Bay of Islands by-election, 1917
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The Bay of Islands by-election of 1917 was a by-election held in March 1917 during the 19th New Zealand Parliament in the Northland electorate of Bay of Islands. The by-election came about because Vernon Reed's win in the 1914 general election had been declared void by an electoral court, and Reed barred from standing for a year. The seat was won by William Stewart, Reed's Reform Party colleague, in the resulting 1915 by-election. When Reed became eligible again, Stewart resigned and Reed won the 1917 by-election unopposed.
Reed was first elected to the Bay of Islands electorate in the 1908 general election as a candidate of the Liberal Party. The 1911 election resulted in significant losses for the Liberal Party and Joseph Ward's government survived a no-confidence motion on the casting vote of the speaker only. Ward chose to resign, though, and made way for a new liberal Prime Minister, Thomas Mackenzie. Reed expected to be part of the new cabinet and the media discussed that he might be appointed Attorney-General due to his legal background. Reed was invited to cabinet, but he did not join because the majority of the cabinet did not support his views of freehold. When the Mackenzie government faced a no-confidence vote in July 1912, Reed voted with the opposition, thus effectively joining the Reform Party.
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