SURPRISE PARTY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 6 April 1926, Page 7

SURPRISE PARTY.

THE LYTTELTON SEAT. MR LYONS RECEIVES BILL. To a community inured to quick changes and surprises in connection with the Lyttelton election, there has come yet another startling point to revive waning interest. ■ It is a coincidence. Just one year ago last Thursday, Mr M. E. Lyons was asked if he would accept nomination for the Lyttelton seat. On Thursday he received a bill of costs for having given liis consent to stand. The Election Court unseated him, and has ordered him to pay the costs of the petitioner, Mr J. M’Combs. Standing for Parliament is a risky business. . The total costs in tho case amount to £463, for a hearing that lasted a little more than an hour. The Court decided the AVA-tland petition' laid down ceitaiff principles which made it unnecessary for any argument to be placed before it in the Lyttelton petition. Tho “Newsletter,” which is published in Wellington, commenting upon tlie result-of the petition, has the following:—“A somewhat unfair principle appears'to have been established in the Lyttelton ease, Mr Lyons being mulcted in the cost of the proceedings, although lie was merely in the position of defending the action of two Government officials —the returning officer and the Magistrate—wfio conducted the recount, both officials having declared him dnly elected as the member for Lyttelton. Mr Lyons could not have done other than defend tho position, which was not of his making, and it seems very unfair that lie should be made to pay for the mistakes of two Government officers, especially as the latter appear to have fieen acting strictly on their interpretation of the law in classing as informal the votes allowed by the Court.