THE OIL KINGS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 4

THE OIL KINGS

The British Government was subjected to very severe criticism for its action in refusing to dispose of its controlling interest in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. London files to hand show that the answer to that criticism manifested itself sharply and promptly in a manner eloquently illuminating to British users of petrol. Within a few days of the announcement of the Government’s decision a rise of 4Jd in the price of this essential commodity was announced, coupled with the threat of a further rise soon to follow. This happening made it the more easy for the general public to understand the reason for the Shell-Royal Dutch combine’s anxiety to buy for an enormously swollen price the British holding in the Anglo-Persian Company. That company at present provides the only guarantee against the quite limitloss exploitation of the greater, part of the civilised world by two interuational oil combines—the Standard and the Shell —whose dominating purpose is manifestly to regulate world prices to the disadvantage of the consumer. Though, by comparison with these two gigantic trusts, the Anglo-Persian is a small affair, it commands nevertheless sufficient resources to harass the efforts of the others to establish a complete price monopoly; and the public of the Mother Country are now looking to the Government to justify its reasons for retaining its shares by fighting the highprice conspiracy tooth and nail. The Daily News urges the devising and proclamation of a policy of under cutting, not ’merely in order to benefit British users of petrol—though that is of real practical importance—but as the first step in what should be developed into a campaign of international propaganda against the purely anti-social trust interests. This matter is one of worldwide significance. It is so obvious as not to need iteration that an artificial raising of the price of petrol means in our modern civilisation “an unquestionable and direct increase in the cost of living,” and that such increases, in regular progression, are inevitable unless some means is found of protecting the public from the'oil kings’ insatiable greed. As long ago as in March, 1920, Mr. McCurdy, when chairman of the Petrol Standing Committee of the House of Commons declared that this great concentration of oil control constituted so dangerous a power that it was "imperative that the Governments of the world should give some attention to it.” The News regards the danger as clearly imminent, and expresses the hope that the British Government will take the initiative in a serious attempt to grapple with it by inviting into jtint consultation “the Governments of the world,” so that some common plan of action may be agreed upon.