THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9152, 27 July 1908, Page 4

THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY.

A cablegram from New York on Friday last stated that the Circuit Court, on appeal, had quashed the fine of 29,000,000 dollars (nearly £6,000,000) against the Standard Oil Company for breaches of the Anti-Reliite Law, and ordered a re-trial of the case. The Standard Oil Company was convicted of 1,462 breaches of the anti-rebate law in dealing with a certain railway company. This law was passed to prevent the devices of organised capital for bribing railroads to break its livals. The maximum penalty was inflicted for each offence, and the fine imposed reached the colossal figure of £5,848,000. Yet, to the company this stupendous sum is a mere bagatelle. Mr Rockefeller was playjng golf when the news reached him. He went un playing the game as if nothing had happened. Only a few days before he had given away giatis in a single cheque a much larger sum. Judge Landis, in imposing the fine, said he regretted that his powers did not permit him to send the men Who had been violating the law to prison. He said that such men by their action "wound society more d-jeply* than does he who counteifeits coin or steals letters from the mail." The Circuit Court held that Jucge Landis committed irregularities, and wos wrong in basing the fine imposed on the wealth of the parent company, instead of on the capital of the Standard Oil Company, Indiana.