VITAL PRODUCT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1940, Page 5

VITAL PRODUCT

GREAT IMPORTANCE OF OIL IN WAR. ADDRESS AT ROTARY CLUB. “Oil may be defined as a dark, smelly liquid from the depths—the product of animal and vegetable decomposition which lived 100,000,000 years ago. Yet more surely than gold or precious stones, it can sway the fate of nations. In 1917 Clemenceau said, ‘A drop of oil is worth a drop of blood.’ To day we might say ‘A drop of oil is worth a pint of blood’,” said Mr Angus Ross, General Manager for New Zealand of the Vacuum Oil Proprietary, Ltd., in an address on “The Search for Oil,” given at the Masterton Rotary Club yesterday. “Oil is wanted in this war,” stated Mr Jones, “for the vast mechanised forces and armies. Oil is wanted for the tens of thousands of war planes —some of which use 200 gallons an hour—and the warships and submarines. It can be said with certainty that if the oil supplies of any combatant gives out, then that side has lost.But in everyday life oil is also of vast importance. Yet less than 100 years ago people lived under conditions in which petroleum played no part. Since then, with the steady march of progress. its uses spread until today there is no industry which is not dependent on petroleum. “Although the industry was developed in the last century its existence was recorded in 3000 B.C. Its adhesive properties were used in the building of Noah’s Ark, in the form of pitch. It was extensively used in the construction of the ancient cities of Babylon and the mumifleation of bodies in Egypt,” stated Mr Jones. Mr Jones traced the events leading up to the discovery of oil in the United States by Colonel Drake in 1859 and its subsequent exploitation, in all parts of the world, including New Zealand.