COMPANY.
As soon as we had definitely thrown in our lot with Britain, it would perhaps have been loyal to inform the United States. Unfortunately, the avowal was difficult ; for at the very moment when all our oil fields were being closed to them, our diplomatists were counting on their aid for the capitalisation of the German indemnity and the obtaining of credits for our devastated regions. It was therefore decided to keep the San Remo Agreement secret.
Meanwhile, the Standard Oil Company had no suspicions. Proud of having furnished the Allies during the War with 8o per cent. of the oil which saved our armies, knowing that new industrial conditions and the absence of Russian and Rumanian oil everywhere increased requirements, and believing that, as France more than other countries was in need of fuel, she would welcome American oil, this company organised itself to supply our market on a large scale. It counted on meeting with the devoted and grateful support of the French Government.
Disillusionment was not delayed.
The first essential for the replenishment of French supplies was to procure tank steamers, the little 5,00o-ton tankers of the cartel being notoriously inadequate. Oppor tunely the German subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company, the Deutsche-Amerikanische Petroleum possessed a flotilla of modern boats. Britain naturally made haste to seques trate them. On the morrow of the Armistice the Standard Oil Company asked for them to be returned, undertaking to put them at the disposal of French oil companies. To its great surprise, our Government supported it weakly. The British Foreign Office put up an energetic resistance. More than a year was lost in vain negotiations, and the ships were finally restored only a few months ago, when it was too late.
However, the Standard Oil Company did not lose con fidence. It knew that the Commissariat General aux Petroles et Combustibles was to close down on 2rst April, 1920. It was generally believed that the Government control over oil, exerted since 1918, would come to an end on that date, and that freedom would be restored to commerce.
In expectation of this event the Standard Oil Company constituted, on 1st April, a Franco-American subsidiary, with a capital of 25 million francs. This company at once made important contracts for mazut with several refineries and shipping companies. Its confidence was such that it bought for several millions a magnificent building in Paris to use as its headquarters.
The Commissariat General was actually suppressed on 21st April, 1920. But on 24th April, M. Millerand signed at San Remo the agreement which handed over all French oil to the Anglo-Dutch Trust. Four days afterwards, 28th April, the French Government resumed control of oil, and the new Commissioner, assuming office immediately, refused to recognise the contracts arranged between the Standard Oil Company and its French customers.' This time the Americans were disturbed.
The Standard Oil Company sought the protection of its Government, and on 17th May, Mr. Wallace, the United States Ambassador, transmitted officially to the French Government the complaints of his nationals.
He indicated all the obstacles placed by our administra tion in the way of the American firm's scheme for the con struction of reservoirs ; he asserted that the British com panies did not meet with the same difficulties ; he pointed out that, as France's need of mazut was ten times as great as the quantities supplied, for which reason many French factories were closing down for lack of fuel, there was room for British as well as American firms in our market ; and he therefore asked that they should be treated on an equal footing.
The new Commissioner, M. Laurent Eynac, replied ambiguously, without mentioning the agreement which bound us to Britain, putting all the blame on the necessary slowness of official inquiries—the same for everybody.
But a few days afterwards, on 25th May, a summary, in some respects inadequate, of the San Remo Agreement was published in Le Temps.