To M. G ABRIEL D ARQUET , Editor of Le Producteur.
M Y DEAR F RIEND ,In outlining the program of your review, Le Producteur , you wrote:
Let no one ask us our opinions upon either home politics or foreign politics. For the moment, at any rate, we could only reply indirectly by such words as coal, nitrogen, fertilisers, water power, credit, centralised organisation, technical education, general cultureall words which scarcely lend themselves to general use.
To some, perhaps, this declaration seemed too restricted; on the contrary, it was a complete programI would even add, the completest possible program. For the man who best knows the position of parties and the intrigues of diplomats will have but a superficial view of society, incomplete, and therefore false, unless he constantly bears in mind the economic realities which you point out. Indeed, should he merely take the simplest of the necessities of life and follow it in its transformations and movements, from the original mine or field to the consumer, he will see in operation not only the technical machinery of industry, transport and banking, but also the delicate mechanism of all our political and social institutions.
The study of oil is a simple example.
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An engineer takes a waste product of oil, mazutchange the structure of societies and disturb the balance of empires.
It is a commonplace that all great revolutions have started from a technical invention. The unknown monk who first mixed charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, rased feudal castles and created the great modern States; and he who balanced a magnetised needle upon a pivot was the real founder of colonial empires.
The utilisation of mazut is a fact of the same order, and of almost equal significance. It dates from a few years ago, and already we see the great liners everywhere adopting the new fuel. It gives more heat for the same volume, is cheaper, and takes less room; the saving in bunker space allows more goods to be carried at less cost, and this leads to a lowering of freights and of the prices of all commodities carried by sea. We have a commercial revolution springing from a technical invention.
But suppose that one great country supplies by itself eight-tenths of the new fuel; the ships of other nations will soon be unable to sail without recourse to its oil depots, and if that country creates a powerful merchant fleet, it will be at once the controller of ocean commerce. Now the people which obtains the worlds carrying trade levies a tithe upon all those for whom it provides transport, and thus adds to its capital. New industries arise round its ports, its banks become clearing houses for international payments. The controlling centre of credit is displaced: we saw it pass from Amsterdam to London in the eighteenth century with the growth of British shipping. Is it not going to move to New York? Thus, under the pressure of economic facts, arises one of the great financial problems of to-morrow.
In the meantime, warships as well as merchantmen adopt oil fuel, the smaller volume of which allows both their radius of action and the weight of their guns to be increased. But in this case the nation which has the biggest supplies of oil will be ableother things being equalto build the most powerful navy and to reduce all rival fleets to a position of dependence. The substitution of oil for coal gives rise to a military problem of vital importance.
In consequence, the less-favoured governments go hunting about everywhere for oil wells. Concessions become subjects for barter between the Great Powers and small States, for quarrels between nations of equal strength. The oil of Persia and Mesopotamia, Rumania and Madagascar, appears on the agenda of conferences at Spa or San Remo. Oil makes its bow upon the diplomatic stage where international rivalries are played.
When a nation becomes the strongest, alike in commerce, finance and armaments, it may be tempted by a dream of hegemony. How will the others react? To answer this question we must understand the spirit of each nation and the structure of its society.
In Britain certain men foresaw the danger from America even before the United States had appreciated it. They made no appeal to Parliament or the public. They silently drew up statistics of the worlds oil supplies, noticed that their rivals reserves would soon be exhausted, set about obtaining a monopoly of all available sources, and carried out their plan almost in entirety by the adroit use of financial combinations and diplomatic pressure. Their fellow-countrymen as well as their opponents only heard of the manoeuvre when it had succeeded. Thus a problem vital to the existence of a nation was solved solely by business methods, unknown to the peoples interested or their official representatives. This raises the problem of the relations between our so-called democracies and the financial groups which govern them in secretthe great political problem of the present age.
The French oligarchy, though fashioned in the image of its neighbour, did not react in the same way. We see it abandoning its oil fields and its enormous concessions to exploitation by the British industry. Why? Because it is composed of bourgeois, absorbed in making money easily without risk or exertion. These men enjoy all the profits of power, but consider themselves exempt from its responsibilities; even their own position does not provoke in them the thought that, deriving everything from the nation, they ought to contribute to its greatness. Thus we find ourselves confronted with the social and moral problem of the formation of the governing class.
A simple study of oil takes us over the whole gamut of social, technical, commercial, financial, political and moral facts. It is a kind of cross-section of the organs of society, similar to those which botanists make of plants to enable the entire structure to be seized at a glance.
