SPIRITED ELECTIONEERING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 830, 26 November 1929, Page 11

SPIRITED ELECTIONEERING

HUTT CAMPAIGNING STARTS

ALL THREE OPTIMISTIC

From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON, Today. With campaigning proper to commence this week, public interest in the Hutt by-election is growing intense. All candidates take the hustings lor their opening addresses this week, and there is every indication that the election battle will be extremely spirited. Both United and Labour are taking the line that the contest is a two-party issue, but Mr. H. F. Johnston, the Reform candidate, who is high;>respected solicitor and son-in-law of Sir Francis Bell, is nevertheless expected to poll a big vote. Probably Mr. Johnston is the ablest platform man of the three, though he has not yet had political experience such as is possessed by Mr. Walter Nash. ALL THREE BUSY For the past week all three candidates have been organising strenuously, and the United Party lias made no secret of the fact that it intends to strain every nerve to hold the seat. At Lower Hutt last week, Mr. A. E. Davy, chairman of the United Dominion executive, said that the Government recognised that the country was watching the election and that if the seat were lost the mana of the party would be shaken. A whirlwind campaign is anticipated. "While Labour and Uniteds are preparing to cross swords, it is irnpossio.e to dismiss Mr. Johnston as merer• , vote splitter. The retirement of Mr. H. D. Bennett, who was the last umcu.i Reform candidate to contest the seat, has added to Mr. Johnston’s strength, as it was recognised that most of Mr. Bennett’s support would come from anti-Uniteds and anti-Laboqrites. It is also significant that there has never been a Reform candidate so strong as Mr. Johnston since Mr. A. M. Samuel, now member for Thames stood against Mr. Wilford. Mr. Samuel ran Mr. "Wilford to within 1 900 votes, the narrowest margin by which he has ever won the seat. LABOUR'S GROWING TOTAL

United Party circles confidently anticipate that Mr. Kerr, who is a wellknown and respected figure in the Hutt Valley and the only local man of the three candidates, will make serious inroads upon the Labour vote ■which gave Mr. Nash a total of almost 6,000 at the last election. So far Mr. Kerr’s meetings have been highly successful and much bigger than Mr. Wilford’s at the last election. Labour, on the other hand, points to a total vote which has increased throughout the last three elections until it stood 1,300 behind that of the new High Commissioner last November. Labour’s slogan for the campaign is “Nash this Time.”