THE GREY CONTEST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17322, 23 May 1918, Page 4

THE GREY CONTEST.

It is clear that tho Labour Party lias become concerned respecting its ability to hold the Grey seat in Parliament. It was with supreme confidence that it entered upon the by-election contest. The Grey electorate was probably regarded by it as that of all others in the dominion in which its position was unassailable. It is an electorate in which, it is to bo recognised, the " Red Fed." element is distinctly strong, and in which tho Labour candidate received at tho last general election a comfortable majority of 980 votes. Moreover, it might have been regarded as all to tho advantage of the Labour candidate in the present contest that, while a heavy drain must have been made on the eligible manhood of the constituency for active service since the date of the general election in 1914, the coal miners, upon whose support that candidate largely relies, are exempted from tho obligation of service abroad because of the fact that they are engaged in an essential industry. Upon paper, it might be supposed that the expressions of confidence with which the Labour Party embarked upon the present contest were more than justified. But from the fact that it has raised signals of distress, calling for platform assistance even from Otago, which is to place the services of such uistinguislied politicians as Mr J. T. Paul and Mr Andrew Walker at its disposal, it is a legitimate conclusion that the prospects of a favourable outcome of the by-election are not regarded by it as by any means so rosy as they were a few weeks ago. It may possibly be the case that the Labour Party has realised that it has selected an unsuitable candidate in the person of Mr H. E. Holland. In deciding that a non-residential journalist should be put into nomination on its behalf as its candidate the Labour Representation Committee renounced the grounds upon which the appeal was made for the exemption of the late member from the duty of military service. It was pretended that that member was indispensable because he was a practical miner and was, therefore, peculiarly qualified to represent a district in which the principal industry is that of mining. The implication that the late member was a man of such transcendent qualifications that he could not be replaced was plainly ridiculous. The pretence, moreover, that the constituency could not provide a practical miner, not of military age, who could adequately represent it in Parliament, was transparently hollow. A lack of honesty in the appeal for the exemption of the late member has been revealed in the selection, as tho Labour candidate, of a mnn who is neither a miner nor a resident in the district. It will not be surprising if not a few miners in the district are disgusted with this revelation. It is to be hoped, also, that it is not erroneous to suppose that a large number of working men, miners and others, in the constituency resent the suggestion that they are prepared to vote for the election to Parliament of any candidate the Labour Representation Committee seeks to foist upon them, irrespective of the views which that candidate may hold respecting the need for the most vigorous prosecution of the war and respecting the terms of peace. To imagine the contrary would be to reflect upon their intelligence and their loyalty. They may well ask themselves what manner of candidate it is that they are asked to support when he refuses to answer at an election meeting a series of plain questions regarding the war upon the plea that they are questions which were framed to entrap him into the commission of a breach of the War Regulations? Yet Mr Holland is reported to have sheltered himself behind that plea at one of his meetings when questions such' as the following were put to him: ° Will the candidate frankly state his attitude towards, and personal opinion of the present war? '

Does the candidate deaire a victory for the Allies and the breaking of the military power of Germany? If he does not desire the victory of tho Allies, will he discuss the alternative thereto and indicate what course he wouia recommend to bo pursued? Does tlie candidate believe that the Allies could abandon conscription at this time and defeat a conscripted Germany? Will the candidate affirm it as his opinion that the recent upheaval in Russia has been substantially successful in bringing the people of that country nearer to an era of brotherhood?

The suggestion that any loyal member of the community could not answer questions sucli as these without rendering himself liable to prosecution under the War Regulations seems to us so preposterous as to be not worth a moment's consideration. These questions hare apparently, however, been represented by Mr Holland's friends as questions which he should not have been expected to answer, because, forsooth, his personal liberty might have been endangered if he had done so. It is surely needless to comment upon such a circumstance.