A DEAL IN TANKS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144086, 3 May 1913, Page 7

A DEAL IN TANKS.

A YANKEE AND HIS WAY. The ordinary sober course of mercantile activity m Dunedin was recently broken by a sudden insatiable demand from somewhere for tanks in any quantity. It was whispered abroad ever so conlidentially that the great United States was at the back ot the surprising activity. Fabulous figures were mentioned as being obtainable in Uncle Sam’s .Republic for mere tanks. No explanation of the reason for this was given. Homo thought of the freak dinners and other weird excitements which pertain to the United States, but could recall nothing freakish enough to account for Dunedin timks_ being at a premium in Woodrow Wilsons dominions, Ho speculation as to the why and wherefore abated, and Dunedin set itself to the task of simply supplying tho demand. A business man of standing in Dunedin decided to father the now and promising industry, and applied both his imagination and his business abilities, ’tis said, to effecting a “corner” in tanks, in true American fashion. Ho devoted many feverish hours to the novel proposition, and poured forth the promptings of his commercial experience to put “sting” into the tender wrigglings of the baby export trade. He raked in tanks from all directions—and all kinds and conditions of tanks. Tanks came from most unlikely places—from hoary security, from respectable disuse, from collars, lofts, and empty spaces, from north, south, oast, and west, and were collected for emigration purposes pa the Dunedin wharves. The indefatigable “buyer-up” bad secured upwards of. a gross of tanks. But the captain of the ship which was to take the tanks to Stars and Stripes territory was himself a Yankee. Moreover, the Yankee captain was the real instigator .of the new industry, and tho Dunedin business man lyid merely acted as his agent, and, as such, had been deputed to buy “tanks.” The captain, with the cutoness of his race, appointed himself a sort of a grader—finding that there was no Government grader for exported tanks. Ho found, with tho assistance of an expert, that some of the alleged “tanks” “wouldn’t hold water.” Many ot the cornered tanks, in fact, were quite gouo at the corners, and were generally dilapidated specimens. There wore over 50, at any rate, that the captain decided would bo useless in the United States; and fearing, no doubt,, to injure at the outset the hitherto unsullied reputation of New Zealand tanks-, ho decided to reject these 50 odd and leave them in their declining years on New Zealand soil. They came, he said drily, within tho prohibited immigration laws of the United States. Now was a delicate tangle. Who was to father the rejected tanks? For a start, they wore carted to a_ right-of-way in Dowling Street one Wednesday afternoon, it is not known at whose instance. An urgent message, however, to the agent who had done the buying-up, saying that someone had broken his leg over a tank in the right-of-way; had the effect of getting the unwieldy collection removed by tho said agent. They arc now on his hands, and at a time, too, when the inevitable slump has followed the first flush of the “boom.” There was another feature of the deal which some mercantile men profess to laugh at. The Customs people are under obligation to refund 10s each on tanks which (as in this case) are reexported. A Yankee, of course, could hardly be expected to know of this circumstance, and for tho sake of this country’s finance no one (not even his own agent) could perhaps have been expected to tell him. Someone, however, was good enough to “put him wise,” and his claim for £lO odd is now in the hands of the. proper authorities. Tho situation is complicated, however, by the fact that there is also a claim from another quarter for the coveted refund, and as it cannot be paid twice over, people in the Know arc watching the respective progress of the rivalclaimants. It is expected that tho Yankee captain will eventually get the money. There is only one thing that can seemingly prevent him from scooping it, and that is shipwreck and destruction, in which circumstance his agent here will probably he called upon to collect it. The captain is now on the deep blue sea with his remarkable cargo.—Dunedin Star.