OIL FUEL.

HC Deb 11 March 1931 vol 249 cc1275-310

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words: in the opinion of this House, it is desirable for strategic and economic reasons and to help in providing employment that energetic steps be taken to encourage the use of oil fuel for the Royal Navy from our own coal. 8.0 p.m.

This Resolution follows very naturally on the Debate that we have had this afternoon and on the statement made by the First Lord, which, I submit, makes my Resolution particularly topical. This is the 13th Navy Estimate at which I have assisted in this House, and I must admit that I have usually been somewhat critical, and have attempted, perhaps rather strenuously, to safeguard the pockets of the taxpayers. On this occasion, however, I am going to make some constructive suggestions, which I hope Ministers will not resent. Indeed, I happen to know that this particular Resolution is not unwelcome to the Admiralty, and I am not moving it in any hostile spirit.

Oil fuel, the subject of the Resolution, is the Achilles' heel of the Navy. The whole Navy now, with the exception of a few river gunboats, is oil-burning, and at the present moment we are almost entirely dependent on oversea supplies of oil, by far the larger proportion of which comes from outside the British Empire. At the present time, 90 per cent. of the oil fuel available to us comes from the Gulf of Mexico—from the United States or from Mexico; and it is perfectly obvious that in certain eventualities, simply by political action on the part of the United States Government, that oil could be shut off from us altogether. The remainder of the oil required by us would have to come through the Mediterranean or round the Cape. My reason for saying that this Resolution is very topical is that submarine-building is going on unchecked, and undoubtedly, in time of war, if we were faced by a hostile Power, its submarines would concentrate on our oil tankers. They would be foolish not to do so. We should be injured much more severely by cutting off our oil tankers, as things are to-day, than by cutting off our wheat supplies, because we can grow wheat in our own country, and we can get food from the Continent of Europe just across the Channel, but our oil comes hundreds, and in most cases thousands, of miles, and the cutting off of our oil fuel supplies would hopelessly cripple the Navy.

The hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) twitted me just now with having made pacifist utterances, but I hope we are all pacifists in this House after our experiences a few years ago. Nevertheless, we do maintain a Navy at very great cost, and it is obvious that the possibility of war is in the mind of the present Government, and these matters are, therefore, of great strategical importance. I would also remind the House that under the international law, which we accept, the right of capture at sea remains; there is no immunity for peaceful merchant shipping; the great American doctrine of the freedom of the seas has not been accepted. Therefore, all sea-borne supplies will be open to attack in time of war, and undoubtedly such attack will be concentrated upon oil tankers.

What would happen if our oil supplies were cut off? Not a warship could put to sea. Not an aeroplane could leave the ground. Our Army would be immobilised. It is becoming more and more mechanised. Where it used to be said that an army moved on its belly, now it moves on its petrol tanks. The great Duke of Wellington was once asked what was the first requirement of an army, and he replied, "Boots." He was then asked what was the second requirement, and again he replied, "Boots"; and, to still another question as to what was the third requirement, once more he answered "Boots." That was because boots on the feet of the soldiers were the motive power of armies. To-day a modern Wellington, if asked the same questions, would reply "Petrol."

If our oil supplies were cut off, as could easily be done in present circumstances, the Army would be completely immobilised; but, more than that, 30 per cent. of the gross tonnage of the British Mercantile Marine is now using oil fuel, and it would be absolutely necessary that whoever was responsible for the conduct of the Board of Admiralty should protect the oil supplies for the Mercantile Marine. Moreover, the life of the community here would be crippled. We are turning over to oil—imported foreign oil—at a tremendous rate. All these new buildings, blocks of flats, and modern offices that are now being built in London are heated by central heating with oil fuel. Our transport system also is more and more dependent on oil fuel, and the cutting off of these supplies would strangle the industrial and civil life of the community.

I would also remind the House that there is another kind of oil which is very often overlooked, but which is very important, and that is lubricating oil, because without lubricating oil you cannot send even a coal-burning ship to sea. At present we produce practically no lubricating oil in this country. I will not go into this question at length; it is a highly technical question; but, if any of my hon. Friends are interested in this point—and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) has made a very close study of it—I would draw attention to a paper that was read before the Institute of Petroleum Technologists on the 1st November, 1930, by Professor Nash, on the production of lubricating oil from coal, showing that it is a perfectly feasible proposition at the present time.

What about the dangers? People may say that it is all right—that as long as the Navy is strong enough it can safeguard the lines of communication so that we shall be able to get all the cheap oil that we want from Rumania, Russia, Mexico, Persia, or wherever else it comes from. This is why my Resolution is particularly apposite. The Mediterranean route, in certain eventualities, will be most dangerous. I would remind the House that, according to the figures read by my right hon. Friend, the French Government is proceeding, even after this agreement, to build more submarines than Germany was building in the heat of the naval competition before the War. The Mediterranean route can be extraordinarily hazardous in time of war, and that is the route which is followed by our oil supplies from Persia and Iraq. It may be said that our tankers could be sent round the Cape, but round the Cape they will be subject to attack by long-range submarines, in regard to which great technical advances have been made in recent years. In addition to the submarine menace, there is the growing menace of air attack. From air stations in France and Italy, the whole Mediterranean sea route could be dominated by aircraft flown from the shore—a most menacing form of threat to merchant ships; and undoubtedly oil tankers would be bombed from the air out of hand. Then, again, the oil supplies of Persia might be subjected to tribal disturbances, and the same thing applies to Iraq; while supplies from Russia would have to come through the Dardanelles and also through the Mediterranean, and in Rumania social upheavals may occur. The result would be that our oil supplies to-day, only 2 per cent. of which is produced within the British Empire, would be always liable to interruption.

The Navy, for good or ill, has gone over to oil. There are many who say that a mistake was made in the first place in going over to oil at all, and that we should have stuck to coal; and it is the fashion to attack the late Lord Fisher. I went through that controversy in the Navy. The late Lord Fisher, whatever may be said about him, was a man of very great vision. He was not understood by a lot of little men, who tried to pull him down because they did not understand his greatness. He made his mistakes, as all great men do, but with regard to this question I think he was right. He always said that eventually we should get our oil from our own coal supplies, and he was only a few years before his time, and when that happens we shall not only get the advantages of oil, but at the same time we shall be using our own incomparable resources, which are buried hundreds of feet under the ground where no aeroplane can attack them.

It may be said that, in view of the precarious position of oil supplies in this country, we should go back to coal altogether. The argument against that is, quite briefly, that with oil, for the same displacement, you can get a far larger radius of action and a great saving of personnel. [Interruption.] Take, for example, as I am reminded by the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington, the coal-burning "Tiger," with an engine-room complement of 608, and the "Hood," a much larger vessel—indeed, the largest warship in the world—which has an engine-room complement of 305; that is to say, only half the number of personnel for a far greater horse-power.

