“THE NATIONAL TANK”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9736, 11 August 1917, Page 7

“THE NATIONAL TANK”

ONE-SIDED MANAGEMENT THE CREW NOT A HAPPY FAMILY. Reverting last night to his parable of the National Government as “the national tank,” Dr Thacker, M.P. for Christchurch East, said that this was n war of machinery. It was machinery that would win the war. The aeroplanes wore the eyes of the Army. Thcy spied, out and pointed the big guns of tho enomy, and then tue tanks would com© along and finish tho job. He understood that some of the new tanks were 40, 50, 100, or 160 teot long. And tho National Govemmont was a similar great tank; but it was not efficiently managed, and was nut doing the work that it should do. He had told the House' how the great national tank bad wallowed into the great shell-hole, tho Cost of Living, »iud how tho chauffeur (the Prime Munster) and his first- engineer (the Minister for Finance) saved themselves on the Board of Trade—(laughter)— and got away to tho Old Country. Then the Minister for . Defence became tho chauffeur, the rest of tho Ministry being with him in the- tank as the crew. But it was not a “happy family,” as tho Prime Minister had said it was. It was a “bully family. Unfortunately, one of tho Ministers, whose loss they greatly regretted, had contracted an illness and died, lhat made tho sides in tho tank unequal; and ho understood that, when the Minister for Defence was not in tho chair at Cabinet meetings, another member of the great Reform, party (tho Hon. W. H. Herries) presided. When neither of them was there, it appeared that still another Reform member of the Ministry occupied the chair. ■' Ho believed, as a matter of fact, that a Liberal Minister never presided over a.,. Cabinet meeting. It was not a happy family. And when the Prime Minister got hack he made it oven more nasty, making tho committees unequal, and in the House tho other night, when the Chairman of Committees was away, what happened? He thought that, as a matter cf courtesy, the hon. member for Hutt would have been made Chairman of Committees. (Hear, hear.) A member: “He is the leader of the Opposition.” (Laughter.) Dr Thacker: “The hon. member for Hutt was passed over, and a colt, as I may call him —a colt, who entered tho House about tho same time as 1 did—was made chairman.” That, he contended, was not playing the game. They on that side of the House did not like to have their men put on one side by a “dominating, domineering character.” (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He did not believe that that was the true spirit of tho Prime (Minister, his real character; but it was his comrades who urged him to do these unsportsmanlike things when it was—or should be —a National Government, a “national tank,” aiming only at efficiency and fair play, to all. {Hear, hoar, and laughter.)