"The Great Oil Octopus."

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 51, 1 March 1912, Page 3

"The Great Oil Octopus."

Stony of the Development, Methods, Men, and Results of j" Standard Oil."

By London "Truth's" Investigator.

(Copyright. All Rights Reserved.)

"Tho flash-point of 73 dog. was badly founded, because it is tho flash-point of a substance which is being burned at temperatures commonly iilkjvo 73 dog., and, therefore, you are dealing in every lamp so used with an oil beneath your flame which is in a oondi : tion of danger."—Professor Attfiold, F.R.S., Select- Committee on Petroleum, 1896 report. CHAPTER XIII. THE FLASH-POINT SCANDAL. It is now time to devote a little attention to one of tho Standard's greatest triumphs in this country —tho staving off until this present day of the legislative raising of the Hash-point of petroleum. I desire to make this explanation short and simple The naalipoint is the temperature at which an oil will give off vapour, which, mixed with air, is explosive. In other words, it is tho point at which a flame brought close to its surface will cause it to explode, the explosion being, of course, small in a 2-inch test-cup, but serious when a lamp or barrel is in question. 'The test depends on the presence of vapour. It is obvious,' therefore, that any test-cup which allows the vapour to escape before the flame cau bo applied is useless. The advocates of safe oil have always demanded a test-cup which would retain the vapour, and ihe petroleum traders in Europe and America have always pushed some kind of cup which would allow as much as possible of the vapour to escape. ! The story of tho juggle with the 1 flash-point 'begins in 1868, before the I Standard Oil Trust was born, and for ! its initial stage it is only fair to admit [ that it can have no The Fire Protection Committee of 1867 recommended that tho flash-point should be 110 deg. Fahr. The Petroleum Association—which was then an independent body of importers of American oil —asked for a flash-point of 100 deg., and the Home Secretary called ill the "three chemists"—Dr. Lothaby, Professor Attfiekl, 34id Professor (afterwards Sir Frederick) Abel—to ad visa as to the flash-point and the method of determining it. The Three Chemists. The three chemists recommended that 100 deg. should be conceded provided it was ascertained by a test-cup which they recommended. That tester, called "tho three chemists' cup," gave results which it is now admitted were identical, within 3 deg. of those- shown by the present Abel tester. What followed is succinctly narrated by Mr. Vre, K.C., Mi', (now the Lord Advocate), in his draft report presented to tho Petroleum Committee Report, p. xxsvi.): — The Report [of tho three chemists] was accepted by the Home Office, and tho standard and test were embodied in Notices of Motion and Orders of tho Day for the Bth of June, IS6B. A week later, it will bo found from tho Notices of Motion and Orders of the Day that the test prescribed by tho three chemists, and accepted by the Government on the Bth of Juno, had undergone a very material change. In the interval the Petroleum Association approached tho Government and requested that the three chemists' test bo modified. The Govern men t remitted to SiT Frederick Abel to consider the qttestion thus raised. He was comparatively new to the subject of flashpoint investigation. Dr. Lothaby and Dr. Attiield had for years devoted special attention to it. Both were in London at the time, and available for consultation. Neither was consulted or even apprised of the proposed change. Sir Frederick Abel was enjoined by tho Government not to give way on any point affecting tho efficiency of the test. He did give way; and in the result a test was prescribed winch lie himsolf subsequently described as "untrustworthy," "open to manipulation," and "not of such a nature as uniformly to ensuro reliable and satisfactory results." Why Dr. Lothaby and Dr. Attficld were not consulted has not been expftiined to your Committee. It is certain that if they had been consulted tho ehango could never have been made. When ever it enmo to his knowledge, Dr. Attiield at once informed the Government that the test was far less stringent than that prescribed by tho thro© chemists, that it would be a fertile source of disputes, and that the public would not be protected. That 100 deg. flash-point, with the inaccurate tester of the Petroleum Association, went into the Act of 1868, and the mischief was done. _ But the most extraordinary and audacious chapter in this strange story took place ton. years later when the disputes and blunders which Dr. Attfiekl had foretold had occurred. Sir Frederick Abel then devised the Abel (close) tester, which w an efficient one,; but no showed that an oil flashed in that tester at a point 27 deg. lower than that at which it flashed in the Potroleum Association cup legalised in 1867.

