CHAPTER I

Chapter 52,559 wordsPublic domain

"WHO HAS OIL HAS EMPIRE!"

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!

Thus began the terrible struggle between Britain and the United States for possession of the precious "rock-oil."

"The country which dominates by means of oil," said Elliot Alves, head of the _British Controlled Oil-fields_, a semi-official, semi-private organization, which the British Government has specially commissioned to fight the _Standard Oil Company_, "will command at the same time the commerce of the world. Armies, navies, money, even entire populations, will count as nothing against the lack of oil."

The War proved it.

* * * * *

Whence does oil derive this formidable power, before which the whole world bows down? From the fact that the fundamental basis upon which the industrial life of modern nations rests is fuel. Before the War, Germany, Britain, and the United States owed the whole of their power and their wealth to coal. It would have been true to say that the British Empire rested upon a foundation of coal.

It is essential to have control over fuel in time of peace for economic prosperity, and in time of war to supply the navy and maintain control of the seas.

Now oil has considerable advantages over coal. Its extraction is remarkably easy compared with that of coal. What is the boring of a well and the installation of some simple machinery on the surface compared with the expensive subterranean workings which are involved in the exploitation of a coal-mine? An oil-boring before the War cost a few hundred thousand francs, while the simplest workings for a colliery always necessitated an expenditure of several millions. The installations once made, oil flows by itself into the reservoirs, whence it is conducted by pipe-lines to the sea-ports and there pumped into the ships. It may be refined before exportation or only on arrival in the country where it is to be consumed. The expenditure upon labour in these various operations is extremely small, especially in undeveloped countries where native labour is employed. Thus, even at the present time, in the Dutch Indies the coolies are paid a florin a day. Now at the end of the War the employés of the _Royal Dutch_ in the Dutch Indies numbered only 1,000 Europeans and 2,906 natives and Chinese for a production of 1,706,675 tons. A native earned only 300 gold francs a year for 80 tons of oil extracted, refined and transported to the coast.

After the Bolshevik revolution wages at Grosny were still only seven roubles a day, which, considering the depreciation of Russian money, represented very little. Generally the expenses of production in Russia did not exceed a few kopecks a pood (50 kopecks for one of the best-known firms, that of Akverdoff).

Thus oil is bound to become in future more and more important as a fuel, because of its peculiarity in necessitating so insignificant a charge for labour--which protects it from the inconveniences resulting from the social crises in the midst of which we live--and because its net cost is so small. For half a century it was used only for lighting purposes, and then it had to compete with gas and electricity. At one time there was talk of limiting production!

Between 1900 and 1910 the invention of the internal-combustion engine and the enormous development of motoring gave it new impetus. Fine oils only had been used up to then. Under pressure of the demand, it became customary to raise and refine poorer and poorer oils, giving from 60 to 75 per cent. of waste products.

There remained the mazut[1] or fuel-oil, which required very high temperatures for combustion and which was very dirty in use.

Then the German, Diesel, invented the internal-combustion engine for heavy oil. The mazut, subjected to high pressure in a cylinder, produces an explosive mixture which, without sparking-plug or magneto, drives the pistons in the manner of a petrol engine. The installation is rather heavy, but no boiler is required, and it takes up much less space than a steam engine of the same power. A vessel fitted with a Diesel engine can sail for fifty-seven days without re-fuelling, while with a steam engine it could only sail for a fortnight. A ship fitted with a Diesel engine and having a speed of 20 knots could sail from France to Suez, India, Australia, New Zealand, and return by Cape Horn without re-fuelling. But, better than any words, the following little table, made out for two boats of the same power, will give an idea of the great advantages of the Diesel engine:--

At first oil was used on fishing boats, then on small coasters. To-day the biggest British cargo boats, of the type of the _Zeelandia_ or _Sutlandia_, are fitted with Diesel engines. All German submarines had them during the War. In 1917 Herr Ballin,[2] the great friend of William II and the head of the _Hamburg-Amerika_ line, just before his suicide decided on the construction of a fleet of enormous ships fitted with internal-combustion engines. Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, all now use the Diesel engine. France alone remains behind in this respect. It has even been used on railways, a little-known fact. Diesel locomotives with four cylinders, built by Sulzer Brothers of Winterthur, have recently been run on the line from Berlin to Mannsfeld.

"The development of our metallurgy," wrote Admiral Degouy in April 1920, "will soon give us the assurance that we also shall be able to manufacture large-bore cylinders and pistons of flawless casting, like those made in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Stockholm, and Christiania, which will support for long periods without change (and consequently without leakage) the temperature of 1,000° C. which is developed by the combustion of mazut in these engines."

