MANY NATIONS WANT FUEL AND CONTROL OF AREA

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5310, 24 January 1947, Page 7

MANY NATIONS WANT FUEL AND CONTROL OF AREA

The view of the average Briton of the Middle East is one of a great land bridge — away at the far end of the Mediterranean — lying between Europe and Asia. It is a bridge on whieh we have fought several wars. We have fought in order to stop land conquerors — Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler — from attacking us on two oceans at once. Recently, in the two German wars, we have been defending the bridge for another reason, stated Elizabeth Monroe in a recent broadcast.

We have been tighting to protect an oil supply, and to deny it to our adversary. At- the end of each war, we have made arrangements to stay in the vicinity so that, should another emergency arise, we could pounce back on to the defensive in time to hold the bridge. We are busy at this moment trying to agree on sUch an arrangement with Egypt. We have made one with Transjordan; we are making one in Palestine. These interests are shared by the United States, particularly as far as oil is concerned. In fact, Great-Power interest in that Middle East oil is so general, and there is so much leros e talk about it, that it is worth examining exactly how important it is in Great-Power calculations. The interests which exploit Middle Eastern oil are by no means only British. The fields are well shared out. As far as locality is concerned, they are shared between Persia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and some of the "sheikdoms" on the Persian Gulf . They bring in comforta'ble royalties to each of these territories. For instance, in a good year in Persia, they yield about 17 per cent. of the nation's revenue The working of the fields, which is an expensive and technical business, is in the main farmed out to foreign companies. These are of British, American, French, Dutch, and — in North Persia — Russian nationalities. The reason, I think, why there is a tendency to label Middle Eastern oil as a British interest is that the British were by some 20 to 30 years 'the first to attach importance to it.

America Wakes Up. Unlike the Americans and the Russians, they possessed no oilfields at home. They were driven to look outside their Empire. So that, as long ago as. 1914, they bought a controlling interest in the biggest Persian field because of its quality and capacity. The Americans and the Rusisans, being more than self-sufficient, felt none of the same urge until Hitler's war began to tax their resources. In fact, I think it is fair to date American public interest in Middle Eastern oil from a scare that shook the United1 States in 1943. In that year, sudden and extravag'ant estimates of the amount of oil that was being squandered upon war led to a rumour that the American wells were running dry. There followed a .stocktaiking, during which the importance of untapped resources outside the United States was realised. There are only four really great oil- i bearing areas in the world. The chief one is the Caribbean field, which includes the bulk of the United States output and runs round to Venezuela. That field has so far yielded 63 per cent. of the world's total supply up to date. Second comes the Russian field in the Caucasus-Caspian area; that acco'Unted, in 1944,, for about 10 per cent. The remaining two are the Middle Eastern field and that in the Dutch East Indies. Neither of these as yet j produces anything like the Caribbean } percentage. The Middle Eastern share j is at present a'bout 6 to 7 per cent. ! Oil and Strategy. ; This figure may sound small to you; but, remember, we would not have won the war without the great fountain head that pumped supplies to the Middle East Forces and Asia Command; and, as a source of supply, it's j getting bigger. But there is promising | evidence that, of all the fields in the ; world, it has the greatest underground ' deposits. It may give more than any j other field in the end. Hence, an all- j rbujnd eargeriness -to -slhare injits wealth i and to have access to its resources I supposing there were a war.

Strategy and oil, then, are the principal British and American interests in the Middle East. But both countries have a secondary interest in the area — as a commercial air route between East and West. They would like to be able to look ahead to future years of peace — of "pax Britannica," if you like — in which to develop these concerns. iNiow let uis go over to Moscow and look at the Middle Eastern view from there. We are looking from the north, now, across the Caueasus, and the Southern Sovie't Repuhlics that - adjoin Persia. The Middle East has become an immediate neighbour. Even to an enormous country like Russia, countries just across the frontier are al~ ways a matter of concern. What is more, within 100 miles of that frontier lies Balcui, which is the main source of Russia's own home oil supply. Vulnerable Baku. Seen from Moscow, Baku looks uncomfortably -ulnerable from the south. This accounts for Russian anxiety to gain influience in North Persia. Hence this year's move in Azerbaijan, and to secure changes in the Persian Govemment. Moscow needs a -shock absorber south of Baku. The oil concession which it j-ust acquired1 in North Persia is designed not only to give extra supplies but also to pad its own oilfields. Seen from Moscow, the chief requirement in the Middle East is tranquillity guaranteed by British troops and British influence. Moscow would like a "pax Sovietica," not a "pax Britannica." It would like to see other governments, beyond Persia, change their personnel to suit their tastes. It would not Blind if, in the process, there were to occur a few upheavals that would' be embarrassing to Britain. That is why- they are not above encouraging a local strike, as they did in the Persian oilfields in July. What does the Middle East think? Now let us step into Middle Eastern hhmhhhhi

( view from there. The outlook of the average Middle Easterner has uindergone a tremendous change as a result of war. Imagine the revelations he has , seen in the last six years. Into his slow-moving life have been injected , huge armies which have, willy nilly, | displayed to him undreamed of facts about the ways of other countries. j He has leamt that elsewhere the , ordinary unpfivileged fellow like himI self, enjoys advantages that he has not gotj — better health, better boots, more money. He has seen that this is so not only among wealthy, remote peoples like the British or the Americans, but among peoples closer to 'himself, like Yugoslavs, or Greeks. He has realised that the under-dog in most countries is much better olf than he. In some cases he has learnt this through- the good wages he has eamed in army employment — loading trucks and ships and the like. Hothouse Economy. More often than not, though, he has learnt the lesson without any eompensation. For the presence of the troops, combined with a shortage of goods while shipping was short, has sent prices up all over the Middle East. As a result, the tiixed wage earner, such as the landless peasant, or the town worker not in military eniployment, has been very hard hit. On halance, the presence of the armies, though it 'has filled the eoffers of those Middle Eastern countries, has made the rich richer, and the poor poorer than before the war. Now that those armies are going or gone, the hothouse economy that they created' is collapsing. The men they employed are being thrown on the streets. But they have learnt to want something better than their pre-war lot. A eombination of new ideas, less money, and less worfc is causing the wave of strikes we keep reading about in Egypt and Iraq and Persia. Far the most widespread happening in the Middle East to-day is this revulsion of feeling against the beastliness . of t living conditions among the lower income group. I do not think it is an exaggeration to call it a revolution — a social revoiution — that has been precipitated by our war. It is obvious that, in tliis -atmosphere of social unres't and upheaval, the Russians are at an advantage. They stand, inthe imagination of most people, for a better deal for the underdog and for the overthrow of privilege. ' Their radio paints Azerbaijan as having thrown off the shackles of plutocracy, and started a new life. It paints Britain as the friend of -pashas and the enemy of progress. The picture is unfair, but it -sticks. A1 the same, it would be a mistake to think that the Ru&sians hold all the aces. Their regime may be proletarian, but it is also totalitarian, and totalitarianism is very repellent to people who are individualists, like the Arabs or Persians. They may be left wing, even Commuinist, but their Communism is of a highly nationalist, not to say, individual brand. They do not like the grip in the Russian handshake. Once the incubus of British ocoupying troops is gone, they 'begin to think with favour of easy-going British willingness 'to foster their independence and let them do things their own way.