"Who has oil has Empire!" exclaimed Henry Bérenger, in a diplomatic note which he sent to Clemenceau on December 12, 1919, on the eve of the Franco-British conferences held in London to consider the future of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. "Control of the ocean by heavy oils, control of the air by highly refined oils, and of the land by petrol and illuminating oils. Empire of the World through the financial power attaching to a substance more precious, more penetrating, more influential in the world than gold itself!" The nation which controls this precious fuel will see the wealth of the rest of the world flowing towards it. The ships of other nations will soon be unable to sail without recourse to its stores of oil. Should it create a powerful merchant fleet, it becomes at once mistress of ocean trade. Now, the nation which obtains the world's carrying trade takes toll from all those whose goods it carries, and so has abundant capital. New industries arise round its ports, its banks become clearing houses for international payments. At one stroke the controlling centre of the world's credit is displaced. This is what happened already in the eighteenth century when, with the development of British shipping, it passed from Amsterdam to London. And British statesmen have had, at one time, a moment of anxiety lest it should move to New York! Thus began the terrible struggle between Britain and the United States for possession of the precious "rock-oil." "The country which dominates by means of oil," said Elliot Alves, head of the _British Controlled Oil-fields_, a semi-official, semi-private organization, which the British Government has specially commissioned to fight the _Standard Oil Company_, "will command at the same time the commerce of the world. Armies, navies, money, even entire populations, will count as nothing against the lack of oil." The War proved it. * * * * * Whence does oil derive this formidable power, before which the whole world bows down? From the fact that the fundamental basis upon which the industrial life of modern nations rests is fuel. Before the War, Germany, Britain, and the United States owed the whole of their power and their wealth to coal. It would have been true to say that the British Empire rested upon a foundation of coal. It is essential to have control over fuel in time of peace for economic prosperity, and in time of war to supply the navy and maintain control of the seas.