STANDARD OIL TRUST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8346, 31 January 1907, Page 5

STANDARD OIL TRUST.

METHODS CONDEMNED. Received January 30, 7.85 a.m. NEW YORK, January 29. The United States Inter-State Commission has passed a resolution severely condemning the Standard Oil Trust's attempts to ruin competitors. (The Standard Oil Trust is known in America as "the most stupendous commercial octopus the world has ever known," beside which the Beef Trust, or almost any other trust, is as a toy boat compared with a modern battleship. It was the persistent attack against this corporation and corporations of a similar type which secured such a rally to the banner of Mr Hearst at the recent elections in America. Mr Rockefeller and his associates have been accused of a conspiracy to monopolise all the commerce in petroleum and its products, the chief method being to obtain secret rebates from the railroads. The New York Central Raiway and practically all the great lines of the country had secret and illegal agreements, it was alleged, with the Standard Oil Trust. These railroads discriminated against all independent oil-producers, the system covering the whole of the States. It was asserted that the trust had a large interest in and controlled many railroads.. It discriminated between these railroads itself, selling oil to some at half the rate at which it did to others. The railroads and the Standard Oil Trust stopped their rate discrimination when the Government investigation was under way. It has been shown that the total value of the Standard Oil Trust's property was £13,800,000, and that on this dividends of £102,400,000 were paid from 1882 to 1895, and a large surplus created. Since 1896 no statements have been issued.)