LOCAL POLITICS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 14

LOCAL POLITICS

SIGNIFICANT RESULTS LABOUR INTRUSION RESENTED COMMENT BY MR HAMILTON (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 13. ' Interviewed on his return from Taranaki to-day, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Adam Hamilton) said that everywhere he had gone he had met with enthusiastic receptions. When asked to comment on the results of the polling in the municipal elections, Mr Hamilton stated that the National Party did not favour taking part in elections for local bodies. The whole energies of the Labour Party’s organisation, on the other hand, had been directed toward securing the return of its nominees in the local elections to obtain control of all borough and municipal affairs. It was obvious that the electors, without any help from the National Party organisation, had themselves resented this intrusion and registered their votes accordingly. “ But the real significance of the result,” said Mr Hamilton, “is the defeat of prominent Socialists, particularly Mr James Roberts, in Wellington. and Mr Mark Silverstone, in Dunedin. The plain meaning of this is that, even in industrial centres theelectors will not tolerate anything that savours of dictatorship.” MR SAVAGE AND ELECTIONS INTERVENTION DENIED REFUSAL OF MANY REQUESTS (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, May 13. Strong exception to an Auckland newspaoer’s statement that he had intervened in local body elections, with direct instructions to vote for all Labour candidates, was taken by the Prime Minister (Mr M. J. Savage) in an interview this evening. “I give an emphatic denial to the accusation that I butted into a local body election anywhere,” the Prime Minister said. The statement to which Mr Savage took exception was part of art editorial in the New Zealand Herald on Thursday, commenting on the results of the local body elections held in Auckland the previous day. The editorial stated: “The electors have registered their resentment at the intrusion of factional political issues into local community affairs. That intrusion went to the unprecedented length of intervention by the Prime Minister with direct instructions to vote for all Labour candidates. Mr Savage may not be pleased at the result, but Auckland has correctly asserted its right to manage its own local affairs.” “I kept out of local body politics,” Mr Savage said, “ and in that I have the backing of the national executive of the Labour Party, which considers it undesirable for Ministers to take part in municipal politics, unless of course they happen to be candidates. I am given the credit of having asked local body electors to vote for Labour candiddates and blamed for their defeat. When I was an ordinary member of Parliament I took an active part in the Auckland municipal -elections, but it is not my job now to interfere in local politics.” Mr Savage said he had made no mention of local body politics in his address at the annual conference oi the Labour Party at Easter, nor had he referred to the subject in his public address in the Wellington Town Hall on April 20. . “I deny having intervened in local body elections anywhere,” the Prime Minister added. “ I received numerous requests for messages m support of Labour tickets and also many similar requests from individual Labour candidates, but I studiously refrained from complying with any of them.”