DUNEDIN BY-ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2375, 3 February 1915, Page 6

DUNEDIN BY-ELECTION

MR, STATHAM'S SINGLEHANDED FIGHT ISSUE AT STAKE Interest in the Dunedin by-election, which takes place to-day, is very keen in Wellington among all interested even slightly in politics. It is assumed, quite wrongly, that on the issue of this election hangs tho fate of the Government. In actual fact the Government will still have forty votes in the House if Mr. Statham is defeated, and there will still be election petitions to be considered in Hawke's Bay, Taumarunui, and Northern Maori, i Two of these petitions have been filed in the interests of the Government candidates, and one, that in tho Maori electorate, in the interests of an Opposition candidate who was defeated. _ All that can be said about this election is that if Mr. Statham is elected the fate of the Opposition will probably be sealed; if he is not elected it will not follow as a matter of course that Mr. Massey niust give way. Mr. Statham has fought his fight in Dunedin alone, save for the help of friends in the electorate, of whom ho seems to have made a great many. The Labour candidate, on tho other hand, has had the support of the Leader of the "Liberal" Opposition. In reply to a question by a Dominion reporter yesterday on his keeping out of the fight, the .Prime Minister said: "If necessary, I would have been ready to take part in the campaign in Dunedin Central, but Mr. Statham expressed the opinion that he was able to conduct it himself, and expressed, also, a wish that he should be allowed to do it without my aid. I admired his sturdy independence, and respected his wishes accord-; iußly."