He says: “Oil is the most extraordinary article in the commercial world and the only thing that hampers its sale is its production. There is no other article in the world where you can get the consumption as long as you make the production. In the case of oil make the production first as the consumption will come. There is no need to look after the consumption, and as a seller you need not make forward contracts as the oil sells itself.” Only what you want is an enormously long purse to be able to snap your fingers at everybody and if people do not want to buy it to-day to be able to say to them: “All right; I will spend a million sterling in making reservoirs and then in the future you will have to pay so much more.” “The great point for the Navy is to get oil from someone who can draw supplies from many spots, because no one spot can be absolutely relied on.” There is not anybody who can be certain of his supply; oil fields in my own experience which at the time yielded 18,000 barrels a day within five days went down to 3,000 barrels without the slightest warning. _The British Empire “has the long purse”; build reservoirs and store oil. Keep on building reservoirs and buy oil at favourable rates when they offer._ _November 21st, 1917._ The report below of the Secretary of the United States Navy is interesting. I have just been looking up the record in 1886, when high officials said I was an “Oil Maniac.” I was at that time at the Admiralty as Director of Naval Ordnance, and was sent from that appointment to be Admiral Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, prior to being appointed Controller of the Navy, where I remained six years. At Portsmouth Dockyard, while I was Admiral Superintendent, we paved the way for rapid shipbuilding in the completion of the Battleship “Royal Sovereign” in two years. Afterwards, with the same superintendence but additional vigour, we completed the “Dreadnought” in one year and one day ready for Battle! OIL BURNING BATTLESHIPS. WASHINGTON. Mr. Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, issues a report urging that Congress should authorise the construction of three Battleships, one Battle Cruiser, and nine Fleet Submarines. He favours oil-burning units, and says that the splendid work which has been accomplished by these vessels would not have been done by coal-burning ships. _The use of any other power but oil is not now in sight._ CHAPTER XIII THE BIG GUN Perhaps the most convincing speech I ever read was made impromptu by Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon at a meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects on March 12th, 1913.