TAPLEY CAME, SAW, AND CONQUERED

NZ Truth, Issue 1043, 21 November 1925, Page 6

TAPLEY CAME, SAW, AND CONQUERED

THE man who lowered the Labor flag m Dunedin was Harold Livingstone Tapley; who defeated J. W. Munro for Dunedin North. Tapley, born m South Australia, first saw Dunedin m 1893, ' and twenty years later lye became Dunedin's Mayor. And still is. It. sure requires some- grit to go as a stranger among the canny Dunedinites.'find to become m twenty years their Mayor and M.P. Dunedin is more m the way of exporting top dogs than importing them, and various parts of New Zealand have been enriched by Otago blood. So Tapley's feat seems to be something akin to "stealing the breeks o' a Hielan' man." .■ Of course, he was among the pioneers of the Exhibition idea. Equally, of course, he is still a big gun m it. ' , A prominent figure m the old volunteers, he became a reserve officer under the Territorial system, and during the war was captain of coast defence infantry for home service.. Mr. Tapley's business is shipping agency,' his sideline is public life, and his hqbby is exhibitions. His recreation is all three. From the above it will be gathered that the electoral fight at Dunedin North resolved itself into a contest between • Labor and what Karl Marx would have called the bourgeois class. «. To meet such bourgeois susceptibilities, as might be expected to exist m a Dunedin electorate, Labor Red has been bleached to Pink. But it didn't work. ' .