In co-operation with the Australian Government--from which it had already obtained, in May 1920, exclusive rights in the former German colonies of Papua--the _Anglo-Persian_ founded the _Commonwealth Oil Refineries_, with a capital of £500,000. It is prospecting actively in Western Australia, and has asked the Government of Perth for a concession of 100,000 acres. In New Zealand it has offered to subscribe 50 per cent. towards the formation of a capital of £100,000 for prospecting purposes. And the _Anglo-Persian_ is, at the present moment, building vast works in New Brunswick, for the distillation of oil from shale. The oil produced will be used for heating the boilers of British ships. The oil-bearing lands in this region are rich and extensive, and the shale of which it is composed has been found twice as rich in oil as the Scottish shale, the first from which the precious "rock-oil" was distilled.[25] As in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, there are enormous laminate rocks, stretching in beds below the valleys, of a thickness of eight to ten metres; when distilled they may produce up to 240 litres of oil to the ton. When the Mormons, fleeing from persecution in 1846, took refuge in the Far West and discovered these oil shales, they never suspected the service they would render half a century later to the British and American Navies.[26] They found themselves held up in their march across the desert for want of fuel, but one of their leaders announced that Providence would soon supply their needs. The prophecy came true that very day: a Mormon was surprised to notice that the stones on which he placed his saucepan took fire. Since then, hunters and prospectors venturing into these desolate regions use no other fuel than these rocks. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 24: The _Anglo-Persian_ will subscribe 45 per cent., France 55 per cent. of the capital of each of these companies. The Agreement of October 27, 1920, was the occasion of very sharp attacks from certain short-sighted members of the House of Commons, who did not understand that the British Government was about to lay hands, in concert with the _Royal Dutch_, upon the oil wealth of France, and reproached the Government with dispersing its efforts.] [Footnote 25: The Scottish factories treat three million tons of shale annually, from which the average yield is only 122.5 litres of oil to the ton, half the yield of the Canadian and American rocks. Apart from this bituminous shale, it seems unlikely that Great Britain, which controls 90 per cent. of the future production of the globe, would have succeeded in finding oil-deposits in her own soil.] [Footnote 26: Anticipating the time when the oil-fields of the United States will be exhausted, the American Government has taken possession of millions of hectares of land containing bituminous rock, in order to ensure the fuelling of its Navy.] CHAPTER XII AN AMERICAN BALKANISM The British Controlled Oil-fields