=Great Britain.=--British and British-Dutch interests easily dominate the petroleum situation in the Eastern Hemisphere by supremacy in the petroleum industries of Russia, Persia, India, and the Netherlands East Indies. Domination of the petroleum situation in Russia alone is believed tantamount to dominion of the petroleum situation in the entire Eastern Hemisphere for the greater part of the next century. The strength of Great Britain’s present position in the world’s petroleum affairs lies in a strong governmental policy and in the wide scope of British petroleum investments, embracing practically every country where petroleum is an important product and nearly every country where it is a product of potential importance. The general policy of the British Empire seems to be to control all oil development and restrict operations by foreign capital. In Australia licenses are required for the exploitation of oil lands, and only companies incorporated in the United Kingdom or a British possession may receive such licenses. The Governor General has the right of pre-emption of all oil produced and in case of war may take control of all oil properties. In Canada, in those western provinces where minerals are the property of the Crown, petroleum and natural gas lands may be leased only to British companies. A similar restriction exists in Burma. In Burma a monopoly of the petroleum industry for 99 years was granted to the Burma Oil Co. in 1865. This grant seems to have been inspired by fear of the Standard Oil Co. of the United States, for the agreement between the company and the government stipulates that the former shall not amalgamate with other oil companies. Regulations of like effect exist in other British colonies where oil exists; in Barbados the British government has the right of pre-emption of all oil residues; in British Guiana, non-British companies can only hold lands by special license of the Governor; in British Honduras all mineral oil is reserved to the Crown; in southern Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Trinidad, and Tobago the British government has the right of pre-emption over all petroleum. The recent granting of a concession amounting to a monopoly in the most promising oil district of Persia (a region that many oil experts believe likely to become one of the most important in the world) to a British company controlled directly (by stock ownership) by the British government, signifies an aggressive policy of England, outside of her own dominions, to secure and hold, under government control, oil lands in all parts of the globe. It is understood that the best-known oil territories in Venezuela are already covered by concessions that are practically all controlled either directly or indirectly by British interests, chiefly the Dutch-Shell Syndicate.