ROMANCE OF FUEL

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 October 1929, Page 2

ROMANCE OF FUEL

WAR HISTORY SECRET.

SYDNEY, October 11.

On how slender a thread hung the victory of the Allies in the Great War was disclosed last night by BrigadierGeneral Coxen, in an address to the United Service Institution on “Fuel.” “National disaster could not have been averted in the spring of 1915,” he said, “had the appalling shortage of high explosive not been met promptly, when British supplies were hopelessly inadequate.” . Continuing to relate a little-known romance of those dreadful days, General Coxen said that toluol, a by-pro-dust of petrol, was a constituent of the high explosive which filled our shells. At the crisis of 1915, when the eyes of the world were focussed upon Britain, the Dutch Shell Oil Company offered to supply her with toluol in large quantities. It was a providential offer, eagerly accepted. The company’s works were situated in neutral Holland, but. one night the entire factory was clandestinely dismantled and shipped in a specially chartered steamer, which—contrary to all regulations —left Rotterdam after dark and appeared off the British coast at dawn, escorted by British destroyers. “Had a German torpedo boat destroyer stumbled upon that steamer,” said General Coxen, “the whole course of the war might conceivably have been changed. Without toluol we should have been lost.”

Dealing with fuels other than petrol, General Coxen said that France regarded charcoal as the national fuel, and vehicles using it were paid a subsidy and relieved of some taxation. As charcoal could be used, in Australia cheaply, its use in producer gas engines for transport purposes should be exloited. The time would come, he added, when we would cease to burn coal in the grate. It was far too valuable a treasure to squander in that fashion. It was not as though coal supplies were inexhaustible. The widespread conviction that oil was better than coal should not be accepted Unequivocally. The statement was as misleading as that armies were better than navies. The world’s coal supplies were vaster than its oil supplies.

There was no reason to believe that the world’s oil supplies would be depleted, and that a famine would result. It was unreasonable to expect a' famine in the reasonably near future, as the continual discovery of new sources all over the world rendered such an eventuality highly improbable.

“OAving to the demand fox* petrol for Avar purposes, and to the shortage of shipping, there is a prospect of an insufficient supply of petrol in Australia, and a possibility of her being throAvn upon her oavu resources,” concluded General Coxen. “Fox- one or moi-Q reasons, certain materials —such as wheat, barley, potatoes, and prickly pear—can be ruled out of court as equitable raAV materials for the manufacture of poAver alcohol in Australia. On the other hand, such materials as SAveet sorghum stalks, cassava, and sorghum grain are favourable as a source of alcohol. It behoves Australia, as other countries are doing, to find its Avays and means of making this country self-supporting in the matter of fuel, on account of its important bearing on national defence.”