In 1879 tlie new Act legalise-d Sir Frederick Abel's tester, and then fixed the flash-point at what was called the "equiralent" of the old 100 other words, it reduced tho flash-point by 27 deg., the amount of inaccuracy of the old tester. The effect, of course.

was to perpetuate the blunder of tlie 1867 Act in another way. It is as though a man, finding that his watch lost 27 minutes in a day, bought a new aiid accurate timekeeper and then purposely put it back '27 minutes. The history of this bureaucratic juggle was effectively summarised by Mr. lire in the House of Commons, March 15, 1899:— In 1862 there wa* a correct flashpoint (100 deg.) fixed, and no tester tor ascertaining it. In 1868 there was a correct flashpoint (100 dog.) and an incorrect tester for ascertaining it. In 1879 there was a correct means (the Abel tester) of finding out an incorrect flash-point (73 deg.). Now we demand a. correct flashpoint (100 deg.) amd a correct means of finding it out. An Audacious Change. To this day all petroleum which flashes at 73 dog. Fahr. in the Abel tester is subject to no restrictions of any kind, and lamp accidents and oil fires have carried off hundreds of lives sin-co 1879. Lord Kelvin, surely a high authority, said to the Select Committee iu'HIOG:— It seems to mc that the logical outcome of Sir Frederick Abel's work ought to have boon to declare that the 100 deg. test in force in the 18.71 Act must be fulfilled by a proper •close test. 1 cannot think how Sir Frederick Abel dropped from 100 deg. to 73 deg. Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, in his "Life of Lord Kelvin" (vol. ii-, p; 962) tells lis:—

Lord Kelvin fult strongly on this question. In 1868 an open testcup wag legalised which in practice proved to be. erroneous to an average extent of 27 degrees. In other words, oil which was actually giving off explosive vapour at 73 Fahr. did not flash in this open cup until it reached 100 degrees. The number of fires due to paraffin lamps increased owing to the introduction of cheap, lowflash oils. In spite of this, in 1879, when a new and more efficient test was adopted, the flash-point was by a scandalous manoouvro reduced to 73 degrees. Sir V. Majendie. It is interesting to recall that in the experiments which Sir Frederick Abel made during tho period when the Abel tester and the difference between its results and thoso of the 1868 tester were under investigation, lie was assisted by Mr. Bovcrton Redwood, the chemist of the Petroleum Association. But the delicate operation of substituting a lower flash-point when tlio tester was made more accurate seems to have been carried out mainly by the assistance of the then Chief Inspector of Explosives, the late Colonel V. Majendie, a soldier and a gentleman, who was no match for the adroit and suave agents of the petroleum trade. It was perhaps not unfitting that the administration of tho laws relating to Mr. Rockefeller's low-flash petroleum should have been placed under the Explosives Department of the Home Office, but it had this disadvantage, that Colonel Majendie, well acquainted with military explosives, knew nothing about petroleum. He once declared at the Imperial Institute in my hearing that ho had learned all. he knew about petroleum from Mr. Redwood. How completely he was guided by his mentor in this matter appears from a memorandum of July 18, 1878, in which he gives his reasons for suporting the reduction of the flash-point from 100 deg. to 73 deg. In it he wrote: — The figure is ono to which the Petroleum Association, the body really interested, are prepared to assent, and although the Scottish Mineral Oil Association desire a higher flash-ing-point, it is really a matter in which they have very little concern, except in so far as- the adoption of a higher flashing-point will tend to injure their trade rivals (the Petroleum Association). I think, therefore, that as the matter cannot be usefully carried further, the Abel test of 73 deg. Fahr. flashing-point should bo accepted.

Mr. Redwood was at this period the paid secretary of the Petroleum Association, and had returned only' sis months before from his American trip. Sir Vivian Majondie seems never to have been able to consider the public; in his view it was all a trade squabble between the rival oil traders. I ought to explain here, by the way, that the Scottish refiners havo always kept their oil up to a flash-point of 100 (Abel), their reason being that they desired to maintain a perfectly safe standard. They havo always complained of the invasion of this 73 deg. American petroleum, not on ordinary commercial grounds, but because they held that its dangerous and explosive character was prejudicing the public mind against all classes of burning oils, and neutralising their own efforts to give tho publio confidence in them. CTo be continued.)