The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1901. THE PATEA ELECTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 258, 1 November 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1901. THE PATEA ELECTION.

All the preliminaries in connection with the Patea election have now been I completed, and nothing remains to be (done after the candidates have finished their addresses but the voting. In the meantime both candidates are rushing hither and thither over the wide area that constitutes that scattered and badly arrangod electorate. So long as electorates are formed purely on a population basis such incongruous districts will always result, and electors who have nothing in common, and whose interests are as wide apart as the poles, will be called upon to choose between two men as their representative. Naturally the election is decided on the narrow ground of local prejudice. On this occasion fortunately the election will be a straight-out fight between Messrs Haselden and Heslop, and may be said to be a party fight pure and simple, i.e., between the Government and the Opposition. There should be no question as to the result if the people of the electorate remain true to their principles, because there is an undoubted majority in favour of the policy of the Government, but at the last two or three elections the Government vote has been split. No one who looks at the steady and satisfactory progress the colony is making can hesitate, as far as his vote will go, to assist in maintaining the party in power which is responsible for very much of this prosperity by the vigorous landsattlementpolicyadopted and maintained during the past ten years. A great deal is being done to enlist sympathy for Mr Haselden because he was wrongly declared elected, and sat for a short time in the House. The man who is really entitled to sympathy is Mr Heslop, who was first declared elected by a narrow majority, and then on a recount of the votes thrown out by one vot®. This too, it must be | remembered, after a candidate on thel same side of politics had taken several hundred votes from him. In the meantime, Mr Heslop's name had been reported all over the colony as that of the elected member, and telegrams from all quarters had reached him congratulating him on the result. The reversal of that decision came as a, cruel blow, and Mr Heslop is entitled to very great sympathy and great praise for the manly way he took his disappointment. Mr Haselden, on the other band, had announced his intention of trying to upset the election if at all close. He took his seat in J the House knowing that a further investigation of the election would J take place, and that oven if the election 1 were upheld he would be representing only a minority of the electors. If, as should be the case, a law was in force that in the event of no candidate securing a clear majority of the electors a further election would be held, and exact'y what is now taking p'ace would be done, the candidate lowest on the list woulc retire and the two hav.ng tbe highest number of votes would fight it out. If the electors act on party lines, the result of the election will be very interesting. There is one aspect of the question which electors at this eDd of the district will do well to endorse, and that is the loeal knowledge posseesed by Mr Heslop, and his experience as a member of local bodies, which will be of very great value to the district if he is returned. There is no doubt the people at the Hunterville end of the electorate were much more loyal to Mr Haselden than the people at this end were to Mr Heslop, but we hope on this occasion the people at this end will recognise that if tbev do not wish to lose all their influence in the political world, they must vote solidly for Mr Heslop.