Moreover, there is also the question of the speed of oiling and the possibility of refuelling ships at sea, which gives an immense advantage. Nevertheless, there are some most promising experiments which have been carried out with powdered fuel, and my first constructive suggestion to my right hon. Friend is that the Admiralty should encourage the use of powdered fuel as far as they possibly can for the mercantile marine, in order that the pressure on the oil supplies may be thereby reduced. Some extraordinarily interesting experiments have also been made on the use of coal in the colloidal form, that is to say, powdered coal mixed with oil. Oil tar and other oils can be used in that way. Powdered fuel, however, for warships, will give a radius of action 30 per cent. less than oil, and, therefore, it is strategically unsound. It is not, however, necessary, because, as I am going to show presently, the whole of our needs in regard to oil can be produced from our own resources. I do not make that statement lightly; I make it advisedly, and I will attempt to satisfy my hon. Friends that I am right in this matter.

Now I am going to try to make out my case. There are to-day no technical or scientific difficulties in the way of extracting from our own coal resources the whole of the oil that we need, not only for the Navy but for the whole nation—the £46,000,000 worth that we import from foreign sources. I would refer any hon. Member who is interested to the voluminous technical literature on this subject, and particularly to the most interesting report which was published recently by the Fuel Research Board. In spite of much discouragement, and ignorant attacks from rather stupid people in this House, they have laboured on and have done great national service. I refer hon. Members to the most interesting report just published, up to 31st March, 1930, and many other technical works on the subject. This is now quite an old story. I have in my hand the report of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was the chairman. They refer to liquid fuel which can be obtained from coal, and they say: If it were possible to subject to this process the bulk of the 147,000,000 tons of coal now consumed in the raw state, the greater part at least of our present requirements in oil could be supplied from home sources instead of being imported from abroad. They went on to deal with the subject at great length, and in a very interesting way. Since then great technical advances have been made. One of their recommendations was that there should be set up a national Fuel and Power Committee, and one of the few good things the last Government did was to carry out that recommendation, whereas one of the few really bad things that this Government has done has been to allow that Committee to die. I should like to quote one sentence from its valuable report published in 1928: The national advantages to be obtained from any scheme which offers a possibility of adapting our national fuel to purposes for which at present we are dependent on imported fuel are so great that the fullest and most patient investigation is imperative. The fact is that there is an economic side to this question. My right hon. Friend is only asking for about £2,000,000 for his oil and so on. If you look at the industrial history of the country, you will see that, when the industrial revolution came, we became prosperous. Gas was invented and utilised from coal. We remained prosperous and increased our prosperity. Then came electricity, 90 per cent. of which is generated from coal. We still continued our upward grade. Then came oil. Every ton of oil that is brought into the country puts three miners out of work for a day. The turnover to imported foreign oil, the purchase of which perhaps gives work to workmen in Persia or Mexico or Texas, is putting the economic balance against us and doing great injury to the country. Last year the oil that we imported was worth £46,486,000, compared with £43,000,000 in 1929. The amount is rising substantially every year. Of that, £26,000,000 was for petrol, which is absolutely essential for the Royal Navy, compared with £22,780,000 in 1929—a very striking advance. Although the price of petrol has slumped, the imports have increased in value by £3,000,000. In the meantime we have 250,000 miners unemployed.

My right hon. Friend referred to this question very briefly. He said the oil produced from our coal had been tested and had given satisfactory results. There were no technical difficulties at all, but there were commercial difficulties. I suppose we are spending at least £10,000,000 in unemployment benefit for the 200,000 miners displaced. What chance have they of being re-absorbed into the industry as things are going now? It is not the £10,000,000 that I mind to keep them and their families at a very low level of subsistence; it is the moral effect, the disheartening, the demoralisation of these men and the long years of idleness. They are some of the finest people we have in the country. I beg my right hon. Friend not to talk too much of the commercial side. He may have to pay a little more for his oil produced from coal although, if it is carry- ing out a great national scheme, that is not very much. You make the country safe, you restore the economic balance and you put men to work which they would rather do than be idle. Do not talk too much of the economic difficulties and the extra price. If he has trouble with the Treasury, let him come to the party that supports the Government in the House. We can put the Treasury to rights.

My right hon. Friend, with the other two Services, buys about 30,000 tons of petrol a year. If you can erect your plant and produce petrol in time of emergency, you can easily turn it to produce oil fuel and by hydrogenation, it may be produced with about 100,000 tons of coal. I am not suggesting that we should rely only on hydrogenation. It is no use putting all our eggs into one basket. Even a very great hydrogenation plant would not produce the oil fuel that he needs for the Navy in time of peace, and he must be able to expand his sources of supply in time of war. It may be asked why is this process, which is scientifically and technically possible, not developed commercially. It is to a certain extent, but one of the reasons is that oil has, perhaps, suffered most from the catastrophic fall in world prices, and to-day hydrogenation, which has made far greater advances in the United States than here, where it is used to treat natural oil, produces petrol at about 20 cents a gallon, which two or three years ago was a good price. But to-day petrol is being loaded, ex-Gulf, at five cents a gallon, and it is being landed here c.i.f., owing to over production and the economic collapse in Rumania, at 2½d. a gallon. Fuel oil from Rumania is being landed at 17s. and 20s. a ton. I do not know what he is paying for oil fuel, and I am not going to ask, but, if the very efficient contract department is paying about £2 10s. or £2 15s. a ton over a long period, they are not doing badly, taking into account the cost of transport.

Of course, the needs of the Navy in peace time are of the order of 1,000,000 tons a year of oil fuel. One of the troubles at present is that, owing to lack of understanding of this problem some years ago, we make no difference in this country between petrol produced here from natural oil and imported petrol. If you could produce petrol in this country from oil fuel, the same thing with a slight change in distillation, or whatever the process is, well and good, you get the rebate of 4d. a gallon in taxation. But, if you crack it from imported natural petroleum, you get no advantage at all, and we are about the only important country that does not give any advantage.

My second suggestion, which my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty should very carefully consider, is that he should look into this matter, and see if he can persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a differential tariff. It is not merely a question of a small tariff of 4d. a gallon upon imported petrol or upon imported hydro-carbon oils, but of building up a great industry in this country by cracking or distilling the natural oil, following the practice of the skilled engineers. You could, in time of emergency, make use of the same cracking and distilling plant for war purposes. You could treat enormous quantities of coal tar produced by coke ovens and gas ovens, and you could have the advantage of skilled technical practice, just as the Germans before the War had a great dye industry, and chemical factories and other works, which could be turned very quickly to the production of poison gas and munitions. If you had a cracking industry you could not only give employment, but you would have a plant that, in emergency, could be put on to cracking the tar that is produced by high-temperature and low - temperature methods.

