The question, Who invented the Tank I seems to be
as difficult to answer as the question, Who invented the steam engine ? Mr. Justice Sargent, presiding over the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, began on Monday to inquire into the rival claims of a dozen naval and military officers, engineers and others, to have invented the wonderful war machine which accelerated and lightened the cost of victory. Mr. Churchill, who was the first witness, said that in October, 1914, he asked Admiral Bacon to design a machine for crossing trenches, and that in January, 1915, he gave a provisional order, afterwards caneelled, for the manufacture of some machines to the Admiral's design. Mr. Churchill deserves credit for seeing the posed- bilities of the tank, and for forcing it upon the attention of the Government at a time when an unimaginative War Offiee declined to take the matter seriously. For our part, we should be inclined to reward all the claimants. The tank was developed very rapidly into an efficient war engine because it embodied the ideas of many clever men. To attribute the perfected tank to any one man would be as inaccurate as it is to look upon James Watt as the sole inventor of the steam engine.
It would be amusing, if the matter were not too serious, to observe the revival in the Northcliffe Press of a demand for an immediate " settlement " of the Irish question. We are told that the Government have suddenly remembered that the Home Rule Act will come into force automatically when peace is concluded, and that Ministers are in a desperate hurry to devise some new scheme of Irish government. We have heard this before. We can only repeat that the Irish problem is not to be " settled " offhand even by Mr. Lloyd George or by Lord Northcliffe. It would pass the wit of man to devise a " settle- ment " which all parties would accept, and no compromise yet suggested is half so satisfactory as the Act of Union. The Sinn Fein Party, which holds 73 of the 105 Irish seats, demands nothing less than complete independence. It is obviously impassible to come to terms with Sinn Fein, and there is no moderate Nationalist Party to negotiate with.
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