ELECTION ARITHMETIC.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1690, 24 November 1925, Page 4

ELECTION ARITHMETIC.

NO one will be so stony-hearted as to grudge the political Labour party the satisfaction which it derives from the contemplation of the figures relative to the polling at the general election that have been issued on its behalf by its general secretary. It is an old saying that figures can be made to produce any result that is desired by a skilful manipulator (as witness our correspondence columns in recent issues), and, while it might be unwise to place a great deal ot faith in that dictum, the national secretary of the Labour organisation may claim credit for the ingenuity with which he has contrived to suggest that, instead of having met with a severe reverse, his party achieved a greater measure of progress at the polls than either ot the other parties is in a position to show. The review was, of course, framed before it was known, and peihaps before it was even dreamt, that the party would meet with such a fresn disaster as the rejection on one day of two of its members in the late Parliament by the casting votes of the returning officers—an incident that, is without parallel in the political history of New Zealand. We have not been at the pains to check the figures that have been prepared on behalf of the Labour party because, after all, statistical calculations which show that tin “splendid gain,” as it is called, that is manifested in a party secuiing the largest percentage of votes it has everobtained has been effected at the cost of the loss of 29 per cent of the personnel of the party in Parliament do not impress us very greatly. To the results, indeed, which have been so carefully tabulated, Mr Holland migh*. as leader of the party, excusably apply the words of Pyrrhus: “One more such victory and we are utterly undone.” But if the political Labour organisation is satisfied with the results of the election as indicating thm the party “is steadily marching for - ward towards the establishment of n more humane, more equhable, more efficient form of government” those who, though sympathetic to the legitimate aspirations of Labour, are strongly opposed to the revolutionary programme with which the party went to the country, have no reason for seeking to disturb the complacency with which the battlefield is being surveyed.