WELLINGTON NORTH BYELECTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 18 January 1918, Page 4

WELLINGTON NORTH BY—ELECTION.

Wellington North, wlrich the Hon. Mr Herdman is forsaking for a seat on the Supreme Court Bench, is demonstrating the fact that there is a considerable under-current of revolt against the political methods of the present Administration. It was agreed that during the war there were to be no general elections, and that the then present strength of parties was to ise maintained. New Zealand is not a dependency of Germany, however, and people are not outlaws because they think differently to their Government.

The Ministry may prolong its life by exercising a power the constitution never provided for, but it cannot whip up the people to servilely vote at elections as it wishes, and so Wellington North has become somewhat too hard for the Ministerial nut-crackers to negotiate. The Premier took J. P- Luke from his element at Newtown and set him down on aristocratic Wellington North, the aristocrats monocled and binocled him for awhile all( i then declared he was unsuitable. The Premier tried ITun methods for a time and then had to back down. Cabinet is now considering how Mr Luke is to be laid aside, and who they, can select to fill the fastidious requirements of the particular people concerned. Meanwhile, candidates of one sort and another are rumoured, and w r e are informed that Labour, or Socialists, or the 1.W.W., or all three combined, arc nominating Mr. Holland, and that Mr Poison is laying aside Ministerial secretarial duties in an effort to move up to Ministerial rank himself. Mr Whyte, the able and popular secretary of the Wellington Racing Club, is also in the running, but it is doubtful whether his final payment will be made. J. P. Luke seems to have been entirely abandoned as not being at all 1 fit for the run, the company being too 1 high-class for him-. The present field consists of a Socialist and an independent Liberal. The Conservative stable have not yet disclosed their new selection, but long meetings are reported to have been held in this connection, a t which there was considerable difference of opinion expressed. While Parliament was legislating a Ministry it is rather a pity that it did not go the whole hog and take the power to fill vacancies in constituencies, for it would have been far less dangerous to good government than legislating an Administration. In Mr. Poison, 'Wellington North has a man who has both inside and outside knowledge of the political game, and we are not sure that he -would not make an excellent Member of Parliament. All this barganing and arranging of most vital matters in the government of the country is degrading and there are evidences that it will not long be allowed to continue. It is sending some of the best men amongst us over to that growingly powerful party that is determined to get back to popular, legitimate "representation through the ballot, and to abolish government set up in any other way. It is the overreaching lust for power of some that makes the Socialist agitators’ work so ' easy, and the step from prison to Parliament so short. It should be the people’s indisputable, inalienable right to select and nominate the men to represent them in Parliament, and it seems that Wellington North is going to- insist- upon its right despite all the wishes of political bosses and factions.