The Home Office has made another attempt to divert public attention from the flash-point of kerosene by appointing a departmental com mittee to consider the storage and transit of petroleum spirit, which body has just published its report and evidence. The fact is, of course, that this is a difficult and complicated subject, affecting large numbers of small oil and spirit dealers, on which it will be almost impossible to come to an agreement. The raising of the flash-point of kerosene is a simple, clear issue, which can be done by a Bill of one clause, and the only people who will really be affected by it will be the Standard Oil Trust. At the same time the Oil Trust, with its vast capital, does not greatly object to restrictions on the storage and transit of either oil or spirit, because these mean capital expenditure which it can easily defray, and they will at the same time hamper all its smaller competitors. Now in a time of congestion of Parliamentary busi ness, when it is admittedly difficult to drive even. a wheelbarrow through the House, the Home Office bureaucracy deliberately selects the long and complicated subject for its activity, and ignores the simple one. Why ? It is instructive to note that during the years that have elapsed since the Flash-point Bill was rejected in 1899, half the Standard's argument against raising the flash-point has been killed by itself. It asserted that it could not take out that proportion of naphtha which made its 73 deg. oil so explosive and dangerous without adding to the cost to the consumer. Since then there has arisen the demand for benzine or petrol for the motor industry, and the Standard finds that it can take out that naphtha. Accordingly a friend of mine who has studied this subject as a chemist tells me that whereas the " Tea Rose " oil used to have a flash-point nearly down to the legal minimum of 73 deg., samples recently tested have a flash point of 78 deg. or 79 deg. The Trust have made their oil to that extent safer to suit themselves, and it is notable that side by side with this the number of petroleum lamp accidents has been falling. What is now wanted is that they shall be forced by Parliament to make it safer still, As Lord Kelvin said to the Select Committee in 1896 :— The principle of safety is that oil should never in a lamp reach the temperature of the close test flash-point. I advise the Committee to fix a flash-point which shall be higher than oil is likely to reach under ordinary conditions of ordinary use.
One of the achievements of the Home Office during the controversy was the cooking of a list of legal flash-points in American States by which it was sought to discredit the statement that this country is a dumping-ground for American low-flash oils that the Rockefellers cannot sell at home. Although Mr. Jesse Collings has denied that statement in the House of Commons it is perfectly true. A conclusive proof of its truth is furnished by that interview with Mr. W. H. Libby, the Standard's foreign marketing agent (to which I referred in a former chapter) appearing in the New York Herald of Sep tember 3, 1905. After describing in Mr. Libby's words their struggles with Russia for the European oil market, the interviewer goes on thus :— It is an open secret among people familiar with the oil business that the great and important reason for the Standard's Aptivity in Europe is largely due to the fact that the European tests on oil are not as stringent as they are in the United States. In this country (U.S.A.) the first run of oil, or what is known as the flash-test at a high rate, is the only oil that is allowed to be marketed. The second run of oil contains much more inflammable ingredients, and when tested with the flash will explode at a much lower temperature. It is this oil that finds a market abroad, and the laws there do not demand the higher test of the product. To get rid of its second run the Standard naturally has to look to other markets than the domestic, and that is why it is so anxious to extend its operations in Europe and Asia, as otherwise the oil would be a drug on its hands.
The case against the Standard and its liquid death could not be more concisely put than in the foregoing passage, and so far as they are concerned I leave the case there. But with regard to the British officials, it should here be mentioned that the length to which they have gone in defence of the 73 deg. flash-point
was most conspicuously demonstrated in India. When the flash-point of 73 deg. was legalised there difficulties arose with Burma petroleum which, owing to its large proportion of petro leum wax, became solid or viscid at 60 deg. The Indian authorities wrote home for advice in this awkward situation, and Sir Frederick Abel was invited to solve the riddle. Sir Frederick Abel actually recommended the Indian Government to melt the samples, then refri gerate them down below 73 deg., and then gradually heat them up again to 73 deg. to test them ! Here is the exact language of his letter :— For the above reasons the application of the legal flashing test as prescribed by the Act to the examination of petroleum samples which are solid or viscid at a temperature about 60 deg. Fahr. must give entirely fallacious results.
Then he goes on to stiggest a " modification " of the system of testing, of which the material portion is as follows :— The oil-cup is then to be placed in a refrigerator, or plunged up to the projecting collar in water maintained at a sufficiently low temperature until both thermometers indicate the tem perature at which the testing of petroleum is directed in the Act to be commenced. The oil-cup is then to be removed, wiped dry, placed in the water-bath, and the testing effected in the manner prescribed in the Act (Select Committee's Report, 1896, Appendix, p. 747).
Of course, to the mind of any one but an official, it would be clear that when oil in a barrel or a tank was itself normally at a tem perature of between 80 deg. or 90 deg., it was a farce to allow it to enter the country on the theory that it would not give explosive vapour below 73 deg. Fahr. But to admit that would have been too awkward for the whole flash-point camarilla, and Sir Frederick Abel, in the Journal of the Society of Chemical In dustry, a few years before the safe-oil agitation started, stated that oil which in New York was exported as 73 deg. oil was found in India to have a flash-point of 66 deg., and advised that in order to take the flash-point in India it should be cooled down to 56 deg. Fahr., before the testing was started. Yet the Standard Oil agents in India successfully opposed any raising of the flash-point, and Sir Frederick Abel, in the letter quoted in the 1896 Blue Book, stated that public safety did not require it.
Another Standard Oil agitation which was run here by the Anglo-American was in Febru ary, 1900, when the railway companies issued an amended consignment note for benzine, petrol, and all varieties of motor spirit, by which the consignor was required to indemnify the railway company against all claims for injury to person or property arising out of the " inflammable character " of the goods. The Anglo-American Oil Company first threatened that it would abandon the importation of petroleum spirit altogether, but as that " bluff " did not succeed it issued a circular to owners of motor-cars and users of petroleum spirit signed by Mr. Frank E. Bliss, director. It con tained this instructive passage :— There is more likelihood of our protest being heeded if it be supported by similar protests from all users of petroleum spirit. We ask, therefore, your co-operation in our endeavour to induce the railway companies to revert to their old form of consignment note, and we shall be glad if you will address a letter of protest to your local goods agent of the railway company over whose line you have been accustomed to receive your traffic.
That is the way these spontaneous agitations are got up.
Of late years the Anglo-American's public activities have been chiefly concerned with its attempt to get the Thames Conservancy, and then the Port of London Authority, to sanction the bringing of petroleum spirit up the river in tank barges instead of landing it at Purfleet. The Thames Conservancy, whose meetings are open to the Press, steadily refused, but the Port of London Authority sits in secret, and it would not be surprising if one day the Standard's constant efforts succeeded in this most danger ous project. " Petroleum spirit," legally, con sists of petroleum which flashes below 73 deg. Fahr. In fact, some of its products will flash at zero, but all of it is far more dangerous than the petroleum lamp-oil, which flashes at 73 deg. or above.