Since the invention of the internal-combustion engine, mazut has been introduced directly into the furnaces of great ships. The heating power of this formerly despised product is almost double that of coal: 1 kilogramme of liquid fuel produces the same results as 1.7 kilogrammes of coal. Its use allows of the reduction by five-eighths in bunker space, and by 70 to 80 per cent. of the stokers, since a single man can look after several boilers. The fuelling of a ship is effected cleanly and quietly in a few hours. Hundreds of tons of oil can be pumped into the cisterns in a negligible time, and that even out at sea and in heavy weather. To give an idea of the difference in time and labour required for the loading of coal and oil before the sailing of a mail steamer of the tonnage of the _Olympic_ or the _Lusitania_, I will quote the following figures:--

Coal 5 days 500 men Oil 12 hours 12 men

The labour of stoking and clearing the furnaces is done away with; there is no longer either dust or smoke. Parts of the ship which are too restricted or too inconveniently placed for housing coal can be used for oil. It is stored in the double bottom of the boat, and by utilizing the coal bunkers for general cargo the available storage space is increased by 10 per cent. On the latest _Cunard_ and _White Star_ liners the economy of space thus realized has been as much as 33 per cent. And Admiral Lord Fisher drew attention to the fact that on the _Mauretania_--the sister ship to the _Lusitania_--the adoption of oil fuel allowed of the reduction of the crew by three hundred men.

The efficiency of a boiler heated by coal is not much more than 60 per cent.; that of one heated by oil reaches 80 per cent. On Japanese steamers of the type of the _Temyo Maru_, of 21,000 tons, with Parsons turbines of 20,000 horse-power, the consumption of oil is only 455 grammes to one effective horse-power, instead of 685 grammes of coal. The flexibility and ease of control are extraordinary.

Since 1911 the merchant fleet of the United States has been consuming 15 million barrels annually. Nearly all the nations have followed this example,[3] especially those which dream of the dominion of the seas for the use of oil in their warships gives them an incontestable superiority. The presence of a squadron sailing under coal is disclosed at a distance of more than 10 kilometres by enormous clouds of smoke; under oil its presence is almost imperceptible; it becomes visible only at the moment when it is about to attack. Ease of approach is enormously increased; and even if an enemy vessel is discovered by marine or aerial scouts it is very difficult for the gunners of the threatened vessel to take their aim at so vague a target as an almost invisible horizontal silhouette. "No smoke, not even a funnel!" exclaimed Lord Fisher in his strenuous campaign for the transformation of the British Navy. Many years elapsed, however, before he saw the triumph of the new fuel.

It has been objected that ships lose a little of the protection which is conferred upon them by their belts of coal bunkers; but this criticism is valueless. For, as they gain considerably in lightness, it is possible to increase the thickness of the armour plate and the size of the guns. The abolition of funnels permits of a considerable increase in the field of fire of the artillery.

Moreover, with oil fuel fleets acquire an extreme mobility.[4] Half an hour after receiving the order to raise steam the ship is ready to start. Thirty-five minutes afterwards it is going at full speed. In six minutes it can pass from normal to maximum speed. Eleven minutes are needed to get a boiler under full pressure. A voyage at forced speed entails no extra fatigue for the crew: with coal it is hell!

Thus, since 1912, oil has been constantly used on twenty-eight German battleships, almost the whole of the fleets of Great Britain and the United States, and the Russian squadrons in the Baltic and the Black Sea. _The American Navy has completely abandoned coal for its new units._

And France? France, which was the first to conceive the idea, had, at the moment when war broke out, only a few small boats burning oil, and not a single powerful modern vessel comparable with the _Queen Elizabeth_. And yet, as early as 1864, it was France that built the first ship, the _Puebla_, sailing under Lieutenant Farcy, to use the new fuel, which aroused so much curiosity during the Second Empire. But the selfish opposition of our coal-owners overcame those who were favourably inclined, including Napoleon III himself.

No one gives a thought to these facts at the present time. France often points the way of progress; she never profits by it.

* * * * *

The most far-reaching revolutions have begun with a technical invention. The unknown monk who first mixed charcoal with sulphur and saltpetre razed feudal castles and created the great modern States. And he who balanced a magnetized needle on its pivot was the real founder of colonial empires.

We are just entering upon an economic period which will turn the whole world upside-down--the Revolution in Fuel, with its far-reaching consequences.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "The famous petroleum wells of Baku ... yield crude naphtha, from which the petroleum or kerosene is distilled; while the heavier residue (_mazut_) is used as lubricating oil and for fuel."--_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed., vol. iii, p. 230.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]

[Footnote 2: "Herr Ballin committed suicide, foreseeing that unrestricted submarine warfare, which had then been decided upon, would be the downfall of Germany."--_Revue des Deux Mondes_: Contre-Admiral Degouy, "Oil and the Navy."]

[Footnote 3: Since 1920 the world tonnage of oil-burning steamers has exceeded that of steamers built to burn coal.]

[Footnote 4: At the battle of Jutland, only the oil-burning ships realized their trial speed.]