The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-15
Time Coming To
 Import Petroleum
By HOLLAND

ANCN IOEht JdAodi -NoPNNAS-@-( Should the day come when the custom authorities report to Washington that the United States is beginning to inn port petroleum and that the imports are likely to increase, there will be contained in this report suggestion that should be of vital interest not only to an American industry, now one of the greatest, but also to the American people. Twenty years ago some of the authorities sounded a note of warning which set forth the possibil- ity, even probability, that gradually but surely the United States would harvest each year an amount of wheat not sufficient for the needs of the American people and therefore compul- sion would be upon us to import wheat from other countries. One of the lead ing men of science of Great Britain sounded the first note of warning of that kind and what he said was echoed by others in the United States. For if it were found necessary more and more each year to import wheat, that would inevitably change the center of economic gravity and financial grav- ity in the United States and the farm CTS, who constitute about one-third of al: the workers in American indus try, would be heard appealing to Con- gress to impose a heavy customs tax upon imported wheat.
 Fortunately, science and the opening up of new and vast areas to the culti- vation of wheat served to avert the lurking danger that we might not pc able to raise wheat enough to feed our own people.
 If it should happen that the United States should become heavy importer of petroleum, no longer exporting any, and if these imports should increase so greatly as would be certain in case our natural resource in petroleum were exhausted (and some of the eX- perts say that at the present rate or production and use it will be exhaust ed in about 16 years) then momen- tous changes in industry, finance and in fact in American civilization will be certain to follow.
 WHAT WE ARE EXPORTING
 We have been until recently export ing every year petroleum and its va rious products-not only to our allies but to all parts of the world-which is of the money value of about 100,000,- 900. This amount is exceeded in the money value of exports of food pro ducts and of cotton and has recently been equalled or perhaps slightly eX- ceeded by our exports of steel and its allied products.
 Therefore, if our resources in petro- leum are exhausted in 16 years we shall be compelled to forego the advantages which an export of petroleum, meas ured by dollars, of a hundred millions has given us; an export which has con- siderably increased the trade balance which has been in our favor. On the other hand, we may have to pay hundred millions for the petroleum which we import from other nations, Mexico South America, or even the far east. There would be a difference of two hundred millions, not in our favor but against us, and some of the au- thorities believe it to be possible that the difference may ultimately amount to as much as four hundred millions. Our exports of cotton were, until the war unsettled markets, so great as to yield $500, 100000 to the United States. Several times this has constituted ap. proximately our visible international trade balance. The experts at Wash ington and the financial leaders else where in this country estimate that our allies across the sea will pay to the United States each year on ac- count of interest upon loans, between $500, ,000,00 and s600,000, 900.
 Should it unfortunately happen that our petroleum resources are exhausted within 16 years so that we must inn port instead of export any oil or any of it's products than it is possible that the difference against the United States would amount to perhaps three fourths, maybe four-fifths as much as the interest payment to the United States by the allies or the money value of our exports of cotton.
 THE FIRST WARNING
 Already the evidences begin to ac- cumulate that we are to import oil more and more. chiefly because our own supplies are gradually decreasing. The American people may not be as yet aware of the lurking danger which ex- ists in the oil situation, but they are sure to awaken to this fact after hav- ing been adequately informed and es- pecially after imports of oil cause such change in prices as materially to af- feet directly or indirectly every person in the United States. A. c. Bedford, who is chairman of the board of the Standard Oil company of New Jersey, which is the greatest corporation