Certainly oil at present is not a cheap fuel! but it _is_ cheap when the advantages are taken into consideration. In an Internal Combustion Engine, according to figures given by Lord Cowdray, his Mexican oil would work out in England, when freights are normal, as equivalent to coal at twelve to fifteen shillings a ton! Oil does not deteriorate by keeping. Coal does. You can store millions of tons of oil without fear of waste or loss of power, and England has got to store those millions of tons, though this reserve may be gradually built up. The initial cost would be substantial but the investment is gilt-edged! We must and can face it. _Si vis pacem para bellum!_ You can re-fuel a ship with oil in minutes as compared with hours with coal! At any moment during re-fuelling the oil-engine ship can fight--the coal-driven ship can’t--she is disorganized--the whole crew are black as niggers and worn out with intense physical exertion! In the oil-driven ship one man turns a tap! _It’s criminal folly to allow another pound of coal on board a fighting ship!_--or even in a cargo-ship either!--Krupp has a design for a cargo-ship with Internal Combustion Engines to go 40,000 (forty thousand) miles without re-fuelling! It’s vital for the British Fleet and vital for no other Fleet, to have the oil engine. That’s the strange thing! And if only the Germans knew, they’d shoot their Dr. Diesel like a dog!