Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-27

American who takes pride IN
IO the commonly accepted theory
that tho limited States was the flrst
country in the world to produce petro-
leum and an oil trust, must hulIiple
himself before the unbusinessllKe bur-
mese. For more than 2oo years .l5
business of producing and rehnlng
netroleum oils and bi-products mas
been pursued in Burma by trust
which was so close corporation tnae
n might well give points even to the
beloved Standard OIL itself. That an
cient trust has not terminated ar
though It has undergone two great
changes in form, and Wltnln the lasI
two years the Burma Oil company
emerged from a two years battle
royal with John D. Rockefeller,s cor
noration with its colors bravery NY
ing and the laurels of victory set about
its greasy brow. Incidentally 1t may
be mentioned that the oil industry IS
the most important in Burma and that
it is source of great and growing
wealth.
About the time that the inhabitants
of Massachusetts, were reduced to
pittance of five grains of corn Tor
Thanksgiving dinner a Burmese ge-
MUS. whom tradition declares was
woman, conceived the notion OF digging
for oil A crude, waXy petroleum hao
been skinned off the tops of shallow
ponds and used both for fabrication
and illumination since a time when
the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary. But the digging idea was q
stroke of genius. Pits were sunk into
the ground and the oil sand springs
discovered. These pits were sunk
deeper and deeper, until they went
down $50 or 800 feet Men went down
| into the pits with buckets to gather up
I'D with their
freight at the end of a rope to the 9TH
err extremity of which was attached a
yoke of bullocks or half dozen men
| in harness The bullocks or the men
ran down a long inclined plane and
pulled up the rope over creased
wooden bar. Even the windlass was
unknown. The gases in the pit were
so foul that no man could remain be-
low for a longer time than three or
four minutes. Naturally the process
of oil production was slow, but 1t paid.
! AS paying proposition 1t was
| deemed wise to keep the business in
| the family of the original genius. Be
| fore the neighbors knew what was
| going ON the family had acquired all
| the property in the district where oil
was known to exist. After several
! generations the family grew to be so
| numerous that a more distinct form Of
| organization was necessary. Thus
came into existence the close corpora
| ton of the "Yoya." There were TWEEN
| ty-four families represented, and the
participation in the rights of the Yoya
| descended In strict order of primogeni-
ture to the eldest son in the eighteen
| families of which the male line was
| head, and to the eldest daughter In the
remaining six families in which the fe-
male line ruled.
The head of each of these families
was known as Twin-sa-yo, and the
| twenty-four elected one of their num-
| Der to be president under the title of
| twin gyi-min. A we'll digger, Twin-sa,
| had to apply for permission to one of
the Yoya families for permission to
sink a well. That permission, If
granted, was subject to the approval
of the president, who was thus en-
powered to limit the supply of oil to
the condition of the market.
| 1t was not long before the members
of the Yoya had too much money 10
permit them to soil their hands with
work. so the twin-sa, or diggers, were
admitted from the outside, given wells
and permission to dig. Such an "in-
dependent" we'll had to pay a fixed
royalty to the Yoya and also had to
sell its entire product to the same cor
| poration-an arrangement bearing a
! striking resemblance to that imposed
upon Independent" oil producers in
later days and distant lands.
After a long time the Yoya became
so rich and powerful that Il was a men
| ace to the state, having almost as much
| power as the petty king of Mandalay
| in whose dominion the oil field was To-
| Gated. Being unfettered by constitu.
| tional restrictions or bothersome politi-
cal machinery, King Mindon stepped ir
and constituted a royal oil monopoly
ancient rights and told the corporation
and the world that the production OF
| oil must remain independent But he
required. in the interest of the public
welfare, that all the oil should be sole
| to him at a price which he fixed, Thai
| was in 1855, Just at the dawning of the
| age of petroleum IN the United States
! King Mindon could not possibly have
copied any western ideas in this move
ment, whatever precedent he may have
established for the guidance Of those
who hold the petroleum business II
trust for the use of mankind
But the British advance swept ovel
| King Mindon's realm and put an end t.
| his power. In his stead, so far as the
| oil business was concerned, there arose
and reigned proper British joint STOCK
! company, the Burma Oil company
! That concern left the Twin-sa in pos
session of their property, but bought
! and vended the OIL Finally the expert
ment of drilling deep wells with shaft
| drills, in the European fashion, was
tried. The result was practical failure
| Then American aid was sought, the
cable drill brought into use, the wells
were driven down to 1900 and 1000 feet