I have chanced upon a Memorandum on “Oil and its Fighting Attributes,” which I drew up on March 3rd, 1913, for the First Lord of the Admiralty. It shows what a Great Personality can effect. I was told by an enemy of Mr. Deterding (of whom I am speaking) that when he came in as Manager of the Great Shell Oil Combine, the Concern could have been bought for £40,000. When I wrote my Memorandum, it was valued by a hostile Oil Magnate (who told me this himself) at forty millions sterling. Whether it is Oil, or Peace, or War, it’s the Man, and not the System that Wins. And Mr. Deterding is the man who shifted the centre of gravity of oil (together with an immense assemblage of clerks and chemists and all the paraphernalia of a huge financial web) from abroad to this country.
“The ideal accumulator which everybody has been after for the last 50 years, is oil. There will never be found another accumulator or source of power of such small volume as oil.
“Just fancy! Get a gallon of oil and a man can go to Brighton and back again, carrying the weight of his bicycle and himself by means of it....
“It’s a shame that anybody is allowed to put oil under a boiler—for this reason, that when oil is used in an oil engine it realises about five times greater effect....
“The moment the price of oil is £5 a ton it will not be used anywhere under a boiler for steam raising, and the whole world’s supply will be available for the Navy and the Diesel Engine....
“I am going to raise every penny I can get and build storage, and even when I have built five million tons of storage I am still going on building it and filling it, even if it is only for the pleasure of looking at it. It is always so much condensed labour stored for the future....
“Oil fuel when stored, does not deteriorate as coal does. The stocks would therefore constitute a national asset, the intrinsic value of which would not diminish.”... (Mr. Deterding before the Royal Commission on Oil and Oil Engines.)
My Memorandum was as follows:—
Mr. Deterding in his evidence before the Royal Commission, confesses that he possesses in Roumania, in Russia, in California, in the Dutch Indies, in Trinidad, and shortly in Mexico, the controlling interest in oil. The Anglo-Persian Company also say he is getting Mesopotamia and squeezing Persia which are practically untouched areas of immense size reeking with oil. Without doubt Mr. Deterding is Napoleonic in his audacity and Cromwellian in his thoroughness. Sir Thomas Browning in his evidence says that the Royal Dutch-Shell Combination is more powerful and aggressive than ever was the great Standard Oil Trust of America.
Let us therefore listen with deep attention to the words of a man who has the sole executive control of the most powerful organisation on earth for the production of a source of power which almost doubles the power of our Navy whilst our potential enemies remain normal in the strength of their fleets. What does he advise?