In January 1944 the late president Roosevelt in a message on oil to the congress made the statement: "The concerted action of the nations of the world for the expansion of production, tle elimination of discriminatory treatment in commerce and the reduction of economic barriers will assure for the U.S.A. and other nations equal and just access to the oil produced in all parts of the world." This statement as significant to-day as seven years ago will have to come to reality for the benefit of those nations which have no oil in their own territory and for which the daily needs for oil and oil products are of the same importance for their economy as in oil producing countries.
Au mois de janvier 1944, dans un message sur le pétrole adressé au Congrès, feu le Président Roosevelt déclara: "L'action concertée des nations du monde pour assurer l'expansion de la production, l'élimination de traitements discriminatoires dans le commerce et la réduction de barrières économiques permettra en égale mesure et à juste titre aux Etats-Unis et aux autres nations d'avoir accès 'lu pétrole produit dans toutes les parties du monde".
Cette déclaration, qui est aussi importante de nos jours qu'il y a sept années, devra se réaliser au profit des nations qui ne disposent pas de pétrole dans leur propre territoire et dont les besoins journaliers de pétrole et de produits pétroliers importent autant à leur économie que cela est le cas pour les pays producteurs de pétrole.
All of us who, in the last thirty or forty years, have devoted our best efforts to the development of the vast field of activity that oil has come to mean, whether in research, processing or distribution, will no doubt often have pondered over the immense responsibility that goes with our daily work of helping to develop natural resources and of h'elping to employ those resources to the best advantage.
Precisely because hardly anything in that woiik of development could be carried out to a very great extent without oil intervening in some form or other.
And this is true of all parts of the world.
The space allotted to each of us in this gathering will not permit more than a very limited presentation of subjects; but for the question I wish to submit, I do not believe that more than the enunciate will be required, since conditions are too well known to all of us to allow any room for doubt as to the existence of a problem which, sooner or later, must be dealt with.
There were recently published certain estimates of the production of oil throughout the world which, while presenting the very interesting feature of confirming great prospects for certain areas of the earth's surface, emphasized the ever-growing problem of that "just and equal access to the oil produced in all parts of the world for all peace-loving nations.
Some of us may reco
