“BADLY DISAPPOINTED!”

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12291, 10 November 1925, Page 7

“BADLY DISAPPOINTED!”

WHAT LABOUR CANDIDATES THINK OF THE ELECTION *BOGS, BUTTER-FAT, WHISKERSr THE TWO IDOLS OF AUCKLAND NORTH ' * ./ ' (By Telegraph.—-Special to “Times.”) % AUCKLAND, November 9. “We have not; come here to condole with one another, but for the purpose of starting- a new fight,” was the burden, of several speeches by Lhbour election candidates,. .successful and unsuccessful, in the Strand Theatre. However, there was a subdued air about the proceedings, and most of the speakers acknowledged that they had been badly disappointed on Wednesday when the figures went Up. . ; • "I begin to think there ought to be a new song, ‘Just After the Battle, Mother,’ ’’ remarked Mr R. f. Way, the defeated candidate for Parnell. “Anyhow, we got a thoroughly good hiding, and Ido not know that it will not do us a lot of good.” The audience greeted tbiS remark with some applause. Other speakers followed in a similar strain, even. Mr J. A. Lee (Auckland East) taking a quieter tope. A NEW LEADER In quite another vein were the remarks of Mr A. S. Richards, the defeated Labour candidate- for Marsden. “I have just been spending six weeks among bogs, butter-fat, whiskers,-and mortgagehold,” he said. Mr Richards appeared to have left the field of battle with-a mixture of contempt and dislike for the northern dairy farmer. He described himself as “the leader of a gallant • 800 boys of the north,” and asserted that whereas there had been no Labour organisation in Marsden before his campaign, he had left a solid, compact body of fighters, consisting of 827 men and women who had voted for him. , “The Reformers in the north are swollen with the infection ol ‘Goatesitife,*. ”he said. “There are two idols in the north—. His Lordship Gordon Coates; the saviour, of mankind, and Mr Murdoch, who has been overthrown-. The average epeky in the north is not an intelligent human being, in the ordinary sense of the word, but a land serf.’’ • , ■ ' ■ CONTEMPT FOR FARMERS ■ Mr Richards ironically described the arrival of the Prime Minister at Kaipara Flats (inhabited mostly by flats) on the tail end of a passenger train-—the most appropriate Way, because it indicated where he would finally be in politics. Twenty-seven farmers, he remarked, clad mostly in rags and dirt, had gathered humbly .round Mr Coates, had presented him with what purported to be a testimonial, and had asked him to allow them some metal “buckshee” to fill up a boghole in one of their roads. Mi Coates had merely laughed, and said, “I would advise you tor jjet all you can ‘tjuqkshee.’ .You will need it in the backblocks.’ In-places inhabited only by the Maori, kiwi bird, and dog, he had seen large portraits of Mr Coates issuecj by the Reform Party. Everywhere in the north people were afraid to be associated! publicly with Labour. They feared that some stock agent would see them and tell the mortgagee, they Were afraid that the Labour’candidate had bombs in his pocket. One newspaper had refused, to print a line about Labour meetings- except for payment., *- “Russia under the Czars was mild compared with the suppression and oppression in -the north,” declared Mr Richards, in conclusion, “but I am glad that I knocked the Nationalist in the wind-bag so that he will never recover again.” ,