BULLER BY-ELECTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 10

BULLER BY-ELECTION

ADDRESS BY MR P. C. WEBB (Peb United Press association.) WESTPORT, October 30. Mr P. C. Webb, the official Labour candidate for Buller, addressed a large gathering in the Theatre Royal this evening. His address followed the lines mainly of that given at Runanga. He urged the speedy completion of the Buller Gorge railway to absorb the unemployed at award rates of pay and also the cultivation of Pakihi lands, stating that the unemployed would be better occupied there than on the uneconomic work on which many of them were at present engaged. A vote of thanks and confidence was passed, SELECTION OF CANDIDATE STATEMENT BY LABOUR OFFICIAL. (Special to Dailt Times.) WELLINGTON, October 30. Replying to statements from the West Coast that the miners there are not satisfied with the selection by the Labour Party of Mr P. C. Webb as the candidate to contest the Buller seat, a prominent Labour official said to-night that the selection of the candidate had been very fully discussed at a meeting of representatives of all trade unions and Labour Party branches in the electorate at which the National Executive was represented by Mr Mark Fagan. Four names—Mr Webb, Mr J. Smeatdn, Mr R. Holland, and Mr J. Thorn—were submitted for the consideration of the National Executive of the Labour Party with which rested the final decision. Mr Smeaton. it was stated, had been nominated by the Grey Valley Miners’ Union, of which he was a member, and not by the miners as a whole. Mr Thorn was nominated by a miners’ union and it was_ understood that Mr Webb was also nominated by a miners’ union as well as bv a number of other organisations. The National Executive had considered the four names, and had decided in favour of Mr Webb, and he had opened his campaign last Friday with a meeting at Runanga.