IF ENGLAND STRIKES OIL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16501, 31 July 1919, Page 7

IF ENGLAND STRIKES OIL.

(By Hamilton Fyfe, in the Daily Mail.) It is a very, very big if. That is what wo must resolutely keep in mind while we are discussing possibilities. They are at present merely distant possibilities. To delude Ourselves into being too hopeful would very likely bring upon us grievous disappointment. But all the same, it is interesting to speculate upon some of the results which would follow if England did become an oil-producing country. They would clearly be results at which wo can only make a rough guess. They would bo comparable with the immense increase of wealth which came to England when the invention of machinery driven by steam made our coal deposits so big a factor in the world’s industrial deveJopment.

That occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century. Up to then coal had been ‘"got” in small quantities, mainly for use as domestic fuel. ■For many centuries before it came into general use for warming houses it had been suspected of existing in largo holds, but there was no inducement to dig it out. There was, indeed, in the fourteenth century a strong feeling against it. A petition was presented to tlie King in 1306 bogging him to forbid it being burnt “because the fumes injured health.” That prejudice died away, but still the enormous possibilities of wealth in the eoal measures were allowed to rest until the Day of Need. This arrived with the discovery of what steam could do and how to do it.

Is that sequence of events going to repeat itself? Will History say of Oil that it. was loft in the bowels of the English earth until the Day of Need came and England could not do without it ? It may be so. It may be thas, just when our necessity has become urgent we shall be saved; that we may bo put indisputably back at the head of the world’s industry by the discovery of petroleum. IF If there should be any large quantities in Derbyshire, there is no reason why the same, or greater. should not be found elsewhere in England.’ There are known to be places where the indications have been actually more distinct. Since it became clear that all industries must sooner or Iqter depend upon oil fuel, borings have been made in many districts. ! ar-sightod men perceived years -before the war that it was unsafe for us to depend for our oil chiefly upon theUnited States and the Far East. Those who have seen, as I have, an empty “tanker” in the Atlantic and the sea covered for miles with the oil which escaped when a submarine blew a hole in her have a very vivid understanding of this unsafeness. AYe. got through the war without running dangerously short, though not without inconvenience. AVo were helped by the United States, and especially by Mr. A. C. Bedford, the American Oil Controller, who is now in London. But no one can think of the future with a comfortable certainty that our supplies will always be equal to our requirements. If we. do not find petroleum in workable wells in this country we shall have to do the best we can. But our position would be vastly more secure if the fuel vital to our navy could be produced at Home. In that event, not only our fleets, but our merchant shipping also would change new fuel for old. The railways would cease to use coal, the engines would be built with tanks instead of tenders, the furnaces would be altered, oil would be used as it is in Roumania, and was in many parts of Russia with notable gains in cleanliness and amenity of travel. UGLY OILFIELDS. Where we should lose in amenity would be in the spots where the oilwells wore sunk. Have you ever seen an oilfield? AVith experience of them in Texas, in Mexico, in the Caucasus, on the Caspian, In Roumania, and in Galicia, I can affirm that no more hideous desecration of God’s green earth could be imagined. From a little distance off the tali “derricks,” triangular wooden erections over the -wells, look like a forest that has been devastated by fire. Pools and fountains of oil frequently burst into flames. The whole place has a bumtout, desolate, ruined appeai'ance. Stagnant oil, thick and viscous, stands in the ditches and ftifllows.

Perhaps we might manage to get rid of this drawback. Perhaps the only outward and visible sign of an English oilfield would bo the network of railway lines upon which the precious liquid was carried away. Familiar to our eyes would be the big tank-cars, like immense sausages, which would bo the distributing agents. To all our factories these would go. No more reasou for furnaces to shower dirt and blight all vegetation. I have been in oil fur-nace-rooms where everything was as clean and quiet as a bath-house. No stokers sweating and struggling, no atmosphere of black dust and infernal noises. One man moving about in spotless clothes, turning taps on or off. A mighty and beneficient change. But coal, you say, what about coal? Would that go out of use? By no means. Pennsylvania produces oil, but she produces coal too, and can use every ton of it. Coal will be transformed as near the pithead as possible into light, into power. The dirty uses of it will be discontinued. It will be handled more- economically and to better purpose in every way. So to England’s wealth in coal would be added the enormous riches of an oil supply. AVe could make up all that wo have lost since 1914.

And in the advantage everyone, the nation as a whole, would share. For oil, if it be found, will not bo private property as coal was. It will belong to the people. Lord Cowdray, with highly estimable public spirit, has given most valuable help iu the experiments, but the Government wisely decided that the State, which moans the nation, should have the right to decide what shall be the conditions of working. There can bo no doubt as to thoir bringing wealth to all of us IF— . . .

Yes, that bring? our dreaming up short. We ,BXO back in the world of cold, hard fact. “The drill is the only judge,” Mr. Bedford said to me yesterday, Wo -await it e decision.