SHADOWED PEER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10150, 21 November 1910, Page 3

SHADOWED PEER.

I __ I AMERICAN OIL TRUST AND j BRITISH FINANCIER. I MAN WITH A RED TIE. The curious 'spectacle of ti. British peer .shadowed/everywhere he goes by six detectives aroused considerable '. comment in New York. The peer ; thus followed like the hero of a criminal romance is Sir Weetman Dickinson Pearson (whose elevation . to the peerage was announced in the recent birthday list, constructor of the Hudson River tunnels and the arch-enemy of the Standard Oil interests by reason of his Mexican enterprises. He has been at the St. Regis Hotel, New York. No sooner had he arrived than the hotel was surrounded by six detectives, led by a man with a red tie. Two of the the detectives stationed themselves on the, steps of the Harriman mansion in Fifty-fifth street, and two more in Fifth Avenue, opposite the St. Regis Hotel ,while the remaining two waited in a taxicab. Night and day the detectives kept vigil, As soon as Mr Weetman appeal's outsidb . and proceeds to the financial district the signal is given, and t.H taxicab starts in pursuit. The ma.; with the red tie promptly whips out a j notebook, and records the time and , other details of Sir Weetman\s appearance, and then rushes to a telephone. GIGANTIC COMMERCIAL STRUGGLE. If the Britisher financier entertains guests at luncheon or dinner, their names and the hour of their arrival and departure are immediately entered in the hook of the man with the red tie. Every night a long telegram, written in code—presumably a narrative of Sir Weetman's doings —is despatched to Mexico. This pursuit of Sir Weetman Pearson by the , Standard Oil Trust is one of the most dramatic features of the gigantic commercial struggle now in progress in Mexico. Some years" ago Sir Weetman Pearson and some associates acquired some magnificent oil wells in that country, and deprived the Standard Oil Trust not only of its monopoly, hut even of part of its supplies for the refineries. - Now the Oil Trust is employing its vast capital in fighting the Englishman. Though it has to import the oil from Mexico, paying over l(3s duty on each barrel, it has engaged in a war to the knife, cutting prices to the lowest level. Sir Weetmau has all the oil he needs in Mexico, and is able to export large quantities. But the ,Oil Trust is determined to prevent him from securing any financial support in the United States'. As it is at the head of the great "Money Trust," it is easy for.it to threaten with destruction any banking magnate with whom Sir Weetman may be seen consorting. Sir Weetman refuses to talk of tho struggle. "Do the detectives annoy you?" lie was ■ asked. The new peer promptly replied: "It is best not to speak of things of that sort." His friends are wondering if the Oil Trust detectives will' follow liim across the Atlantic.