The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1915. NEXT GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 2 December 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1915. NEXT GENERAL ELECTIONS.

(With.which is'incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.)

A dominating factor in the next New Zealand elections will be the soldiers who have returned from the war, is what the Hon. Robert McNab stated at a recent recruiting meeting. The present Parliament is to last as long as the war continues, and no elections are to be held until the war is ended, and the men have returned home. This means that the general elections falling due in 1917 will have no effect on the continuity of the present Parliament unless a state of peace has been | reached, and should that prove to be the case it will become necessary for the National Cabinet to introduce, and the House to pass, legislation for the prolongation of its life. Mr McNab further states that this was a part of the arrangement between the parties when the National Cabinet took office. No one can raise serious objections to an arrangement that is to prevent many thousands of the most loyal of our best settlers being disfranchised. It is the barest justice that the men who have given their services and offered their lives in the defence of their home and country should not, by those very acts, forfeit their right to the franchise to which they were born. Sentiments quite foreign to any that have operated in a New Zealand election will have an influencing effect upon the next Parliamentary polling,and In many constituencies, as Mr' McNab suggests, they will be a predominating factor in reaching results. Should the war end in 1916 our men may get back in time to settle down to things as they are, and so avoid cur social, uclitical and domestic policies being thrown out of joint. There is a possibility, of course, that questions of pensions and other matters arising out of the war may be made to overshadow issues of equal, and perhaps even greater importance. Those who have been absent for sometime, if the war is not over till 1917 win come back to us somewhat out of touch with public questions which are of vital importance; on the other hard, there are crucial questions, such as “Trade within the Empire.” that I thoy wbl express themselves upon in no uncertain way. These men. above all ntbprs. will have felt, the force of an argmmmr that will impel them to vote o-it the Herman whenever opportunity we, believe our returned solwn p-.-eveise a salutary influence next o-eneval elections: in n ,. v ease, they will constitute a force I Cl . economist can