POLITICAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 438, 1 October 1908, Page 3

POLITICAL.

It is improbable that there will be any contest in the approaching general election over which more feeling will be excited on the part of the rival candidates and their respective supporters than there will be over that between Messrs T. E. Seddon, M.P., and H. L. Michel for the Westland seat. An indication of the extent to which the constituency is already stirred over the conflict is afforded in a telegram published by the Auckland Star from its Christchurch correspondent, who writes : —“ It appears that the West Coasters are anticipating that the coming election in Westland will be a bitterly contested one, and already there are signs of the intensity of the partisan spirit. A West Coaster who knows the constituency intimately alleges that it is an example of the failure of the female franchise. Since the byeelection, at which Mr T. Seddon was elected to fill his father’s place, society in Hokitika and in the other centres of the electorate has rigidly divided itself into two opposing camps, the Seddon-ites and the Michelites, which, like the Jews and Samaritans of old, have ho dealings with each other.”