THE ELECTIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3035, 4 November 1908, Page 7

THE ELECTIONS.

Mr John Hunter, who is having most successlul meetings throughout the country, will deliver an address at Niitau to-night. Mr Ernest Deeble, of the firm of Deeble and Sons, Thames, has definitely decided to contest the Thames electorate as an Independent Liberal.

The number of names on the WelIngton electoral rolls are as follow: Wellington North, 10,200; South, 9,200; Central, 9,305; East, 8,640; Suburbs, 8,640.

The fight for the Hawke's Bay seat is becoming very exciting. The candidates are talking themselves hoarse, states a Press Assciation telegram, and public opinion is at a loss to arrive at a forecast of the ultimate result.

The supplementary roll for the Napier district ciosed on Saturday with the total of 2,570 names as compared with 842 three years ago. The main roll contains 6,536 names, making a total of 9,106, as compared " with 6.119 and 7,061 respectively at the last compilation.

The sections of the Legislature Act dealing with personation at elections are printed in the last issue of the "Gazette." Any person who commits the offence, or who aids or abets the commission of the offence, is liable to two years' imprisonment with or without hard labour.

Dealing with the Workers Compensation Act at Wellington on Monday night, Mr M'Laren, Labour candidate for Wellington East, claimed to have first suggested the important principle that compensation should be computed, not on the basis of average weekly earnings, but on that of the wages of a full working week. He went into the history of the legislation of 1903 and ISO 4 on the same subject.

Mr J. Hunter's meeting at Rongomai on Monday night was a very successful one, and the interest manifested in the candidate's remarks was very encouraging. Mr Hunter's speech, which was on the lines of those delivered elsewhere, was warmly applauded throughout, and his remarks in connection with the land question met vvitn general approbation. At the conclusion of the address the speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. In the'Christchurch South electorate, B,lljo persons have been enrolled on the main and supplementary rolls. It is seated that the roll for that district discloses some rather striking ■movements of the population having shifted from one electorate to another in three years. On the Christchurch North main roll fciere are ■5,886 electors, and on the supplementary roll 3,500, making a total of 9,386. On the Avon roll there are 8,184 electors, including thirty-two voters' permits and one seaman's right.

Some unkind things were said by ,Mr A. L. D. Fraser concerning his brother members in a speech on Friday. His ideal was (he paid) not mere delegates who would go to Wellington once a year and continually sit on the door-mats of Ministers' . rooms to get what they could get for •their districts, but men with broader ideas, men fit to model, not only the ;present, but the future. He regretted to say that there were some men now in Parliament who cared 'nothing for the great policy ques> tions of the day so long as they could filch something from the Treasurer ior expenditure in their districts.

Speaking n f the death duties at Palmerston North on Monday Mr Massey said he had had an unpleasant experience lately in a case in his electorate. A small farmer there had made Mr Massey his executor. To Mr Massey's astonishment, the department declined to take the Valuatityi Department's assessment of the value for stamp duty purposes, -but sent their own man, and he raised the valuation from £25 to £37 10s ; per acre, and the estate had to pay £314 on a small farm. Mr Massey said his representation of the case had resulted in the bringing down of an Act giving right of appeal to •a magistrate in cases of over-valua-tion.