The World-Struggle for Oil
9781465643483
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The question of oil has become one of the most vital in all countries. Its importance is such that even the most solid political alliances are subordinate to it. The Great Powers have all an "oil policy." The United States, where the most powerful trust is an oil trust—the Standard Oil Company—the United States, which control 70 per cent. of the oil production of the world, have decided not to leave the question to private initiative alone, but to start a vigorous oil policy both at home and abroad. The American Senate recently decided to create the "United States Oil Corporation to develop new petroleum fields," while Mr. Bedford, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Standard Oil Company, asked the Government to lend its support to any Americans who were soliciting oil concessions throughout the world. This support, which even Wilson—hostile to trusts as he was—did not refuse, was granted very energetically by Mr. Harding: three European States have just had experience of it. Britain, with her usual foresight, understood long ago the importance of oil, and took the necessary action. In the work of exploration alone she is at the present moment spending considerable sums, and she will soon have nearly all the remaining oil-fields of the world in her hands. France alone remains behind, hesitates, changes her mind, and allows herself to be despoiled, not only of the region of Mosul, one of the richest oil-fields of the world, which was formally promised to her by the Agreements of 1916, but also of the few modest oil deposits which she possesses in her colonies. For these are almost all exploited by British firms; and by the Agreement of San Remo the French Government has, in addition, promised to reserve a large share for "British co-operation" in new companies which may be established there. "Who has oil has Empire!" exclaimed Henry Bérenger, in a diplomatic note which he sent to Clemenceau on December 12, 1919, on the eve of the Franco-British conferences held in London to consider the future of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. "Control of the ocean by heavy oils, control of the air by highly refined oils, and of the land by petrol and illuminating oils. Empire of the World through the financial power attaching to a substance more precious, more penetrating, more influential in the world than gold itself!" The nation which controls this precious fuel will see the wealth of the rest of the world flowing towards it. The ships of other nations will soon be unable to sail without recourse to its stores of oil. Should it create a powerful merchant fleet, it becomes at once mistress of ocean trade. Now, the nation which obtains the world's carrying trade takes toll from all those whose goods it carries, and so has abundant capital. New industries arise round its ports, its banks become clearing houses for international payments. At one stroke the controlling centre of the world's credit is displaced. This is what happened already in the eighteenth century when, with the development of British shipping, it passed from Amsterdam to London. And British statesmen have had, at one time, a moment of anxiety lest it should move to New York!
