Hislop was a
Wellington City Councillor from
1913 to 1915, when he resigned to serve in
World War I. He became a councillor again from
1927 to 1931, and then mayor from
1931 to 1944. Soon after becoming mayor the
1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake occurred. The council resolved to loan a petrol-powered shovel for a month to
Napier. It also ordered a report on the safety of the bell housed in the
Wellington Town Hall's clock-tower. Controlling the city during the
Great Depression it responded with financial austerity. In June 1931 the council cut salaries for council employees earning more than £5 a week. Hislop agreed to a request from the nationwide Unemployment Board to set up a voluntary local committee to run relief works in Wellington. The council provided free public transport to people on relief work schemes. By September 1932 Hislop was threatening to pull out of the Unemployment Board's scheme, arguing that with 4,033 men employed Wellington City Council was carrying a disproportionate burden. The government gave the council £20,000 to continue to employ the relief workers. Described as an "ultra-conservative" he was a member of the
New Zealand Legion and opposed the
United–Reform coalition government. He was later the political leader of the
Democrat Party organised by
Albert Davy in 1934–35. The party was anti-socialist, but in the
1935 general election its main effect was to split the anti-Labour vote, and it disappeared soon afterwards. Hislop himself contested the electorate and came last out of three candidates. He later became a member of the new
National Party which the Democrat Party had merged into. At the standing for the National Party in the electorate, he came second but was beaten by Labour's
Charles Chapman. Hislop was chairman of the Wellington Provincial Centennial Council and the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company from 1937; the Centennial was in 1940. His predecessor as mayor came up with the idea, with Hislop gaining government approval for the idea in 1936. In 1940
Noël Coward was on a world entertainment and propaganda tour, and at a mayoral reception in Wellington had a
set-to with the Mayoress who ''seemed to me to suffer from delusions of grandeur .... She said to me in ringing tones that I was never to dare to sing "The Stately Homes of England" again as it was an insult to the homeland and that neither she or anybody else liked it. I replied coldly that for many years it had been one of my greatest successes, whereupon she announced triumphantly to everyone within earshot: 'You see – he can’t take criticism!' Irritated beyond endurance I replied that I was perfectly prepared to take intelligent criticism at any time, but I was not prepared to tolerate bad manners. With this I bowed austerely and left the party.'' By
World War II, Hislop was seen as a "remote, even erratic figure, and his right-wing views regularly brought him into conflict with the wartime Labour government", but the attack by some trade unionists on Hubert Nathan, a Jew and Citizens candidate for the Harbour Board, resulted in the defeat of all the Labour candidates to the Council in 1941. He strongly supported the war effort and in February 1940 he joined a crowd of several thousand people who marched to Pigeon Park to counter-protest a gathering of pacifists and
conscientious objectors. Hislop (despite being aligned with the Labour government in supporting the war effort) never stopped needling members of the Labour Cabinet over its previous opposition to conscription during
World War I. The government got their own back in 1942 when they refused to see a council deputation requesting state subsidies for thousands of earthquake damaged chimney pots. Labour also worked extra hard to ensure that Hislop never achieved his ambition of a parliamentary career. Ahead of the
1944 election Hislop was openly challenged for the Citizens' mayoral candidacy by councillors
Will Appleton and
William Gaudin. He was again selected by a ballot of the Citizens' Electoral Committee, but Appleton said he would stand for mayor as an independent despite not being granted the Citizens' nomination in pursuance of a promise he gave to a deputation of over 100 people who implored him to stand. This caused concern for the Citizens' Association of
vote splitting and a repeat of the
1912 election where competing centre-right candidates allowed a Labour mayor to be elected. Declining arbitration, Appleton got his wish after discussions when Hislop (albeit reluctantly) agreed to stand aside in the interests of unity. Post mayoralty Hislop returned to legal practice. Ahead of the he was nominated to stand for National in the electorate. His leadership of the Democrat Party in 1935 which helped Labour win government was still a black mark against his name with National Party members and accordingly he was persuaded to withdraw from the selection process on the prediction he would not win. His age (at 58 years old) was also a factor against him. ==Honours and awards==