A great many hon. Members have been good enough to show interest in this subject. Several times I have been asked whether I was going to advocate low-temperature carbonisation. This matter has got to be viewed from a wide, national standpoint. To produce all our oil economically from our own coal supplies, we have to be able to treat the immense quantities of tar that are produced in the gas works and coke ovens, and also to develop low-temperature carbonisation of the coal. Also we have to use hydrogenation. Our Scottish shale must be developed to the utmost. In a few years' time we ought to have a great national plan. We ought not to have any more bickering between the gas industry and the electrical industry, or any jealousy between the high and low-temperature carbonisation experts, or any more Stock Exchange speculations in connection with low-temperature carbonisation, for this has been one of the things that has put the whole subject back. It is most unfortunate. You have to get away from all that, and look at the subject from a broad, national standpoint. You have to use the whole of your resources in the most economical way. I hope that this suggestion will be very carefully looked into. It is just like the case for helping and fostering the national shipyards and the mercantile shipyards, because you can switch them all over in time of war to build warships. Exactly the same simile may be used by the First Lord of the Admiralty as an argument, if he wants one in order to convince the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Admiralty is taking full advantage of the world slump in oil and petrol for its requirements. I am not sure whether we can rely upon this cheap price for oils in the future. There is a great deal of difference of opinion amongst scientists and experts and other knowledgeable persons. It is not at all certain that in 15 years there will not be a shortage of oil, and whether the natural oil is not being used most wastefully. There is an attempt at conservation in the United States, although the oil interests say that there is any amount of reserve oil, not to mention Iraq and Mosul, and the rest of the places. Nevertheless, there are very eminent scientists who say that we cannot rely upon a continued glut. In the United States a very serious effort is being made, on antitrust lines, which will allow conservation of resources and limitation of output, and therefore, the fixing of prices and a monopolistic price. It is quite possible that in eight or 10 years we may be back at 4s. a gallon for petrol, and that the price of oil fuel will go up, too. If we get cut short in that way, the whole country will suffer.

I want, very briefly, to go over the sources of supply. I am going to try to show the First Lord of the Admiralty how, if he displays the same efficiency, the same energy and vigour that he has shown in fighting for his ratios and tonnages and puts the same efficiency into this business, he can make us self-supporting in oil from our own coal in a few years' time. I start with the comparatively small but well-tried source of supply. Scottish shale. It is producing petrol now, which is being sold to the public, I believe. About 21 gallons are produced from a ton of shale, and can be produced with the existing plant at the rate of about 170,000 tons a year. That is very little compared with our requirements. I understand that the Scottish shale industry is suffering severely from the slump and the dumping of petrol from abroad, and that some of the plant has to close down. It simply does not pay. The Anglo-Persian owns the plant. Down in South Wales they are treating imported oil for the production of petrol and oil fuel, and it does not pay to go on with the shale. The wax is keeping them going at the present time, I understand. The shale supplies are not sufficient for our needs, but they are a valuable aid, and must be used and developed.

Then we have the high-temperature tar to which I have referred, and the low-temperature tar from the low-temperature process. From the point of view of obtaining oil fuel and motor spirit, both very necessary to the Navy, the low-temperature method is, of course, the most suitable. At the present time, we are producing on full work, about 24,000 tons of low-temperature tar from 260,000 tons of coal. The industry is fairly well established now, producing gas, coke and tar. From that tar you can produce petrol or crude oil, just as you please. The process must be developed enormously, to allow it to fill the gap. That means, of course, a greater use of smokeless fuel. The key to the problem is the 40,000,000 tons of raw coal which are burnt in the domestic grate, polluting the atmosphere and doing at least £40,000,000 damage and even more according to competent authorities.

Then there are the 60,000,000 tons of small coal and coal dust and slack which is lying wasted in the coal mines. A very great quantity of coal is too small or of too poor quality to be sold, and is left underground. My hon. Friend the Member for Springburn will be able to say more on that subject. The next thing to do is to explore really seriously the possibility of doing something to check the burning of raw coal in the present wasteful way. We cannot afford to do it. If you encourage the use of smokeless fuel from low-temperature methods, of course, you can use also the high-temperature coke in suitable grates as well—then you have more tar and you can get more oil. The First Lord of the Admiralty whispers a little jest to me. He is not sure that the people of this country would assist him. I believe they would if it were properly explained as being in the national interest. Well, I have made certain suggestions to the Board of Trade in the matter of smokeless fuel which, I understand, are going to be investigated. I do not think it is impossible.

Now we come to a very interesting question, the method of hydrogenation about which everyone is talking just now. The price of oil produced by hydrogenation, whether directly upon solid coal or indirectly upon the high-temperature or low-temperature tar, depends upon the cost of pure hydrogen. About that I have some doubts, and I would be very glad of information. My present information is that the price of pure hydrogen produced by the German Farben I.G. Industrie, who are a very great chemical firm, is about four pfennigs per cubic metre. That works out at 4d. per gallon of petrol produced by the hydrogenous process. Quite apart from the cost of the coal and the labour and other charges, there is a cost of 4d. per gallon. I understand that it is claimed that petrol can be produced at round about 9d. or 1s., or something in between, by hydrogenation. I speak of petrol because petrol is readily saleable, and has been described by the Research Board in their very admirable report. The production of petrol in this way has the advantage that in time of emergency the staff can be turned over to the production of oil fuel for the fleet and petrol for the aeroplanes or motor boats. High-temperature tar and low-temperature tar can be either hydrogenated or cracked by various processes.

There is another very interesting process by which steam and tar are injected into a retort of a special alloy, which acts as a catalyst. Hydrogen in steam produces spirit and oil from the tar. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Wandsworth (Major Church) knows this process, and it is certainly worthy of our attention. From high temperature tar we already produce benzol, which is a very valuable product and rather costly. From the 45,000,000 to 48,000,000 gallons per year of high temperature tar that is available, we could produce 32,000,000 gallons of motor fuel oil. Let me say a few words about hydrogenation. Briefly, its history is as follows. During the War the Germans had to get petrol from their own resources, and Bergius, a very distinguished German inventor, was given practically a free hand to develop the process of hydrogenation. It was only developed on a small scale in Germany because the German armies broke through Rumania, and obtained possession of the Rumanian oilfields. Therefore, it was not necessary to develop the process on a large scale. It was, however, kept alive and is kept alive to-day. Owing to the low world price of petrol the hydrogenation process in Germany is only just kept going.

It is sometimes said that the oil interests, and by that term I mean the producers and sellers of natural oil, are hostile to any movement being made to utilise our own coal resources to produce our own oil. I am, however, not quite sure that their hostility might be active. If they were given a hand in the distribution of the oil where they would make a profit, I think we should be able to get rid of any short-sighted hostility on their part. From the long-sighted point of view they would not be so foolish as to show hostility. I mention that, because it has been said that it is no good talking of this process or that process for the production of oil, because the natural oil interests are so powerful that they will stop it being done. Let them try. If we can make out our case, if research is continued further and the Admiralty get a move on, I do not believe that any vested interests will be allowed to stand in the way.

The Bergius process was rescued and kept alive so far as this country was concerned by our own Fuel Research Board. This is an important point, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will take note of it. The Fuel Research Board is the child of this House, paid for by public money, and it claims the credit of having kept alive this valuable process. Other countries have developed and improved the Bergius process, but the main credit is due to our own Fuel Research Board. That is a very good compliment to Government enterprise and Government research. Let me give a few details of the process. I mention this in order to show the extreme complexity of hydrogenation and the riskiness of it. You get the raw coal, powder it, and mix it with oil, which is the residue of the previous operation in the working of the apparatus. You then mix it with a powdered metal alloy to act as a catalyst. I should describe a catalyst as a substance which causes re actions between other substances without being affected itself. It acts, one might say, as the priest, marrying two substances, hydrogen and tar elements, to produce oil, or in certain cases, it divorces them.

