-FRANKLIN K. LANE ADOPTS A DIFFERENT TONE.
Mr. O'Donnell's interesting report, though it brought him great personal success, was simply shelved. There is no doubt that America began to realise that some deception had been practised, and a note of asperity was now intro duced into the controversy.
Scarcely had the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce broken up, when Franklin K. Lane, formerly Secretary for the Interior, took up the question in out spoken fashion. After summarising the data of the Polk Report, he said :— " A policy of this description has inspired among Americans the fear that Britain, in acting thus, desired to check the naval development of the United States.
" Now, do such proceedings lead to peace or to war ? Is it admissible that Britain—not merely British capitalists, but the State or Government of Great Britain, that is, a political entity—should take possession of a market of such impor tance and keep the rest of the world out of it ? It is surely obvious that if not only nationals, but States themselves, represented by Governments, take part in economic compe tition and turn themselves into commercial houses or industrial firms, there is no hope of appeasing the conflicts which will constantly arise out of commercial rivalry." These plain words constitute a warning, the gravity of which does not need to be emphasised.
Henceforward, under the customary formulas of courtesy, the conflict has opened, no longer between two groups of business men, but between the two greatest economic and military forces in the world. It is no longer a question of commercial competition among companies hunting for dividends ; it is a question of the control of a product whose abundance or scarcity may change the ever unstable balance of power among nations. To obtain or to keep this product, each of the two rival Governments is ready to bring into action all the economic and military weapons which it has at its disposal. Between the two, nations of the second rank will be subjected to formidable pressure, the one trying to force them to open their doors when the other is com pelling them to close them. Thus the question of oil has entered the danger-zone of diplomatic rivalries ; and all nations will have to take part. On 17th May, 1920, the very day when the Polk Report reached the Senate, the American Ambassador in Paris transmitted to our Govern ment the grievances of the Standard Oil Company. France in its turn was drawn into the conflict.