While the Standard was playing up to free trade opinion in this way, it was working the " patriotic " dodge in a very nicely got-up anony mous pamphlet sent to every M.P. In this it was shown that the effect of raising the flash point would be to stop our cousins across the Atlantic from sending us oil, and to play into the hands of Russia, which had always been hostile to us. The old Russian bogey was still alive in the days before the Russo-Japanese War, and this waving of the Union Jack no doubt affected some soft-headed M.P.s.
There is a characteristic story which relates that somebody, on hearing that the site had been acquired for the new palace now com pleted in Queen Anne's Gate, rang up one of the heads of the " Anglo " on the telephone.
" You are making a mistake," said he ; " you ought to be near the City." " Oh ! the City doesn't matter," replied the Standard voice on the telephone ; " what we want to be near is the House of Commons." There the policy of the Standard Oil Trust is crystallised in a sentence. The Trust is the most gigantic lobbyist in the world. No other association of private capi talists maintains such an espionage system ; no other body of that kind has its lobbyists at so many centres of government. In most of the American State Legislatures the Standard Oil lobbyist is as well known as the Speaker. At Washington, at Ottawa, in the House of Commons, in Berlin, in Bucharest, to name but a few capitals, you will find the representatives of the Rockefellers. Their proceedings and those of the rivals who sought to checkmate them elicited a severe rebuke from that cautious journal the Spectator on the occasion of the debate upon the Flash-point Bill. Writing on March 25, 1899, my contemporary observed :— The decision as to the proper flash-point for mineral oils really involved a possible monopoly of the supply of safe oils, a monopoly worth many millions, and the signs of excited personal and pecuniary interest in the lobbies were noticed by many observant members of Parliament.
It declared that the practice of " lobbying " tended to " grow into a peculiarly subtle and dangerous form of corruption ":— It has so grown both in America and France, and it may grow here. What with the tendency to create monopolies, the incessant variations of the tariff in some great States, and the masses of capital at the disposal of individuals or companies, the profits and losses consequent on a new law may amount to millions, and among the owners or expectants of those millions there may be some of the most unscrupulous of mankind. They have paid secret commissions all their lives, especially for " information," and they do not see why they should not pay them to induce hostile legislators not to vote against them.
The end of this combined attack was that when the Flash-point Bill came up for second reading in March, 1899, it was rejected, on the pledge of Mr. Collings, then representing the Home Office, that the Government would deal with the whole subject of the storage of petroleum and of lamp accidents. Since that date nothing has been done, and although all the members of the Liberal Cabinet who were in the House of Commons in 1899 voted for the Flash-point Bill, they have never found time or courage to tackle the Standard Oil monopoly in explo sive oil. As Lord Kelvin's biographer, Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, says in the chapter already quoted : "The scandal of the free sale of dangerous low-flash oil continues." No doubt Ministers have been hampered by the obstruction of the Home Office bureaucracy. Before even the Select Committee had reported, the late Dr. Dupre, chemical adviser to the Home Office, said at Sutton (in November, 1897) :— If people thought they would get legislation on the subject to raise the flash-point they would be very much mistaken, for legislation would not so upset the trade. What was wanted was education and better lamps.
We have seen how Colonel Majendie was constantly sitting at the feet of Mr. Boverton Redwood on this question, and his influence was steadily against the flash-point being raised. His successor, the late Captain Thomson, fol lowed the same tradition, and actually published with Mr. Redwood a "Handbook on Petroleum." This volume, which is ostensibly a guide to local petroleum inspectors in carrying out their duties, branches off into a defence of the 73 deg. flash point, and contains all the old Standard Oil tags. One of its points is that more people are killed by falling downstairs than by lamp acci dents—I only cite that absurdity to show the boldness which the Home Office staff have shown in their determination to obstruct the recommendation of the Petroleum Committee. The final climax has been the appointment of Sir Boverton Redwood as Home Office Adviser on Petroleum. Nobody questions for an instant the great scientific abilities of Sir Boverton Redwood, or his thorough acquaintance with the petroleum industry, but he has taken too long and too active a part in opposing the raising of the flash-point for his advice to be a safe guide on the question. It would be exactly like appointing Mr. Pretyman to advise the Inland Revenue on the drafting and circulating of Form IV.