ELECTION FIGURES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 15

ELECTION FIGURES.

THE CASE FOR REFORM WELLINGTON, June 20. Ever since the House met a great deni has been heard about the proportion of votes cant in certain directions at the general election, but all has not yet been said. To-day the Minister of Lands, speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate, said one reason why the general election figures should not be regarded as tin favourable to the Government was that in SO out of the 64 seats which it had secured the Reform Party had obtained sn absolute majority of the votes polled. This was a side of the question that had not so far been put to the public. Such an occurrence had never been known in the Dominion before. No reference had been made by the opponents of the Government to the four or five constituencies which the Reform Party had contested in 1022, but not in 1925. It would be absurd to say that because no Reform candidate stood in e- electorate there was no Reform vote. The recorded vote for the party was not, therefore, an index of the real party strength. Of course, the same thing applied to the Labour Party in the seats which it did not contest. • * :■