MOTUEKA VOTING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17954, 5 December 1932, Page 10

MOTUEKA VOTING

VIEWS OF ME H.E. HOLLAND AW IMPORTANT FACTOR * Speaking during an interval at the annual ball of the Westport branch of tho Labor Party, Mr. 11. E, Holland, Leader of the Opposition, said many people would be curious to know the basis on which the Prime Minister, tho Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, arrived at his conclusion that the voting in the Motueka by-election constituted an endorsement- of the Coalition Government’s policy. The figures so far available, said Mr. Holland,' showed that 3777 votes had been cash for the Government, and 3953 against it, leaving the Government in a minority of well on toward 200. The presence of an anti-Govcrnment Independent candidate was the solo factor that made the victory possible for the Coalition.

Mr. McKenzie throughout the campaign, Mr. Holland continued, was bitterly antagonistic to tho Government, and made that fact doubly apparent when he spoke on election night. . It was clear that the overwhelming majority of votes cast for the Independent candidate came from electors who wero wholly hostile' to tho Government. If there had been a straight-out contest between Government and Opposition candidates, Mr. Webb must have won. The fact that the Coalition, candidate dissociated himself from tlm fundamentals of the Government, policy, such as pensions reductions and wages reductions, was in itself evidence of the unpopularity of that policy.