought him much into the public eye, was written. Subsequently, he returned to the Labour fold and made two unsuccessful attempts, in 1931 and 1935, to re-enter Parliament under the Labour banner.