90 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UIsriTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



with no beneficent effect upon the resource as a whole. Neither 

 technology nor law can meet the issue unaided — and no one wants 

 the autocratic method, good or bad. Is there no way, then, whereby 

 this country can administer its petroleum resource without waste, 

 yet with fairness to all interests? Must we admit that to gain a 

 legitimate service from petroleum we must sacrifice nine-tenths of 

 the resource? Such a necessity is scarcely conceivable, yet it seems 

 to exist. Such a necessity, indeed, does exist, so long as the petroleum 

 resource is left subject to the untrammeled operation of the law of 

 supply and demand under conditions of unrestricted competition in 

 production. 



The betterment of the petroleum situation, in the last analysis, 

 depends upon the recognition of a principle and the incorporation of 

 that principle in a broad national policy bearing on all industrial mat- 

 ters — a policy which we may term a constructive economic policy. 

 The principle is this: That natural economic law is not invariably 

 beneficial in its action, however advantageous in the majority of in- 

 stances; that it requires surveillance and, in those cases where it 

 fails, constructive help. This principle is perhaps most strikingly 

 exemplified in petroleum, where the automatic control exerted by 

 natural law has unmistakably demonstrated incompetence, but it is 

 also true of a suificie;it number of activities to have general signifi- 

 cance. A constructive economic policy is desirable, then, not on the 

 score of petroleum alone, but in behalf of the industrial development 

 of the country at large. It would be scarcely possible to create 

 machinery to handle the petroleum problem effectively as a single 

 matter ; petroleum is too closely enmeshed with the whole industrial 

 life of the country thus to be singled out.^ 



The general need for a constructive economic policy can not be 

 gone into in detail here. Its general desirability and scope will 



* The need for a constructive economic policy is especially apparent in the production 

 and utilization of mineral raw materials. If the reader could view, In rapid succession, 

 the curves showing the increasing consumption of the various mineral resources and 

 at the same time realize that the reserves of these resources (of the richness now 

 worked) are strictly limited, he would be strongly Impressed with the fact that sooner 

 or later the world must make full use of the raw materials which are now so incompletely 

 utilized. 



A widespread and general feeling in regard to such matters seems to be, so far as 

 may be gathered from everyday experience, that a constructive policy in regard to re- 

 source efficiency would prove destructive from a human or personal standpoint, and 

 therefore resource waste Is justified on the basis of its moral safety. This view seems 

 also to have gained ground from the more or less current feeling that the moral 

 obliquity of Germany Is in part a product of her industrial organization, which has 

 naturally lent no popularity to the Idea. But these considerations are believed to be 

 beside the point ; mineral resources (as apart from organic resources) are limited in 

 quantity, are being used up with extraordinary rapidity, and the time will come for 

 each limited resource when waste can no longer be tolerated. No matter the Justifica- 

 tion of compromise on other grounds, sheer physical necessity will dictate full utiliaa- 

 tion. That time is almost here for petroleum, just as it is temporarily here for wheat. 

 Individualistic proclivities must give way before resource exhaustion. But, on the other 

 hand, It may be questioned, purely on a moral basis. If wasteful utilization can be on 

 as high a plane ae full utilization. 



