Oil, Great Britain and the United States

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WHATEVER may have been the causes for friction in the past between the American and British Governments growing out of competition for control of petroleum supplies -- and I shall endeavor to trace and illustrate some of the factors involved -- these have been temporarily swept away by the realization that the world resources of petroleum are really very large. Even the most skeptical have been forced to take account of the fact that at the present time there is more petroleum being produced in the world than the oil companies know what to do with, and that the additional supply in sight and subject to quick production is so large that the problem of the moment is not "Where can we get petroleum?" but "How can we dispose of what we have at a profit?" Thus, instead of a competition for the control of oil supplies involving aims or actions productive of international friction, we are dealing at present with the more simple matter of competition for the disposal of a commodity of which for the time being there is an oversupply.

For many years there has been a popular belief in the United States that the petroleum resources of this country were being depleted to meet the world's needs for oil, and this led to the growth of a view that vital national interests (as distinct from national interests in normal business competition) required that foreign sources of supply be developed and controlled. But today both foreign and American petroleum deposits have been so extensively and successfully developed that there is a growing demand for a protective duty on foreign petroleum and petroleum products imported into the United States. This involves possibilities of international friction of a different character in which the issues are not primarily between the United States and Great Britain...