As has been set forth elsewhere in this book, the importance of petroleum to countries of maritime aspirations, either naval or commercial, is inestimable, and it is on that phase of the question that the minds of British statesmen have, within the past five years, become concentrated. So far as Great Britain is concerned, this is a new development, born of the great war. Sir John Cowans, G. C. B., Quartermaster General of the British Army throughout the decisive period of the conflict, has said “Great Britain was, when the war broke out, between twenty and thirty years behind the American and Dutch nations in its knowledge of oil.” He and other eminent Englishmen have emphasized the difficulty of making up that leeway, one obstacle being that at least eight or ten years was required for the education of an oil expert. In seeking a trained personnel to handle the problem, Great Britain, like most other countries, must for the time being at any rate look to the United States. But though the awakening of the British to the importance of petroleum was belated, it is real. Not only their Admiralty, but their Army authorities are insisting on the importance of adequate reserves. Controlling as they do the destinies of a vast maritime Empire, the growing dominance of oil-burning ships, and the necessity of providing for their fuelling, has become an ever-present thought in the minds of British public men at a time when the American Government, relying perhaps on a factitious belief in the inexhaustibility of our native oil resources, remained indifferent. There is no reason to doubt that the aim of Great Britain is her own national and Imperial security, rather than aggression. The British Ambassador, in the address referred to, gave the most absolute assurance on that point, but the fact is patent that, through governmental coöperation, British oil men have secured distinctive advantages in foreign fields, advantages which, with similar coöperation, might have been available to American oil interests--whose leaders may be accepted as equal to foreign business men in foresight, courage and enterprise.