FREE STATE ELECTIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 183, 5 July 1937, Page 7

FREE STATE ELECTIONS.

STATE OF THE PARTIES. MR DE YALERA LEADS. Received Julv 5, 10.5 a.m. DUBLIN, July 4. The state of the parties in the Irish Free State general election at midnight last night was: Supporters of Mr de Valera ... 50 Supporters of Mr Cosgrave 30 Labour 1.1 Independent 8 Results from 71 seats are still to come. The plebiscite vote on the new constitution showed 56 per cent, of the electors favourable to it. Nearly all the Ministers were reelected. Candidate defeated include Miss Margaret l’earse, sister of Patrick Pearse, who was executed for his leadership of the 1916 rebellion. The defeat of General R. J. Mulcahy, one of Mr Cosgrave’s most valued lieutenants, was the sensation of the elect ions. He was beaten by Mr Larkin, a veteran independent Labour candidate.

Mr de Valera headed the Clare poll with 6000 votes over the required quota. Mr Cosgrave was elected for Cork. He secured only 9508 votes in an electorate of 53 019.

The Minister of Finance, Dir Sean McEntee, was elected by a substantial majority.

The last general e’oetion In Ireland was held on January 24. 1933. and Dir de Valera’s Fianna Kail Party gamed, for the first time, a majority over ail the other parlies, though only of one. Fianna Fail won 77 seals (a gain of five), Mr Cosgrave's party. 48 (a loss of 17), and Labour eig’lit (a gain of one). The Centre Party won 11 seals ami nine independent members wore elected.

Commenting on the new Irish Constitution recently, a judge of the Supreme Court sol up by tile Dai I. raid: It is a spectacular document. It proposes to repeal the existing Free State Constitution, and to take its place itself at, if it were an essentially different instrument of government. In fact, it does not add one iota to the powers of the existing Five State Parliament. The proposed Constitution docs riot, deAcribe Eire as a Dominion of the Crown, or a Kingdom, or a Republic, anything else, hut simply as “a State. ’ I lib omission lias not been accidental. It won id be nn act of rebellion against the King to proclaim Eire as a Republic, and it would endanger success al the elections to describe it as a Dominion. Accordingly, Eire is simple described as “a State.” The King has not been left out ol the Constitution. Tt would not work without him. If, for instance, a member of the Fianna Fail wanted to go to France, a passport signed bv tbe “President of Eire would not be accepted by the french Government; it should he expressly made out in the name of His Majesty the King. The King, accordingly, comd not be let out of the new Constitution. He is not mentioned directly, hut camouflaged as an “organ, instrumental, or method ot procedure.”