20 
Land & Water 
July 4, 191 8 
(Continued from page 18) 
Some years prior to the war'the price'of the No. i quahty of 
whaJe oil fell as low as ;f i8 per ton in barrels dehvered at 
United Kingdom ports. At the outbreak of war thej-e were 
contracts in existence made between producing firms and 
consumers at £22 per ton, which contracts in one instance 
' continued up to 1919, and are not j'et completed. I mention 
this to prove that firms owning steamers and whaling stations 
and making tlieir calculations as to cost on a pre-war basis 
saw a reasonable profit at £22 per ton, or they would not 
have entered into long-period contracts. "- 
I wish here to interpose the observation that the cost of 
production of this oil differs from all others, in that no rent 
is paid, no cost of sowing, tillage, or fertilising,t^and that 
cost of production 
begins]at the stage 
of^ gathering Na- 
ture's harvest . 
The ships t em- 
ployed are mostly 
old steamers 
bought in pre-war 
days at low prices, 
and are the pro- 
perty of the pro- 
ducing companies. 
The. price r I of 
glycerine was mu- 
_-. tually arranged in 
the autumn of 
1915 between the 
Ministry of Muni- 
tions and the 
British ' soap and 
candle manufac- 
turers, and a con- 
tract was entered 
into for the peri(^ 
of the war, at the 
then world market 
price of £59 los. 
per ton for 80 per 
cent, crude, or £87 
los. per ton for 
the refined dyna- 
mite quality. 
Within a few 
months of this contract being made, the price of glycerine 
advanced rapidly'fin all countries outside Great Britain 
and France, and ^therefore, to enable the manufacturers 
of glycerine to continue to supply the Government at the 
prices agreed upon, the Ministry of Munitions used its vast 
powers and resources to control the raw material within the 
Empire for British use. 
In 1916 it was decided to pay £32 per ton for the season's 
catch of whale oil, which price ensured a handsome dividend 
to all the operating companies. After the goods arrived, 
the Ministry of Munitions did not attempt to make any profit 
out of the purchase, but handed the oil at cost to the firms 
who had undertaken to supply the glycerine, and fortunatelv 
in this country three large new plants had been erected 
especially to treat this oil by the new hydrogenating process 
which entirely removes the objectionable smell of the oil 
and converts the liquid oil into a solid fat of the consistency 
of tallow. These three factories were able to handle a large 
proportion of this whale oil which after the glycerine was 
extracted made most excellent soap and candles. 
In 1917 the price of whale oil was advanced by various 
stages until £50 per ton was paid for several cargoes, the extra 
price being required to cover the enormous cost of the war 
risk insurance, cost of coal, men's wages, etc., and even at 
this figure some of the producers do not obtain much more 
margin of profit than they did at £32. 
Never has the potential power of the British Empire to 
supply its war needs been better illustrated than in this matter 
of glycerine, a primary necessity in the manufacture of cordite 
and other explosives. We manufacture our cordite on the 
nitro-glycerine process which is used in Italy and Austria, 
while France, Germany, and the United States use the nitro- 
cellulose process, which requires but little glycerine ; hence 
oil to us was more vitally essential from the mihtary stand- 
point than to France or Germany. 
We not only possessed 4 practical monopoly of whale oil, 
but stood in the same position with regard to palm oil and 
palm kernels from West Africa, cotton-seed oil from Egypt, 
cocoanut oil from Ceylon, tallow from Austraha or New 
Zealand, and untold reserves of oilseeds in India. All these 
suppUes were put under requisition to this extent, that the 
export to countries other than Entente nations was pro- 
hibited, except on condition that the glycerine contained in 
the oil or seed so exported was re-shipped to Great Britain 
at the British Government price. The triumph was that 
while the price of dynamite glycerine in other countries has 
risen to £295 per ton, it remains at £87 los. per ton iij this 
country. To-day the requirements of oil for margarine 'are 
so pressing that the glycerine position is not so strortg. This 
is occasioned not by the raw products in the Empire being 
insufficient to meet all our needs, but by the impossibility 
of the shipping control being able to allocate sufficient tonnage 
to bring home the supplies awaiting shipment. 
The romance of the whale, its present value, and the value 
that it may yet become when scientific adaptation of known 
facts brings whale 
tables, constitute 
one more revela- 
tion of what we 
possess in the 
ocean round our 
far-flung Empire. 
The wisdom we 
have shown under 
war pressure must 
be continued 
under peace pres- 
sure, but unless 
public opinion is 
widely and strong- 
ly stirred there 
will be nobody in 
power to exercise 
control after the 
war. Under con- 
trol, we have seen 
to three things : 
(a) that the pro- 
ducer oversea gets 
a handsome price 
for what we com- 
mandeer, (b) that 
the merchant and 
shipowner gets a 
good living 
margin, (c) and 
that the home 
manufacturer is well treated. The result is that the 
consumer gets all that can be bought at fair values. Taking 
whale oil as an example, I make the forecast that for eighteen 
months after the war the price, instead of being £50 per ton, 
will be £200 if all control is removed, if speculation and 
unrestricted competition of all comers, German and Austrian 
included, is permitted. My contention is that safeguards 
are necessary for the producer, merchant, shipowner, and 
home manufacturer ; but as an act of self-preservation, the 
destination of Empire products must be controlled. 
I contend, further, that destination can only be guaranteed 
by ownership. If, instead of ownership, legislative restric- 
tions only are relied upon, these will work against ourselves 
and in favour of unscrupulous competitors. I also contend 
that Government Departments are totally unfitted to become 
the purchasers and distributors of vast quantities of material ; 
that the interests of our people and our Allies can best be 
serves by the appointment of paid Boards of business men 
having Treasury authority for two years to purchase within 
the Empire selected groups of products, the profits or loss on 
the same being placed to Treasury account. 
A Whaling Station, South Georgia 
The grandson of the "Grand Old Man" of the Victorian 
age has been made the subject of a memoir, W. G. C. Glad- 
stone, by Viscount Gladstone. (Nisbet, 5s.) Unlike the 
majority of biographies of oflicers who have fallen in the war, 
this is a history as well as an appreciation, giving the boy 
and the \'outh, and giving his work in the war its due place. 
It is the record of one who looked over, much of the world 
and found it good, finding at the same time a method of 
communicating his impressions of things- seen, and that 
with a facility and photographic exactness which lacked but 
one quality, the sense Of humour which youth so seldom 
displays, to complete it. - Desiring a political career, " Will" 
gave such force as was his to the armies that claimed 
young men, in the cause of liberty, and fell at Laventie on 
April 13th, 1915, while not yet thirty years of age. Lord 
Gladstone's memoir of the boy and young man shows him 
as fully justifying the epitaph on the mural tablet to his 
memory in Hawarden Church : " He was a veray parftt 
gentil Knyghte, God reste his Soule." 
