SOUTHERN MAORI ELECTORATE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3335, 13 February 1918, Page 40

SOUTHERN MAORI ELECTORATE.

THREE CANDIDATES. " , CHRISTCHURCH. February 8. Nominations for the Southern Maori seat closed to-day. The candidates are: Teone Matapuna Erihana, Henare Parata, and John Hopere Whaxewiti Uru. The statement having been made by Sir James Carroll that Mr Parata was the National Government candidate, _ Hori Tatu'ki Topi, who was nominated, withdrew in his favour. Sir. James Carroll will stay in the South Island i till after the election. OBSERVING THE TRUCE. In connection with the coming Southern Maori election, the following circular has been issued to the Maoris of the Southern electorate by the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, Sir James Carroll, and Dr Pomare, explaining the position of the parties, and giving the reasons for Mr Parata's selection as the Government candidate : "There was an honourable understanding entered into and publicly announced that, in the event of any vacancy on either side occurring by resignation or from the death of any member a man on the eime side was to be selected, and to him the support of both of the leaders was to be given. Jn accordance with this arrangement,- as Mr Parata was a member of the Liberal Party, Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward immediately intimated that a Liberal candidate was to be selected by Sir Joseph Ward as the leader of that party, and that the members of both parties throughout the South Island were to be asked to give the man selected their supports "The members of the Maori race, who of their own free will have crossed the seas to fight in support of their King and the British Empire, belong to both political parties, and they have done their duty as nobly and as effectively as have the pakehas, and we should not like to feel "thßt their Maori brethren in New Zealand were in any way breaking away from the truce that all entered into for the purpose of helping to win the great war. It is as important to you and your children as it is to the pakehas and their children that New Zealand should be held for all time as a*-part of the great British Empire. There should be no political ,strifje in the country untfl this great work has been successfully finished. We, therefore, •ask you to kindly respect the truce made between the two great political parties here."