Chapter XIV: The Rockefellers and the Home Office

Naturally the juggle by which the low flash-point was thus stereotyped in the Act of 1879 had its effects. The number of petroleum accidents began to increase, and so Sir. V. Majendie was sent to visit 242 places in England and the Continent and then to America. In both these series of visits he was accompanied by Mr. Boverton Redwood, Secretary of the Petroleum Association, “who was good enough to accompany me and render me great assistance,” as Sir Vivian put it. I have no means of knowing whether Mr. Redwood was able to obtain the same letters of introduction from Mr. Wm. Rockefeller which he had secured in 1877, but I do know that there was one subject the pair did _not_ inquire into. It appears in Colonel Majendie’s examination before the Select Committee on Petroleum by Captain Hope (Report and Evidence, 1894, Q. 206–212):--

_Q._ Are you aware that in Scotland, where Scotch oil has been mostly
in use, there have hitherto been very few fires or lamp accidents?

_A._ No, I have no statistics of lamp accidents. I have only a
general knowledge derived from newspapers and from those who have
given to the subject a larger study.

_Q._ When you were making your inquiries in America did you go into
the question of the frequency of lamp accidents?

_A._ _Not lamp accidents, I think, at all._

While this surprising omission was occurring lamp accidents continued to go up. In London they rose from 45 in 1873 to 271 in 1890. In that year the twin brethren, Sir. F. Abel and Mr. Redwood, were directed by the Home Office to make an inquiry into the subject, and they discovered that it was all due to bad lamps. This ingenious theory set every one--Press, coroners, County Council, Home Office--in full cry after a lovely red-herring, and diverted attention for several years from the Standard’s explosive oil. When Mr. Lockwood came over in 1877 it was the bad wicks; now, in 1890, it was the bad lamps. The objections to attempting to secure immunity from petroleum lamp accidents by any lamp law are these:--

1. Nobody has yet guaranteed any absolutely safe lamp.

2. Nobody can guarantee that a safe lamp will remain safe in wear,
or can compel its owners to buy a new one when it is in bad repair.

3. In both Scotland and America, where petroleum is produced and
refined, the remedy has been sought, not in a lamp law, but in
raising the flash-point.

While the British officials were chasing the lamp-law will o’ th’ wisp Mr. Rockefeller was sending over here petroleum oil which could not be sold in most of the States of the Union, and the number of lamp accidents here was still rising. In London they rose from 271 in 1890 to 473 in 1895. By this time an inquiry could not be avoided; the Select Committee to which I have referred began to sit, and between 1894 and 1898 to take evidence and report.

The evidence before that Committee in support of the Standard Oil Trust’s contention was extensive and peculiar. There was Sir Frederick Abel, who admitted to the Committee that as chemist to the War Office he had recommended the adoption of 100 deg. or 105 deg. oil for use in barrack-rooms. Yet he was prepared to maintain that 73 deg. was sufficiently high for a lamp in a crowded tenement house, where obviously the chances of accident are far greater than in the strictly regulated and disciplined barrack-room. Then there was Mr. Boverton Redwood, and he too declared that the flash-point of 73 deg. was sufficiently high for public safety. The most remarkable thing about his evidence was the damaging admissions he was compelled to make, which gave away his whole case. Here are two:--

In my opinion a considerable proportion of the lamp accidents which
occur would not happen if only oil of 120 deg. or even 100 deg. Abel
test were used (Q. 1,824, 1896 Blue Book).

Undoubtedly in a sense the higher the flashing-point the safer the
oil, and from that point of view oil of 100 deg. flashing-point must
be safer than oil of 73 deg. flashing-point (Q. 1,893).

Another very entertaining Standard Oil witness was Professor C. F. Chandler, of New York, who explained that he had been coming to Europe for a holiday, and was asked by the Standard Oil Trust to give evidence against raising the flash-point. He gave that evidence, and was confronted with this passage in a report he made to the New York State Board of Health in 1871:--

There is a strong inducement to turn the heavier portions of the
naphtha into the kerosene tank so as to get for it the price of
kerosene. It is therefore the cupidity of the refiner that leads him
to run as much benzine as possible into the kerosene, regardless of
the frightful consequences of the frequent explosions.

