Five By-Elections will Show People’s Mind

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 615, 18 March 1929, Page 9

Five By-Elections will Show People’s Mind

CAMPAIGN IN BRITAIN LLOYD GEORGE IS BUSY Iff - ced r A. — B V Telegraph — Copyright ) (Australian and 5.Z. Press Association 1 Reed. 9.15 a.m. LONDON, Sunday. Five by-elections this week will be worth watching-, in view of the General election. All were Conservative i seats, with following majorities, at the last election: Fast Toxteth p. 519 Eddisburv 1,669 | Bath 7.267 North Lanark 2.02 S Holland-with-Boston .. .. 4.770 AH will be three-cornered contests, except Eddisburv. where it is a straight-out fight between a Liberal and a Conservative. The “Observer’’ says: “Government defeat at East Toxteth Bath and Holland-with-Boston would be a gloomy portent for the General Election. The Liberals ought to win at Eddisburv, if there is anything like a Liberal revival, concerning which there has been so much speculation. “Mr. Lloyd George, the Liberal Leader, has been stumping the constituency, addressing ten meetings a day. “North Lanark may lose its Conservative candidate. 111-feeling is widespread. Some means ought to be found for avoiding a crop of by-elec-tions so near an appeal to the country.” LABOUR MEMBER’S DEATH The list. of recent deaths of members of the House of Commons is further increased, Mr. Frank Bradley Varley, Labour member for Mansfield since 1923, having died. He was 44 years of age, and was financial secretary to the Nottingham Miners’ Association.

STEPHEN WALSH DEAD BRITISH LABOUR LEADER (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) LONDON, Saturday. The death has occurred of Mr. Stephen Walsh, who was Secretary of State for War in the Labour Cabinet in 1924, and a member of the House of Commons. Mr. Stephen Walsh has represented the Ince division of Lancashire in the House of Commons since 1906. Born in 1859 he went to school at Liverpool, and at the age of 14 started work in a coalmine. He has been agent at Wigan for the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners’ Federation; vice-chairman of the Miners* Conciliation Board; and president of the Wigan and District Trades Council. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service, March-July, 1917, and to the Local Government Board, July, 1917, to January, 1919. He was senior vice-chairman of the Labour Party, November, 1922. In the Labour Government of 1924 Mr. Walsh was Secretary of State for War. His son was- killed in a Pioneer Bat talion in the war. His father and other miners assisted in forming these battalions. At the General Flection In 1924 he had a majority of 10,452 over his Conservative opponent, Colonel E. V. Gabriel.