A Springtime Wooing

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 160, 27 September 1927, Page 8

A Springtime Wooing

Electioneering in Raglan Last Stages of Strenuous Campaign (From THE SUN'S Special Correspondent in the Electorate). IT is springtime in Raglan. Golden kowliai blazes occasionally in the willows lining tlie Waikato, and the fields are fresh and fragrant. But the budding of awakened vegetation is the least important thing afoot. Politicians scour the countryside. A by-election is at hand.

/AN Thursday a strenuous campaign will end, and outside the central polling booth at Ngaruawahia the fateful numbers will be posted. By that time the horde of campaigners that the rural contest has attracted will doubtless have thinned. Sir Joseph Ward, after appealing for a Liberal revival, returned to Wellington last night. The Prime Minister, the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, had arrived in the electorate during the day. In

y'r r'r -j- rl- Hi TV re ~'r tv tv ~v TV tv tv TYT cheering sunshine he and his party set forth, in the morning, to open the post office at Te Mata, a remote settlement in the direction of Raglan. Having performed the simple ceremony, they returned In driving hail, a sample of the eccentric weather which Is lending the spice of variety to the campaign. Last evening the Prime Minister delivered heavy ammunition at Ngaruawahia. This evening he speaks at Tuakau, and to-morrow evening at Waiuku. Each of those settlements has a population of about 800, Ngaruawahia’s citizens number 1,250, which leaves Huntly, with its 1,700 people, far the largest centre In the electorate. Under the circumstances the good people of Huntly feel that the Prime Minister’s failure to concede them an evening is a curious omission. Mr. H. E. Holland, the Labour leader, arrived yesterday to reinforce the Labour representatives, and began his share of the programme at Huntly. Labour is battling valiantly for its cause. Not only are Messrs. Savage, Jordan, Fraser and Holland operating with enthusiasm, but also Mr. Lee Martin, their candidate, is doing an enormous amount of active work. Up till last Thursday, at Huntly, he had addressed 23 meetings, and was pleased to find his voice still serviceable. Since then he has added many

to the tally, and is still going strongly. A feature of the campaign is the vigorous effort that, the Liberal Party is making. Though that party is said at the present to be just one man. and that man Sir Joseph, -it is evident that the lone remnant is not without supporters. The presence of Messrs. \V. A. Veitch and H. Atmore, who have been inclined at times to go separate ways, is evidence of this tenacious loyalty to the ancient standard, and is evidence, too, of a dawning unity among the stragglers circling round Blue and gold are the Liberals’ colours, and they are freely flaunted by supporters within the electorate. Among the speakers who have proclaimed that Liberalism is reborn are Sir Joseph Ward, Messrs. Veitch, Atmore, Hall-Skelton and Dr. Horton, of Auckland. Among these Mr. Thomas Parker, the candidate, seems perhaps the least perturbed. He is not a man of obstrusive personality, which perhaps accounts for his popularity. RIVAL COMMITTEE ROOMS A. few doors from each other, in the streets of Ngaruawahia, are the Liberal and Reform committee rooms. Each candidate has backing him an enthusiastic organisation. Though Messrs. Taylor and Magner are fighting a lone fight, each has the support of many loyal friends, and they may perhaps gain, rather than lose, through the fact that each in battling alone. Holding the strings of the Labour organisation is Mr. W. Nash, National secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party. He,and Mr. Peter Fraser, who is secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party, are directing the campaign, and the eagerness which is inspiring their efforts was revealed by Mr. Fraser at Huntly, when he stated that a win for Labour would send a thrill of hope through the ranks of the workers of the Dominion. Labour declines, as a matter of principle, to engage committee rooms, but there appears to be no reason for the inference that its organisation will sufTer as a result. Labour, as a matter of fact, is thoroughly confident of its ability to carry Thursday's poll. To do so it will obviously need to alter the sentiments of voters at such places as Ruapuke, where the 38 electors were unanimously Reform at the last elections. Other places which showed very marked sentiments were Ra.glan, with. 177 for Reform, against 6 for Labour; Onevhero, with 158 for Reform, and 9 for Labour; and Waiuku, with 631 against 31. Huntly, Pukemiro, and the other mining centres were, on the other hand, almost as emphatically the other way. INDEPENDENT'S PLUCK Huntly made no secret, the other evening, of its attitude toward the former constable, Mr. W. J. Taylor, but it is not improbable that his plucky response to the hostility of the miners won Mr. Taylor more votes than he lost. The display quite exceeded reasonable bounds, and Mr. W. C. E. George, chairman of the Huntly Town Board, and a strong Labour sympathiser, could have afforded the harassed speaker stronger protection than the one lukewarm protest that he ventured.