STATE OF PARTIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1337, 17 December 1914, Page 2

STATE OF PARTIES.

GOVERNMENT 40 COMBINED OPPOSITION 40.

Mr Pearce has been elected for Patea. The figures are Pearce 3,388, Morrison 3,270. Rumours have been spread about says the Post and have received the dignity of print in the Opposition journal that the elected Maori member for the Northern Maori constituency, Mr Tau Henare, who has always been understood to be a supporter, of the Reform Party and has been described invariably in the newspapers prior to the elections and since in recording the progress results of the election as (R) (Reform), is really an adherent to the political views of the Opposition. It has been said that his electors have desired him to follow in the footsteps of the late member, Dr Rangihiroa, who sat on the Opposition benches during his six years’ membership of Parliament. It is impossible from the information available in Wellington to dispose of these rumours one way or the other. The Prime Minister informed a Post representative that he knew Mr Tau Henare and knew him as a man of honour, who would carry out his obligations as such. Whatever may be the final upshot, there appears to be no doubt that the prophecy made by Mr A. D- D* Fraser, a former member of the House of Representatives, is on the way to coming home. The member for Napier, in advocating the abolition of the separate system of Maori representation, declared that some day the House would wake up and find that the Maori members held the fortunes of the country in the hollow of their hand,