LESSION OF THE BY-ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1934, 17 December 1913, Page 6

LESSION OF THE BY-ELECTION.

; ; ;'<;.Tiik"". by-clcelioii has resulted in !_li'i_ ri'l.nni of U>e nominee ;.of. Ui<:'.'|!(iiil|i:.:il. organisation- asso.cialed:;wilh"lhe Federation of La''."l!''.vi;'Tlm'!result, wast mil. unexpeet;'.<'<'.iA.'! Unit Hlw>Bftcl(?t(;riiiiiii' ( |?j; (.(Torts, .of tin). l!iOre? ; in l -', the Parly ■ to induccitheSsuppbrlers/of.- the. party ;to;V!)te?foiv,thesLaboisr-hioi;ialist,.can- , didatsn 1 vg;iretloss i; .of .■ any iut he i\>con-, lhaii:.th?desircWVrcvcrit.. ;lh(j..jp'o'vcriiiifciit. - '; : .win n ing ~.tli«' ? scat, i.wcro..';likely' to play' into the-hands) ;of>'the'Kccl.Fed(:i , atiuii: : >'-At..thc.sanw'- : itimn... the 'polling is.in 'some respects "gratifying.-'. It is 'made"abundantly 1 ■clear :■■ that':' the:, moderates Wariiongst 'the' Liberal'Party,"who in most clcc* .torates, represent a sriajority.lof'.th'o party,, have'in the case of Lyttelton' at least'decided that it is preferable.' that they should range themselves' on the side of the Government rather than support'the nominee of the Red Federation. Despite the advice and appeals of some of the Liberal journals a majority of the Liberal voters of Lyttelton refused to vote for the so-called Social-Democratic candidate, and refused to lend their .approval to tha methods of the Red Federation. The figures of the two ballots are decidedly interesting. It will be recalled that at the first bal-lot-in addition to the Reform and Labour-Socialist candidates thero were two Liberal and one Independent Liberal contesting the seat. Lumping the whole of tha Liberal votes together, tha total was 1283. The votes of the three political parties at the first ballot thus work out as follows: — Labour-Socialist ; 2,0") Reform , 1,560 Liberal 1,282 Assuming that the same number of votes were to ba polled at the Second Ballot) the Reform candidate would have required to secure some 000 of the 1282 Liberal votes in order to win, while the Labour-Socialist candidate only required to obtain some -100 to retain his lead. As it happened,'there was a heavier poll at the Second Ballot than was recorded at the First Ballot, the figures being respectively 5030 and 4917. This perhaps slightly confuses the position, but the broad fact remains that of the 12,82 Liberal votes plus the 113 additional votes polled, the Reform candidate secured S-12 and the Labour-Socialist candidate only 553, It is significant because it indicates that the everyday citizen is beginning to realise the menace of the methods of the Red Federation and is prepared to break awav from old political party habits in face of the new enemy to reasonable and stable; government. At Grey the Liberal electors who held the balance of power at the Second Ballot between the Reform candidate and the nominee of t the Federation of Labour threw in their lot whole-heartedly' with the latter. Since then the people .of, New. Zealand have got. to know by bitter experience what the Federation of Labour really stands for; and at Lyttelton the Liberal voto swung round and nearly twothirds of it went to the nominee of the Reform Party. The lesson thus conveyed to the leaders of Liberalism cannot be mistaken. They must now sec that they cannot hope to ally themselves with the revolutionary forces represented by the Red Federation without losing the support of the best clement that has stood behind the Liberal Party for so many years, Those who claim to represent "Liberalism" in the Parliament of the country have been slower than the people who sent them there to realise the change which is taking place in the politics of the country, and have failed to appreciate the significance of the Egmont, Grey, and Lyttelton byelections. In all three the Liberal .Party lost the seats it held; and in the case of Grey and Lyttelton lost seats which it had held, practically unchallenged for something like 20 .years. _No one can witness such happenings without recognising that the forces at work for the disintegration of the once-powerful Liberal Party arc moving rapidly and irresistibly.- The public can see that the trend of events in the. politics of the Dominion is surely driving the electors into new party divisions which may be described as the Progressive Moderates and the Labour-Socialist Revolutionaries— the former represented by the Reform Party strengthened by the Moderates of the old Liberal Party and the latter represented by the Labour-So-cialists and tha extreme Radical wing of the party. ; The result of the Lyttelton election may be expected .to accelerate the speed of the movement in the direction we have indicated. The success of the I candidate of- the Federation of Labour will no doubt encourage that organisation; but the Reform Party also has every reason to be gratified with the position of its representative in what is probably the second strongest Labour-Socialist electorate in the Dominion.