PETROLEUM. 



87 



are incontestable — the question arises as to what may be done with 

 the situation. Four lines of action, in the way of national policy, 

 present themselves for consideration. 



THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE POLICY. 



Industrial development in this country has been intrusted to the 

 automatic control exerted by natural law — the law of supply and 

 demand — working under free competition. Such interference with 

 the natural course of industrial development as national policy has 

 dictated has been in the direction of maintaining conditions of free 

 competition against an integrative or monopolistic tendency. This 

 policy of leaving industrial growth to the stimulus and retardation 

 of attendant circumstances may be termed a policy of noninterference 

 or laissez-faire. Such a policy apparently developed on the assump- 



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Fig. 13. — Diagram showing the typical underground occurrence of oil, gas, and 

 water, and the customary discordant relations between property lines and 



geologic OCCURRENCE. THE MIGRATORY CHARACTER OF OIL RENDERS THIS TYPE OF 



development unsound as leading to a racing and wasteful extraction of the oil. 

 This diagram expresses the underground relations of the surface conditions 



DEPICTED BY FIGURE 12. DATA FROM CAEL H. BbAL, GEOLOGIC STRUCTURE IN THE GUSH- 

 ING Oil and Gas Field, Oklahoma, Bulletin 658, U. S. Geological Survey, 1917, 



FIGURE 3 AND PLATE 4. 



tion that all industrial activities react alike and favorably to this 

 treatment. If, however, at any later time it becomes clearly apparent 

 that in a given field matters are working out disadvantageously under 

 a sweeping-rule policy, it is a fit subject for inquiry whether a point 

 of departure is not there afforded and justified in respect to a change 

 in plan, so as to bring the activity into a more profitable and con- 

 genial atmosphere. It would appear that, so far as petroleum is 

 concerned, a continuation of the policy of laissez-faire will perpetu- 

 ate the circumstances which are forcing a premature exhaustion of 

 a limited and vital resource. 



