DEFIED ROCKFELLER

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 220, 13 June 1936, Page 24

DEFIED ROCKFELLER

Rival Magnate’s Rise A massive, white-haired, robust man received, in his Windsor home recently, hundreds of messages of birthday congratulation. He was Sir Henri Deterding. the outstanding figure in one of the world's, greatest industries—oilThe story of the rise of this young Dutchman to be a great factor in the evervday life of the world is one of the most romantic stories of individual enterprise of this century. The power of Sir Henri Deterding dates from the day when he allied his enterprises with the British Empire. It is a thrilling ami dramatic story. The key-date is June, 1903, when the Royal Dutch oil company, a tiny Far Eastern enterprise which Deterding had been directing for three years, merged with the Rothschild interests of Paris and the merchant firm of Shell, then controlled by Marcus Samuel, who later became Lord Bearstead. Then began a fierce light lor the oil welis' and the oil markets of the world The enemy was the American Standard Oil Company, reinforced by John I). Rockefeller’s billion dollars, America’s naval might and the political power of Washington. If the Anglo-Dutch firm could survive that attack, they could survive anything. , They did survive. They triumphed They grew into an international trust whose power is to-day as great as the Rockefeller trust itself; and their leader, the Dutchman, to-day wields as much power ap Rockefeller did in his prime When the epoch-making decision was arrived at before the war to put -the British Navy on oil instead of coal it was this dynamic Dutchman who triumphed over the leaders of Britain s greatest heavy industry. For his services to the country in the war he was knighted—one of the very few foreigners to be so honoured.

Sir Henri is not an Englishman, as many believe; he has never been naturalised, but remains a good and loyal subject—her most powerful—of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. His huge interests, comprising aS they do a vast trust merging over 140 companies and involving perhaps a thousand million pounds, anchor Holland to this country as l nothing else could do.

lie is an intimate friend of Roosevelt —;i nl i of Mussolini. He has had an interview with His Holiness the PopeHis financial knowledge is stupendous. He knows every detail of the transactions of every company with which he is associated ; follows every new development in every market with the minutest attention. He can get the essential facts of any involved bal-ance-sheet with a quick glance. Sir Henri to-day is a man of vast wealth —at least £25,000 000. He has a fiat, a home in Switzerland, a lovely county estate near Ascot; he takes a dip in ley water every morning, loves hunting, likes Britain. His eldest son is a farmer in Norfolk, uninterested in oil, and more English than the English. From a great circular desk in a hug* block in Bishopsgate Sir Henri rules autocratically his great Empire. He lias marked out a young Dutch executive, J. B. A. Kessler, as his “Crown Prince.”. . ■ His advice to young men is: Travel, take-risks; work; learn languages. His secret of ■ success—Simplify, Simplify! “Anything that is complicated is wrong.” he says. “Simplicity rules everything worth while.”