Mr. HAYCOCK

A priest never divorces.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The resulting paste is then pumped into a bomb or steel cylinder under tremendous pressure with forced heat, pure hydrogen in applied, and you get after two or three treatments in a battery of bombs gas and oil, including petrol, which depends for its price very largely on the cost of pure hydrogen. From that process you can, I believe in practice, produce the greatest amount of petrol per ton of coal treated. The largest plant in operation in this country is a 10 tons of coal plant per day and the largest that I have seen is a one ton plant. A one thousand tons plant would cost a great many millions of pounds, and to put all your eggs into that basket is not very prudent. I am not trying to make out a case against hydrogenation. The process has gone a good deal further in the United States than in this country, where it has been used for treating natural tar. I am not at all convinced that there is not a great future for hydrogenating the substance that is produced from our own country's gas ovens, which has not yet been tried out, but I am looking at something far greater even than hydrogenating 1,000 tons a coal a day, which could not produce even the fuel oil that the Royal Navy requires.

The key of this problem is to be found in the 40,000,000 tons of raw coal that is burnt every year in our domestic grates and in the 60,000,000 tons of dust and slack which is wasted in the mines every year. In order to develop this great national product we shall have to use gas to a far greater extent than we do now for industrial purposes. I do not want to go into details—my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday) will do that—but investigations are going on with a view to a far greater use of gas, by means of the grid, or network. If we can use gas to a far greater extent than we do now we shall have more tar, and from the tar we can get more oil. I am not at all sure that the future electricity supplies of this country will not be most suitably and most economically produced by the use of gas industrially. If we could do what they are doing in Germany, we could use the rough gas from the blast furnaces in our coke ovens, and the gas from the latter could be used for industrial purposes. If we could develop a great gas industry, far greater than we have yet dreamt of in this country for industrial purposes, we should have more tar from which to produce more oil and thus make this country self-supporting as regards oil fuel and petrol, not only for the Fleet but for the whole country as well. I hope no one will quote the experience of the Gas Light and Coke Company in low temperature carbonisation. When you set a vegetarian to investigate mutton stew, you do not expect to get a very good result. There is undoubtedly rivalry between high and low temperature carbonisation, which is most unfortunate. If a tax of one-eighth of a penny was put on every gallon of imported petrol, which could not be passed on to the consumer, it would produce £500,000 a year, which could be the nucleus of a capital sum to be used for large scale experiments.

I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman has not utilised Rosyth dockyard for this purpose, and gone ahead with it. It is near the Scottish coalfields. He might also consider utilising Milford Haven, as I suggested 18 months ago. If he would bring his engineers and the practical men in the service of the Navy, the chemists and the technicians, and would utilise these derelict dockyards, put up plant for the production of oil fuel from coal, he would be doing something to solve the problem of unemployment and assist the passage of the Navy Estimates next year. This is a large subject and I make no apology for having gone into it rather fully. It is important, as everyone will agree who has studied the question at all. I have heard the capital expenditure for perhaps 10 or 12 years put at £200,000,000 to make us self-supporting in oil fuel. I do not know whether that figure is exact, but I can imagine right hon. Members on the Front Government Bench being rather shocked at the mention of a sum of £200,000,000. We have, however, spent £1,100,000,000 on armaments during the last 10 years, and the interest and Sinking Fund on £200,000,000, spread over 20 years, is only about £12,500,000 a year. We are spending that amount on keeping 200,000 miners unemployed. I ask the First Lord to do something for the coal-mining industry and for the miners.

I have dealt with the strategic and economic arguments. Let me now say a word on the human argument. The present Government have found the miners faithful allies in good times and in bad. They have been good fighters in trade unionism and they were good soldiers in the War. I want to do something to help them. The whole Labour movement, the trade union side, made splendid sacrifices in order to help the miners in certain circumstances in 1926, and this party supported those workers who were helping the miners. We have an opportunity now, when we are in office with the support of the great majority of the people of this country, to do something practical to help the miners. A case can be made out for doing it on strategic grounds. I ask the Government, who have now had two years in which to look at this problem—I know that the First Lord engaged himself very early on it, because I saw to that, and that he has applied himself with great seriousness to the question—to do something in this important matter. It requires clear thinking, great courage and great energy, and I hope that the Labour Government will provide all these in face of this urgent problem, a solution of which is so necessary for the prosperity of this great industrial country.

Mr. HAYDAY

I beg to second the Amendment

In my opinion, it is quite proper that this important question should be discussed on the Navy Estimates. The nation is dependent on the Navy in certain circumstances, and it is absolutely necessary that this country should utilise to the full its own resources. If there are resources at our disposal which can be developed and used and thus make us independent of the imported material, surely it is a patriotic act to take whatever steps are necessary in order that these resources should be developed to the full. There can be no question as to the practicability of the proposal, there may be a question as to comparative costs. But what are costs? Are they entirely measured in pounds, shillings and pence. There are other sides to the balance sheet so far as costs are concerned. There is the human material; and we have all the necessary materials and also the men. There is no shortage of either. Something, however, is keeping these two forces idle, they are not coming into contact in order to produce that which we desire.

On the other hand, vested interests might secure a stranglehold upon the essential supplies which are so necessary to us that on an occasion of emergency it may well be that the raw materials so abundant at the moment might be withheld from us in case of war. The development of oil supplies might also create an entirely new atmosphere and condition of things so far as the propelling power is concerned in the Navy and mercantile marine. As one who has shovelled coal into the glaring furnace I can well appreciate the difference in the conditions which now exist in the mercantile marine in the stokehold, and if we could only develop the resources that are available to such an extent that we are able not only to supply the needs of the Navy but the merchant service as well, it would in turn react upon the welfare of the people engaged in the production.

The Government have their research department and are going into this question of the scientific treatment of coal. A fuel research station can, of course, play a more prominent part in the practical development of this oil supply if only given impetus and encouragement by the Admiralty and the Government. I know that that station is run by capable fuel technologists, to whom we should ungrudgingly offer our praise for the work in which they are engaged in a somewhat restricted and handicapped way. As we have these very clever technologists we lack nothing in the way of science or personnel or raw material, and there should be a thorough try-out rather than the timid small-scale experiment which is going on. There should be no fear of running up against the vested interests which at the moment happen to hold the field, because the development of the fuel research station and its proper encouragement I am certain would prove a check upon the most extraordinary state of affairs that often occurs in connection with Stock Exchange quotations and promotions in many of the flotations that are taking place.

I feel certain that on sentimental grounds the appeal that I am making is not falling on deaf ears, but if only the Government would give a little more than general assent and sympathy to what we are urging and would give the practical push that is so desirable in the matter, from this Debate there might easily arise a great economic development that would create a new industry in this country. That in its turn would affect the comfort of the householder and of those who are now unemployed. I would like to see arising out of this fuel and power investigation and out of discussion of the methods of producing oil from the raw material, a little more order brought and less of the chaos and competition that appears to prevail.

