MEXICAN OIL FIELDS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13350, 7 April 1914, Page 6

MEXICAN OIL FIELDS.

Groat dissatisfaction is expressed among British merchants at the check to trade caused by the continuance of the rebellion in Mexico. Business till lately done by English houses in cotton fabrics, machinery, and other goods, roughly valued at half a million u year, is at a standstill. A large amount of capital and industrial property in which investors are interested is also menaced. Many commercial mt-n think that if Senor Huerta, the provisional president, had been let alone he would haye been able to straighten things out, but that the United States favored his rival because of their determination to secure a more paramount ownership of tho oil fields (remarks an English commercial paper). Whether that be so or otherwise. British capitalists have been warned off the the oil concessions they had obtained, and America's moral pressure policy seems likely ultimately to give hor precedence in the" industries of the comi-

try. Tho oil fields of Mexico, 300 miles iu extent, are a valuable asset, aud have been chiefly exploited by American and ■vnglish capitalists, the United States being interested to the amount of twenty millions, and (treat Britain to tho amount of fifteen millions. A big sum. has Lcen hazarded, in other industries — in railways and mines — in Mexico by British investors, biit by many the oil .supplies were considered of the first importance. With the coming of oildriven ships, both defensive and 1 "mercantile, 'it is vital that Great Britain should own extensive oilfields, seeing that she must necessarily fill her tanks from afar ; and it looks as if the Mexican upset really began in a fight for. oil, in the intention of the United States to secure tho monopoly. *