ADVENTURES OF A TANK

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9721, 25 July 1917, Page 4

ADVENTURES OF A TANK

DR THACKER'S STORY A PARLIAMENTARY PARABLO. Dr Thacker, during his address in eohnection with the debate on the Ad-dross-in-lleply in the House of Representatives last night, related the parable of a tank, the meaning of which he loft in no doubt. Dr Thacker likened tho National Government to a tank, not the domestic reservoir of the back yard, but the engine of destruction that swept over tho German lines recently and wrought such terrible havoc. The member for Christchurch Bast pictured this tank “all gleaming and impressive,’’ starting forth, manned by the Ministers of the Crown. Dr Thacker did not see the tank go far, however. It got stuck. It wallowed in a hole. This hole was a huge crater —tho crater of tho cost of living. The tank blundered and wallowed in this hole—a hole that got deeper and deeper. Despairing, the loader and his crow forsook the tank, which kept on wallowing. The tank’s crew, like the occupants of a motor-car gone hopelessly wrong, wandered further afield in search of help. They came back to the tank with a rescue party. Tho rescue party was the Board of Trade. The crew and the rescuers gathered round tho distressed tank, but it only floundered about worse than over. Being kth to desert a still active vehicle, the clew set about erecting barbed wire entanglements round the shell crater where the tank lay. These entanglements were really "War Regulations. Interested sightseers wishing to see what the tank was doing tried to look over the afire entanglements, only to be checked by the warnings of the crew: “If you look over hero you will have to go%‘somewhere,’ ” they informed curious people. Some of the crew thought they would like a cooling system added to tho tank which had evidently got heated with its floundering*". They' would like to have tho radiator cooled with water. Their reason for not having recourse to another type of cooling liquid was that this liquid used up too much sugar. In spite of this point they could not altogether object to tho cooling system of soft drinks being used. Yet strange to say, these soft drinks Used up more sugar than the other liquid objected to. Dr Thacker’s interesting tank story was interrupted by the Speaker’s boll, but ho promised to narrate further facts about the tank at a later date.