At the moment we have the great gas industry engaged in the carbonisation [...]f the raw material for light or heat. We have great electricity undertakings using the same raw material. Why can there not be more united action in connection with all fuel-producing methods? Why should there not be, under one head, a general survey of the whole of these complicated industries, which at the moment are engaged in active competition with each other? All the time lost in competition means a loss of valuable opportunities for the nation itself. There are three methods of dealing with coal—high temperature carbonisation, low temperature carbonisation and hydrogenation. High temperature carbonisation is used mainly in the production of gas and coal tar, and we know that from tar many very valuable products flow. But there is at the moment a glut of tar as a subsidiary product of the high temperature carbonisation for gas, and it is not, being used for the purpose of obtaining a very valuable material that is readily available. We know that in the main it is used for the purpose of tarring roads or in tar macadam—

9.0 p.m.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Dunnico)

I allowed the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) rather wide latitude. It appears to me that the hon. Member is now emphasising the national production of this oil, whereas the Amendment deals merely with the Navy's use of oil, so that the industry might develop. While I recognise that it is perhaps essential to go into some detail, the Amendment before the House refers to the use of oil by the Navy, and it will not be in order to go into the larger question of the Government promotion of a great national industry.

Mr. HAYDAY

I would draw attention to the terms of the Amendment. The first part of it calls attention to the question of the supply of oil fuel to the Royal Navy, but the latter parts state that, "it is desirable for strategic and economic reasons and to help in providing employment that energetic steps be taken to encourage the use of oil fuel from our own coal."

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The real substance of the Amendment is the encouragement of the use of oil fuel from a specified source in the Royal Navy. That is the primary object of the Amendment. I agree that it may be necessary to give illustrations of a detailed character, but it appears to me that the primary is now becoming the secondary in this discussion.

Mr. HAYDAY

On the question of employment we say that instead of the Royal Navy utilising imported fuel it ought to produce, or assist in the production of, oil from our own coal. That is the economic side of this Amendment. I need not do more than put this point. I may be asked, what volume of oil could be produced, by the use of our own coal in this way. I think, by what is known as the low-temperature carbonisation process, it is possible to produce from 16 gallons to 20 gallons of oil per ton of coal, and figures have been given to me which go to show that the treatment of one ton of coal by the hydrogenation process, would result in 120 gallons to 130 gallons of petrol. Thus one can see that it is within the bounds of reasonable possibility to produce, by the proper treatment of our own coal, a supply on a sufficiently large scale to meet the Navy's requirements. I re-echo what has been said by my hon. and gallant Friend who moved this Amendment that the Navy is dependent on this oil supply, and that the country is dependent on the Navy. The country's shipping is of the first importance, and it is false economy to say that, because imported oil is at its present price, when it is a glut on the market, that is a reason against developing our own resources and providing the required volume of oil from our own raw material.

I cannot see the force of that argument. If, as we know, there are 250,000 miners unemployed; if, as we know, there are new schemes for low-temperature carbonisation plants at pit-heads, in order to give bulk supplies of gas and treat the residue; if, as we know, there is a trust or undertaking pursuing very successful developments in connection with hydrogenation and the production of oil from our own raw material by this means; if, as we know, the fine powder coal which has no market value at present would have a very great value in this respect—then, why should not the Government of the day itself, instead of subsidising private undertakings to continue this research, themselves undertake large-scale research? The ultimate purpose of the Government should be to utilise our own resources to the full for the Navy and for the country, and to secure us against the necessity for requiring any outside assistance in the provision of this essential material. I second this Amendment in the hope that the Admiralty will press forward with all possible measures for the utilisation of coal in the production of oil for the Navy.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH

I rise with great pleasure to support in almost every particular what has been said from the other side on this subject, and I con- gratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) and the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday) on their speeches. I shall try not to be too tediously technical in dealing with this subject, but to some extent technicalities are vital in the consideration of this matter. Since 1911 this question has been before the country, and at present we are within measurable distance of providing the necessary supplies of oil, both light and heavy, from our own coal. In fact, this evening we are having a very timely discussion on a vital national issue. Although the Admiralty Vote is in some respects a suitable one on which to raise the question, this is, more properly, a matter on which the Cabinet as a whole should make a decision, and I feel very strongly that we have allowed things to slide for years, in connection with this subject, without coming to a decision. To-day I put a question to the Secretary for Mines on the matter, and although it is the custom in this House to provide, I will not say evasive but rather jejune answers to questions, the reply, which was to the effect that the Government had the subject under constant review but at present had no specific proposal to report, struck me as a very vague and insufficient answer to a very important question. Therefore, I am glad that we have the opportunity of ventilating it more fully this evening.

We run the gravest risks in relying as we do on getting our oil supply for the Navy from oversea. If we have the slightest imagination, we must realise the difficulties which would arise if the oil supply from the United States which is now something like 75 per cent. of the world supply were cut off. That, in itself is a sufficient risk, but one has also to remember that the oil which comes from Iraq has to cross hundreds of miles of desert, and one can easily imagine how sabotage or injury of one kind or another could be effected on the pipe-lines which even now are a source of constant international friction. I realise to the full the tragedy, as I would term it, of the finances of this question and the difficulty at a time when the country is labouring under great financial stress of asking for more money. But I think we are justified in considering ways and means of raising sufficient money, whereby the uneconomic aspect of this question can be met, and the effort to meet a great national issue can be supported by State financial assistance. I make this plea, and I am sure the Admiralty would agree with me in it, that any extra cost involved ought not to be allowed to fall on the Admiralty Vote. If oil is to be provided from our own coal, it would not be fair for reasons which I need not go into now that the cost should be allotted in that way.

Apropos of the answer given to me this afternoon, I was, as I have said, a little disappointed at its vagueness, because I know that a great scheme is on foot, that people with great ideas and plenty of money are practically ready to further this scheme and to do great things for it. I know that the capital is ready, and although it may be private enterprise, at any rate there are great prospects that it will have a great success. The technical situation is extremely hopeful and is becoming more and more hopeful as the years go on. There is the alleged myth that you cannot provide the necessary oil from British coal. I am not quite certain where that myth comes from, but I know of one or more instances, and they are of people whose one ambition it is to put the clock back. It is a genuine fact, technical and practical, that the necessary oil can be got from British coal, and in fact the hydrogenation system of dealing with coal, it is possible to get very nearly so per cent. of a ton of coal in the form of a tarlike oil, from which other and more suitable oils, light and heavy, can be produced; and the modified processes of that particular Bergius system are showing signs of great improvement already, with even better results.

There is the low temperature carbonisation which has been referred to, and I do not want to go into detail except to remind the House that low temperature carbonisation, when we get it, will provide not only a certain proportion of the oil which is under discussion, but it will also have the inestimable value of providing us with a considerable amount of a very perfect form of smokeless fuel, with the result that, if we can get it at an economic price, and get it used either by law or because people like it, we shall kill two birds with one stone, because we shall get oil for merchant ships and men of war, and we shall also reduce the tragedy and the terrible danger of the smokiness of our atmosphere in this country. Therefore, we shall get several things if we can only utilise our own resources, which have been so wastefully handled for so many years.

I think it is perhaps wise and desirable to mention that our coal in this country is so good that it is not so easy to handle in producing oil as certain other kinds of coal. We have first class black coal here, and in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent they have another kind of coal, a brown coal, and that brown coal is very much better for the production of oil than is our own black coal. However, we can still deal with our own. It is rather a curious commentary that in America, which provides well over 70 per cent. of the world's product of oil, they came to the conclusion some years ago that it might run out and that they must develop the principle and the system of providing oil from their own coal. It is also of interest to realise the immense growth in the world production of oil. In fact, in the nine years from 1920 to 1929 the world output of oil has gone up from 95,000,000 tons to 207,000,000 tons, or 117 per cent., which only goes to show the way in which we are increasingly binding ourselves to the use of oil, without considering the magnificient gifts that nature has made to the country.