As this was exactly what the Standard was doing, this was rather awkward for the Professor, but he cynically explained that it was “a reckless statement” made when he was a “reformer.” He admitted that he had never withdrawn it publicly until that very date in 1896, but he went on to swallow it whole.

But the prize witness on that side was Mr. Paul Babcock, whom we saw in 1877, and who as one of the American directors of the Trust came to tell the Select Committee that the 73 deg. oil--the brands known to the trade as “Tea Rose” and “Royal Daylight”--were as safe as the 105 deg. oil--the brand known as “White Rose.” Thereupon Mr. Ure, M.P., produced a little folding card just then issued by the Anglo-American Oil Company, Limited, a copy of which lies before me as I write. On the front page of this little Rockefeller tract--which, I grieve to say, is not now in circulation, so that mine has become a “rare edition”--there are two big orange-coloured barrels, and the words “White Rose American Lamp Oil.” Inside there is an artless panegyric on “White Rose,” of which we are told:--

Its fire test is so high as to make it the safest petroleum lamp oil
in the world. Explosion is guarded against and families can burn
White Rose Oil with the same assurance of safety as they can gas ...
a really safe and reliable illuminant, &c.

Of course, all this clearly proved that the Anglo-American Oil Company, whatever it might say at Westminster, did not believe in Billiter Street that 73 deg. oil was as safe as “White Rose.” But Mr. Paul Babcock was a cool hand. He turned the card over carefully, and then remarked that it was “merely advertising bunkum,” and that it was issued by the Anglo-American Oil Company, “_who no doubt bought the oil of us_.” This was fairly cool in view of the fact that the Standard owns all the shares in the Anglo-American, but it is even cooler when we examine the orange-coloured barrel in the picture. The barrel bears at its head a label, “Kings County Oil Works, Sone and Fleming Mfg. Co., Limited, New York.” Now Mr. Paul Babcock was himself general manager to that very Sone and Fleming Company, in addition to being a director of the Standard, which, since 1877, had controlled it. That incident is a fair specimen of the Standard’s evidence at this inquiry.

On the other side evidence was given by Lord Kelvin (the greatest scientific man of his day), Sir Henry Roscoe, Professor Ramsay, Professor Attfield, Dr. Stevenson Macadam, Professor D. Mendeleef (who represented the Russian Government and the Russian petroleum industry), and Dr. Hermann Kast (of Karlsruhe), all denouncing the 73 deg. flash-point and advocating its being raised. Sir Henry Roscoe said:--

I think that Americans send over so much mixed oil of the character
of this “Tea Rose” oil _only because our flash-point is so low_.

Lord Kelvin told the Select Committee:--

I am clearly of opinion that in order to avoid accidents the
flash-point must be raised, and that no construction of lamp will
meet the difficulty.

The Select Committee at last reported in favour of raising the flash-point, and an agitation started by the _Star_ newspaper in support of this course received the adhesion of a large number of newspapers, coroners, and of the London County Council. At the same time the Standard Oil Trust started its own characteristic agitations. Petition forms were sent to every oil retailer with requests to obtain signatures in opposition to raising the flash-point. And according to the statement of Mr. Jasper Tully, M.P., in the House, some of these men in Ireland were threatened that they would get no more oil if this was not done. The result was that M.P.s were bombarded with petitions from their constituencies, and Standard Oil agents filled the lobbies. A well-known Standard Oil “expert” contributed anonymously a long article to the _Times_, in which it was represented that the safe-oil agitation was due to a desire to secure “protection” for the Scottish trade. It is amusing to recall that one of the strongest supporters of this theory was the Right Hon. Jesse Collings, who in four short years was to become an ardent convert to the theory of “Protection,” not only for Scotch oil, but for everything else.

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 anonymous 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 completed 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 capitalists 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 explosive 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, followed 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 accidents--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.

The Home Office has made another attempt to divert public attention from the flash-point of kerosene by appointing a departmental committee 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 business, 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 September 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 activity 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 petroleum 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 refrigerate 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 suggest 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 temperature 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 temperature 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 off 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 Industry_, 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 February, 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 contained 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 dangerous project. “Petroleum spirit,” legally, consists 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.

THE LUBRICATING OIL TRADE

“Does Mr. Rockefeller know that modesty, benevolence, and piety are
the tricks which deceive the most people the longest time?”

IDA M. TARBELL _in_ “_McClure’s Magazine_.”