STANDARD OIL TRUST.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1197, 4 August 1911, Page 5

STANDARD OIL TRUST.

« ITS" DISSOLUTION" ARRANGED liy TclccraDtt-l'ress Association-Conyriehl New York, August 2. The.Standard Oil Company, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court ordering its dissolution, has docided to dissolve thirty-five subsidiary companies, Tho method followed is to distribute tho stock of the subsidiary companies among the parent company's shareholders. Financiers declare that, although the law is observed, tho trust is no less a trust than as before. THE FUTURE OF THE "TRUSTS." Writing in the London "Moraine Post" of the Standard Oil dscirion, Mr. A. .Mauneo Low, tho well-known American journalist, said: " "Exactly what the company will do to obey tho Court's decree has not yet been announced, but.it is the general opinion that the constituent companies will be given a separate corporate entity, and each company will be managed as" an independent concorn, so that Mr. John I). Rockefeller, who is the principal stockholder in the Standard Oil Company, will nave shares in a great many separate oil companies. Thero is no law to prevent a man investing his money where he pleases. Mr. Rockefeller can hold shares ill one or a dozen oil companies, and he will not have violated tho law. Tho public at present does not see that much has been gained by this decision, although i> is beginning to ask whether a dozen companies, each under separate management, can transact business as cheaply and efficiently as one great concern. If the result of this decision is to increase tho price of oil or gasolene, the public, in its usual ficklo fashion, will come to look upon .Mr. Rockefeller as a' martyr instead of a monster. ' "But tho question that is. perhaps, of most interest, is whether'this decision is the end of tho senseless agitation n'gainst the 'trusts' or is the beginning of a new and'even Jiercor campaign. Whether 'trusts' are good or bad, the fact is now recognised by every .sensible man that the 'trust , system of doing business is a development of modern methods that cannot be destroyed. In its operation it may lead to abuses—which it is the duty'of tho law to correct—but it is founded on correct principles. It is cheaper to work a thousand men under ona mann(?finent than tho same number under ten different and competing managements: the old belief that competition is tho life of trade is now exploded. Co-operation, not competition, is fclie life of trade, for l»y co-opern-tion trade can be increased and cheapened without unduly sacrificing profits. "The charge brought ngninst the 'trusts' is that they have crushed out the smnll man. Who has neither tho capital nor the intelligence to enable him to compete with the 'trust' with its great resources and hiirhly-orsjaniwd forces. This is no doubt true, but dn?s tho public lose by the operation? The Standard Oil has lowered the price of oil to the consumer, improved its quality, and mado it more easily obtained, nil of which is in tho direct interest of tho public. It will probably be found that "the snmo improvement lias been made in every commodity contTollcd by a .'trust.' Tt is finite natural that a concern with abundant capital and doinsr business on a lareo scale can afford to pay more for brains, and, therefore, mnkn a bettor and cheaper article than the man who does business on a limited scale, and must content himself with less skilled assistance. The smnll manufacturer mnv ho crushed out, which is unfortunate for him, but the public oimht not to rognrd that as an unmitigated, evil. It is the old law of the survival Cf the fittest."