I would remind the House of the extraordinary growth in the aviation services of this country, private and otherwise, and that something like 10 per cent. of the total petrol spirit used is used in aeroplanes in this country. With regard to the subject of lubricants, lubricating oil is the most difficult to supply or provide by the treatment of this coal. To return to the ever increasing use of oil, there were in 1929 something like 33,000,000 tons of our mercantile marine using it, and that is something like a third of the merchant navy, and there are far more building for oil at the present time than for coal. Although this Amendment deals directly with oil for the Navy, we have to remember that the Navy has, among others, a great duty to perform, and that is the protection of the merchant fleet, which could not run unless it had oil on which to run. Therefore, the two things are very closely interlocked. The Navy uses in the neighbourhood of 750,000 tons of oil in peace time, and of course a great deal more oil is used for the merchant service and many other purposes—something like 1,000,000 tons for general purposes outside the Navy—and the coal we are using now is something like 70,000,000 tons a year for mercantile purposes.

I want, as an officer who has had a good deal to do with oil-burning ships and coal-burning ships, to mention that I had the honour to command two ships during the War, one of which used 1,000 tons of coal a week and the other 300 or 400 tons of oil a week. In the one case it took 800 or 900 men 24 hours of the veriest slavery to get that coal into the ship, and in the other case it took five men out of our complement of 400 to get the whole of the oil into the ship in a few hours. I think that is a picture in words that will appeal to any who have handled, as I have for many weary hours, the navigator shovel on a man-of-war. Many of my hon. Friends opposite are desperately and keenly concerned with the production of coal and the employment of people to produce it, but I would ask them not to pin their faith on pulverised fuel or coal in any form for the Navy. The Navy can never go back from oil to coal in any form at all. We should reduce the distance that the ship could steam, taking an individual ship, by something like 50 per cent., which is serious enough. We should reduce the power that we now obtain by oil, if we went back to coal, by something like 50 per cent.

It has been pointed out that it takes double the number of men to work the coal into the furnaces in a man-of-war that it does to work the same furnaces with oil. With coal you have dirt, damage, and danger, and if any hon. Member was interested to call for a return of the injuries and deaths that occurred among the personnel of the Navy during the 10 years before the War, in the days of keen competition in rapid coaling, he would be astonished at the death and damage roll that fell upon the personnel of the Navy in consesquence of the use of coal. It was not for nothing that in a battleship during the War, over the entry port of the ship, there was placed a navigator shovel, burnished and beautifully polished, that had written over it, "Lest we forget." It was, of course, an oil-burning ship.

The conclusions, roughly, in regard to this matter are as follow: We are thoroughly unsafe in this country in depending on external supplies of coal. The difficulty with the submarines has been mentioned, and that is a very serious danger. The storage, of which we have a good deal at present—one might say we have not got enough—is not by any manner of means anything more than a very moderate safeguard. We do not know how long the troubles will last. Let us hope that they will not come about, but if they do, and we have not sufficient storage and the factories, we shall be in a very serious position. We have no right to wait for the emergency before we erect our factories to deal with the problem. The question was raised very seriously in 1918, and the curious thing was that though we wanted the fuel desperately badly, or at least might have, the immediate answer was that we had not the men to build the factories or machinery to deal with them after they had been erected, because everybody was busy doing something else. Therefore the wrong time to do work of that kind is during an emergency. Now is the time to deal with it.

The cost of the insurance, as it would be, for the safety of the Fleet, and the protection of the country and our mercantile marine, would be well worth while for the State to accept. I say nothing about the joy we should engender in the hearts of the people who are out of work in the coalfields. That is one of the most important aspects. In the high temperature carbonisation you already destroy, by destructive distilling, coal amounting to something like 36,000,000 tons a year, and I see not the smallest reason why machinery should not be erected for the handling of millions of tons of coal for the purpose of producing this oil. There are many more things which could be said, but I am anxious to hear the views of trade union members who are concerned with the lives and work of the coal miners. Finally, I would say that the dependence of the Navy on foreign fuel is absolute and a very dangerous thing. I should like to see the same energy exerted in this matter as was exerted by the men and women of the country during the War in the production of munitions. At the very most I am quite confident we have very little more than, if as much as, a year's reserve for the whole Navy in the way of oil. That is a small reserve if the supply is cut off the day that war breaks out.

I make an appeal to the Government, not only to the Civil Lord who has made a great study of this question but to the Government themselves, not to let things go on, but to publish the facts and let the public know where we stand in this extremely important matter. At the present time it is true to say that we really know very little about it. We shall know more about it at the end of the Debate, but not as much as we ought to know. I do not want to see another Royal Commission, but the public have a right to know more than they know now. I ask the Government, who, I have no doubt, realise that they have to a great extent failed in regard to the provision of employment, not to rely on "rotten parchment bonds" for the protection of this country in time of war. Treaties, agreements and pacts with foreign Powers will not help us. We must protect ourselves and produce our own oil from our own coal. I ask the Government to face up to this question, so that they may go down to history with one great lasting achievement, namely, that they have brought prosperity, happiness and health to the nation, and prosperity and happiness to what at present is almost a moribund industry, namely, the coal industry. Let them remember that the nation have a right to know the facts, and let them act in this matter at once.

Mr. GORDON MACDONALD

I rise to support the Amendment, and to extend my thanks to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) for bringing it forward, and also to the last speaker for his kind references to the industry in which I am most interested. We are interested in the matter from two aspects. We realise that the use of oil by the Navy reduces the demand for coal by the Navy. If it is the policy of the Admiralty to increase the use of oil, then we ought to advocate the policy of getting oil from the coal of this country; otherwise, it will mean that the coal industry will be very badly hit indeed. I noticed that the First Lord, when he spoke a year ago on the Estimates, made this statement: It would be a great advantage from the Admiralty point of view if we could provide in this country a natural reserve of oil fuel, without having to build up at heavy capital cost fuel reserves purchased from overseas."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1930; col. 1745, Vol. 236.] The hon. and gallant Member's purpose in bringing forward this Amendment was to avoid the building up of these great reserves. As far back as 1924 a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) laid it down that the Government of the day should go into the question. They said: Liquid fuel can be obtained from coal, and every million tons of coal carbonised by suitable methods will produce 15,000,000 gallons, or possibly more, liquid oil. The grades of oil produced would not necessarily correspond exactly to those now imported, but if it were possible to subject to those processes the bulk of the 147,000,000 tons of coal now consumed in the raw state, the greater part, at least, of our present requirements of oil could be produced from home sources instead of being imported from abroad. We know that at the moment the consumption of coal by the Navy is 25 per cent. lower than it was two years ago. I tried to ascertain from the First Lord this afternoon what amount of coal had been used by the Navy in the last three years. He told us that in 1928 it was 247,000 tons; in 1929 it was 208,000 tons; and in 1930 it was 182,000 tons. That is a reduction of 25 per cent. in two years. If something is not done to check this, it will mean an increase in unemployment in the mining industry, and I am quite sure that every Member does think to-day that the number of unemployed, 300,000, in the industry is quite sufficient. I also asked the right hon. Gentleman to tell me the quantity of oil used by the British Navy, but his answer was that it would not be desirable in the national interests to furnish information as to the total quantities of oil fuel consumed. Last week the Minister of Mines did tell us that the amount of petrol imported into this country was very substantial, and increasing year by year. He told us that in 1928 the quantity imported was 735,000,000 gallons; in 1929, 810,000,000 gallons; and in 1930, 955,000,000 gallons. We in the industry feel that it has been proved by experiments that suitable oil can be extracted from the coal of this country for the use of the Navy.

