A HAWERA ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 524, 3 June 1909, Page 5

A HAWERA ELECTION.

" UNPLEASANT INCIDENTS. ' We havo received following telegram from a correspondent, with reference to the election at Hawera of a member of the Wanganui Education Board: — A Press Association tolegrain from Hawera does an injustice to tho Catholic body in the district. The truo ' facts are these:—Mr. O'Doa, M.A., LL.B., ex-schoolmaster, barrister, and Catholic, opposed Mr. Dixon, a Methodist lay i reader, and sitting member on tho Wanganui Education Board. Instead of circularising tho district as tho wire states, a personal friend, and Old sohool-fellow, and solicitor wrote bespeaking their interest to sixteen non-Catholic acquaintances and five Catholics. No other Catholic, priest or layman, know at tho time of Mr. O'Dea's candidature. Mr. Dixon denounced the Catholic movoment on behalf of Mr. O'Doa, and published a letter of an anonymous co'rrospondont, giving warning of an organised' attack by Catholic's on tho oducation system. Tho press was written to, doprccating the hysteria and sectarian bigotry generally accompanying elections here, and showing that thoro were no grounds for the cliargo against Catholicß. Next day Mr. Dixon withdrew tho cliargo, and this withdrawal the Press -Association agent has not mentioned. In the subsequent history'of the campaign, thoro is no evidence to show that tho Catholics made it a party question. The priests alone amongst- the local clergy kept severely out of tho fight. They reserved their pulpits for tho Gospel, and wero not present on Monday night at tho most disgraceful Wranglo over witnessed here. Another itom kept back is that one candidate who was proposed for tho chair at tho householders' meeting would not yield to on ox-mombor of Parliament, who was nominated as independent,'oil tho ground that' a casting vote might ho. nrccssar.v. This wrangle lasted two hours, during which a largo body of luHUoliOltlers retired in disgust, leaving the victory with tho party that had stirred tip SK,