secure, through commercial control, backed where necessary by political pressure, a world empire of petroleum to serve her world-wide colonial empire. The United States, on the other hand, has dominated the world’s petroleum industry through her own vast resources, worked by interests which have grown without conscious governmental help or even in spite of governmental and popular opposition, and have reached out and secured footholds in other countries. In the past the mineral development of the world has led to great changes in political sovereignty. Important as these have been, the events that may result from the nationalistic competitive exploitation and control of the world’s petroleum supply bid fair to exceed in importance all similar changes of the past. The perception of the problem and of the necessity, and the advantage of the initiative, naturally belongs to those nations with restricted area and resources, that have grown great by trading and by exploiting the resources of other countries. Such a nation, for example, is England, a country that is fortunately the natural ally of the United States. By contrast, in the United States, a nation concerned hitherto only with the development of its own vast resources, commercial enterprise in foreign countries has been backed by no fixed national policy, and indeed has often been treated as unworthy. In the new international era that was initiated by the World War, however, this policy of Chinese self-sufficiency and exclusion can not be safely continued, and the United States must not only perceive clearly the tendencies and movements of other nationalities, but consider how best to direct its own commercial and political plans so as to uphold its independence and power. Such a policy would naturally lead to international agreements as to the distribution and division of petroleum lands, resources, and production, and probably no one thing would contribute more to the promotion of frank understanding between nations and the removal of obstacles to permanent peace. Mr. Northrop’s paper follows: USES OF PETROLEUM In its crude or semi-refined state, petroleum is extensively utilized as fuel under locomotive and marine boilers and to a small extent in internal-combustion engines of the Diesel type. Certain grades of petroleum are utilized in the crude state as lubricants.