We shall be told that it is doubtful whether it is an economic proposition. In judging whether it is an economic proposition, I hope that the Civil Lord, the Admiralty and the Government will not look at it entirely from the point of view of the cost of production. We have to consider that, if we extract oil from coal, it increases the demand for coal in this country, and, by increasing the demand, it provides increased employment, and thus takes a large proportion of people from the Employment Exchanges. I hope that the economic aspect will not be judged from too narrow a point of view. All we in the mining industry ask is that, since the using of oil decreases the demand for coal, since reducing the demand for coal creates unemployment, and since oil of a satisfactory nature can be produced from coal, is it not economic for the Government to take such steps as are necessary to increase the supply of oil from coal and lessen the supply of oil from abroad? We in the mining industry are pleased that this Amendment has been brought forward, and we expect the Admiralty to do all that they can to encourage the production of oil from coal in this country.

The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. H. Hall)

The hon. and gallant Member who introduced this Amendment referred to the fact that this was the thirteenth Naval Debate in which he has participated. The thirteenth Debate in which he has participated has brought him good luck, for the Government are quite prepared to accept his Amendment. We are very largely in agreement with what it contains. I know of no more fascinating and important subject than the question which has been debated this evening. We must all admit the importance of it, because the substitution of oil not only for coal fuel in the Navy, but for power production generally, strikes at the very heart of one of the greatest industries in this country. The substitution of oil for coal which has taken place so widely in so many different forms of machinery in recent years has raised a problem of the first moment as regards both naval propulsion and the general problem of power production. References have been made to the growing increase in the use of oil and in the production of oil. No reference has been made to the almost stationary world output of coal. We can go so far as to say that the very large increase in the world's output of oil for power production is one of the main factors in the great depression which exists in the mining industry in this and other countries.

I was somewhat alarmed in going through the figures of the importation of oil into this country for last year. We have almost reached the figure of 2,000,000,000 gallons of oil of all kinds imported into this country; 75 per cent. of that oil was motor spirit and fuel oil, the total cost of which to this nation was no less than £42,000,000, an increase in two years of something like £8,000,000. The substitution of oil for fuel—one regrets saying this, but we must face facts—must be accepted as a positive tendency of to-day and I am afraid there can be no turning back. An eminent authority in the world of naval engineering has recently pointed out that the use of oil fuel is no new thing. Experiments with creosote were carried out as far back as 1867, while it is on record that a ship called "Gretsia," owned by the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company, was fitted to burn oil fuel in 1881. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Bromley) will know that in 1886 locomotives on the Great Eastern Railway were fitted to burn oil fuel, but, fortunately for the mining industry, the scheme was not carried out. The present form of mechanical atomisation dates from 1902, and the great step which was taken in 1912 has really changed the whole position, as far as the Navy is concerned, as a result of the report of the Fisher Committee. There has been no turning hack, and from that time not only the British Navy, but foreign navies, have largely become oil-burning in place of coal-burning.

To one who, like myself, comes from a coalfield where it is admitted the finest steam coal in the world is produced, and who represents a constituency where very large supplies of coal were produced for the Navy before the change took place, and from which the very small proportion of coal which is used at the present time comes, this is not a very pleasing view. I am a coal man who believes in coal, but at the same time I have to face the situation that at the present time the British Navy is using only about one-tenth of the coal which it used in pre-War days. Whole collieries in my Division were occupied continuously at work in sending coal to the British Navy, and to a number of the large liners which plied between this and other countries. One of the outstanding features of his Debate is that none of the Members who have taken part in it has suggested for a moment that the Navy should go back to coal. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) said that the Navy, as far as he could see, could not go back to coal or even take pulverised fuel. That is the general opinion of most naval officers and engineers. Some naval officers argue that it is better for the Navy to go back to coal, but that opinion is not generally held.

Much as I regret saying this, I can see no possible prospect of the Navy going back to coal, the advantages of the use of oil fuel over coal being so patent. Some of them were given by my hon. and gallant Friend. He referred to the increased endurance. The increased endurance for a given weight of fuel is in the ratio of 16 to 10. Then there is the very large reduction in the weight of machinery and boilers. Then, again, while the indicated horse-power of the Fleet at the present time has greatly increased by comparison with 1914, at the same time a considerable reduction in the number of stoker ratings has taken place. In 1914, when the Navy was very largely coal fired, there were more than 39,000 stoker ratings, and the latest figures show that the number of stoker ratings is now 18,355. Everyone who examines those figures is bound to admit that from the point of view of economy of personnel oil has a considerable superiority over coal. Another advantage is to be found in the shorter time required to fuel a vessel. Coal can be taken aboard at the rate of 250 tons an hour with the whole ship's company engaged in the work, whereas 500 to 700 tons of oil can be taken aboard per hour with only about six men engaged. There is also the factor of the comfort of the personnel of the ship; this can be improved as the result of the greater space that is available.

In all classes of warships the British Navy is practically all oil burning, as is the case with foreign navies; and, in addition, something like 33 per cent. of the vessels of the mercantile marine are also oil burning. In the new construction for the mercantile marine oil-burning ships and motor ships represent something like 50 per cent. Whilst the superiority of oil over coal is seldom seriously disputed, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that not only the Navy, but also the country, has been the loser by the change, because the source of our fuel supply is now no longer within our shores and we are absolutely dependent for fuel upon countries overseas. With the exception of creosote and shale oil, we produce little or no oil from natural sources in this country, and it is also true that less than 2 per cent. of the oil resources of the world are within the British Empire. Therefore, this is a matter of vital importance not only for the Navy but for this country and for the whole Empire. My hon. and gallant Friend asked that we should do all we can to encourage the production of shale oil. The Admiralty have from time to time done what they could to assist the shale oil industry of Scotland. In 1930–31 we inquired about possible purchase from them of some 20,000 tons of that oil, which is very suitable for a certain kind of engine used in the Navy. Instead of quoting a price for the supply of 20,000 tons of oil they offered us only 5,000 tons, and that at a price which could not be considered, and we had to seek the oil elsewhere and bring it in from another country.

Both the Admiralty and the Government are well aware of the dangers arising from, the fact that our sources of fuel supply are not in this country, and that our fuel must come to us over thousands of miles of sea routes. Most of our difficulties could be solved if we could use our own coal to produce oil, but I am afraid that if I were to enter fully into that question I should suffer the fate of one of my hon. Friends who was asked by the Deputy-Speaker not to deal with the production of oil, as it did not come strictly within the terms of the Resolution. All I can say is that the Fuel Research Department are devoting, and have devoted, a good deal of energy and a good deal of money to this question, and close touch is being maintained with the Mines Department and the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research with a view to a mutual interchange of information. Production, however, does not fall to the duty of the Admiralty. That is a large question of Government policy, and the appropriate Department will have to be approached for a decision upon it. Questions were put to my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines only yesterday, and in reply he said that he was giving careful consideration to whether anything further could usefully be done to expedite the development of these processes. We must take it, therefore, that the Government are still considering the position.

