HUTT BY-ELECTION.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17964, 8 March 1930, Page 9

HUTT BY-ELECTION.

THE AFTERMATH.

LIBEL. ACTION SETTLED. (Speoial to Times.) ■WELLINGTON, Friday. In the Lower Hutt Magistrate’s Court yesterday Mr Walter Smith, the publisher of the Hutt News, appeared to answer a oharge of having “published an untrue statement defamatory of Mr Walter the suooessful candidate in the recent Hutt by-elec-tion. The leisured people about the Courthouse, however, w j ere deprived of their expected entertainment. Mr Nash's solicitor explained that since the proceedings were instituted the defendant had made an ample apology, and that the question of costs had been arranged between the parties. The magistrate consented to the withdrawal, and congratulated the parties upon their good sense. The essence of the defamatory statement was to the effeot that Mr Nash was “seeking to establish a Soviet-like form of government in New Zealand," a oharge that was particularly offensive in the case of the plaintiff, since he had explained from the platform during the election campaign that he had no sympathy with revolutionary methods and no intention of overthrowing the British Constitution. People of different shades of politios predict that he will make a very happy acquisition to Parliament.