The scientific treatment of coal is proceeding along four lines. First, there is the conversion of coal into pulverised fuel; secondly, there is high-temperature carbonisation, which gives a certain amount of creosote oils; then there is hydrogenation, to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred at considerable length; and, fourthly, there is the process, which I think I am correct in saying is by far the most talked of in this country, of low-temperature carbonisation. I will deal with each process briefly. With regard to pulverised fuel, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes came down quite definitely on one side when he said that he could see no prospect of the Fleet reverting to coal or to pulverised coal as a substitute for oil fuel. I must admit that the use of pulverised fuel for naval purposes is not regarded as very promising at the present time. The progress which was made sonic four years ago in the mercantile marine has not been generally sustained.

There are difficulties as regards the disposal of ash. In the mercantile marine there is a tendency to introduce mechanical stokers rather than to use pulverised fuel. As regard both the mercantile marine and shore plant development, work is in progress both in private concerns and in the Fuel Research Department. I think there are some 23 ships in the world using pulverised fuel with varying success. Two British ships adopted this new method last year, although it is only fair to say that at the same time two British ships reverted to hand-firing because of the difficulties which were experienced with pulverised fuel.

One of the difficulties of the use of pulverised fuel is that you cannot store it conveniently owing to the danger of combustion. While it is all right for shore establishments where no consideration is needed for weight and space, it is quite different in the case of a battleship, where these considerations are very important where your store of coal takes up more room than oil. Besides this, you must have a pulverising plant, which adds considerably to the space needed, which is such a vital question in a man-of-war.

The second method is high-temperature carbonisation, the by-product of which for our purposes is creosote. It is true to say that during 1930 in this country no less than 32,000 tons of creosote were produced, and it is agreed that in an emergency that amount could be increased to 500,000 tons. We purchased during the War nearly 300,000 tons of creosote, and since the War we have purchased 209,000 tons, but that does not say that creosote is best for the requirements of the Navy. Creosote contains a considerable proportion of naphthalene which under low temperature conditions is liable to be deposited. When we use creosote, then we have to mix it with petroleum oils owing to the defects which I have just described. There is also a certain amount of anthracene contained in the creosote, and that is injurious to the health of the people who use it.

Reference has been made to the hydrogenation process for the treatment of coal in America.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

When I referred to hydrogenation in the United States of America I was meaning particularly the treatment of crude natural oil rather than coal. Here the Americans have great experience, and are technically more experienced than we are as yet.

Mr. HALL

That process is all right if you want to produce petrol, but I can assure hon. Members that if they knew the experience of the Admiralty in this matter they would not stress so much the question of the Admiralty adopting this process for the purpose of producing the small quantity of petrol used by the Admiralty.

10.0 p.m.

The Admiralty is doing all it can with regard to the testing of oils whether they are produced by the hydrogenation process or by the low temperature carbonisation process. We have received supplies from one of the best known companies who deal with hydrogenation in this country, and tests have been carried out in internal combustion engines at the Admiralty Engineering Laboratory, with results so satisfactory that we have asked the same company to send 1,000 gallons of this oil for further trials, and the Admiralty are doing all they can to give this oil a thorough test.

With regard to low temperature carbonisation, the treatment of coal by this process has been carried out in many places at home and abroad. I am not going to deal with the technical difficulties which arise as a result of the treatment in large quantities by the process of low temperature carbonisation, but in this process it must be remembered that we have not only a by-product of oil, but also a number of gases and other by-products, which are in competition with other products produced in this country. Before you can produce very large quantities of oils by a process of low temperature carbonisation, you have to produce and find a market for large quantities of low temperature coke and other by-products. During the last 18 months or two years the Admiralty has done quite good work with regard to the question of the production of oil from this process of low temperature carbonisation. We have made inquiries from any and every undertaking that looked like supplying our requirements with regard to samples of oil for tests in the laboratory, and samples which can be burned at the test station at Hasler and also on board ship.

Twelve of these samples were tested, and it is true to say that eight were satisfactory. We have asked that the firms making these samples should send us along further quantities of 20 tons of oil, so that we can follow up our tests at the laboratory and on board ship. We have received five of these samples, and all were satisfactory but one. We have placed orders for one more lot, and we are negotiating for another lot of 20 tons to be sent along. We have burned these oils unmixed with any other oil, and we have tried them blended with various other oils, imported from all parts of the world. We have blended them in the proportion of two to one, one to one, and one to two, and we are satisfied that we could burn any quantity of this oil similar to the samples when the supply is available. Of course, the amount depends upon the firm's success in obtaining a market for the by-products of low temperature carbonisation, particularly smokeless fuel, which have already been referred to, because the market for the other products controls the price at which the oil can be sold.

Much has been said with regard to the question of an economic price, and I should be the last person to stand upon this question of economic prices in view of what the possibility of a supply of oil from coal would mean to the men employed in the mining industry; but when the price of oil obtained by a process of this kind is two, three and four times the price which is being paid for oil at the present moment, it is obvious that some thought must be given to the question of an economic price. Already we have had submitted to us a considerable bulk purchase at a price not vastly in excess of that which we are paying at the present time, and the Admiralty is considering the question of purchasing this low temperature carbonisation oil.

We have now overcome many of our initial difficulties. I well remember the present Leader of the Opposition, speaking on this question of low temperature carbonisation in 1925, saying at this Box: The time has not come yet when a commercial process has been successfully devised. It will come. It may come soon; it may be in a few years; but it is as certain as that we are standing and sitting in this House this afternoon that what has proved successful in the laboratory will be proved successful commercially; and, when that day comes, although what is discovered in the laboratories must be the common property of the science of the whole world, yet it will give to this country probably the greatest push forward and development that it has had since the discovery of steam. We believe in that, and my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy and his staff have done all that they could during the last 18 months or two years in the investigation of this matter. While there is much that is doubtful with regard to this development—no one can foretell the trend of world prices, and it may be that an excessive overproduction of oil abroad may prove a heavy handicap to firms engaged in production at home—it can be said with confidence that the chemical difficulty of producing from coal a fuel oil fit for use in His Majesty's ships is a thing of the past, and I hope that in the very near future it will be possible to obtain supplies of oil from our coal at a price which will give a tremendous fillip to the coal industry of this country. We must remember, too, that the whole industrial life of this nation depends upon supplies of these power-producing commodities. So far as the Admiralty is concerned, we are prepared at all times to test any oils produced by any process whatsoever, including even lubricating oils, to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred. If there is a firm who think that they have a suitable kind of oil, we are prepared to test it, both in the laboratory and in trial runs, and to negotiate in regard to its purchase, provided always that such oil can be produced at an economic price.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for his reply. I recognise that this question is outside the purview of the Admiralty, and, therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Supply accordingly considered in Committee.

[Sir ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]