Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-03
OIL TRADE AWAITS
2DETERDING SPEECH
European Magnate May Of
fer Practical Plan to Solve
Present Problems.
BY JOHN F. SINCLAIR.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, December 3-Railroad
consolidation is about to enter the
stage of practical politics. The Inter
state Commerce Commission within
few weeks is expected to submit an
agreed plan for the consolidation of all
the railroads in the United States,
uniting them into about 20 huge sys-
tens.
While nothing official has been an
nounced, enough has leaked out to in
dictate:
/. That the East will have five sys-
TENS centering about the Pennsylvania,
New York Central, Baltimore g. Ohio,
Chesapeake & Ohio and the Wabash
2. New England will be served with
probably as many trunk systems as
center about the New Haven. Boston &
Maine. Maine Central, Boston g. Albany
and Rutland.
3. The South. with at least four.
built around the Southern, Illinois
Central, Chicago & Northwestern and
Atlantic Coast Line.
4. The Middle West and the Far
West to be conferred about eight or
nine, built around the Rock Island,
Milwaukee. Great Northern Pacific
Cthe new nance, Santa Fe, Union Pa
cific. Southern Pacific and Burlington
IL 40 dAiNG4olOOh dASO lLteib at GAlG iAiIiG
this report is submitted the Great
Northern and the Northern Pacific
merger will be approved, but that it
will not include the Burlington.
For. 10 years the Interstate Commerce
Commission has been working on tbs
problem. A definite, approved plan OF
railroad consolidation is one of the
most important jobs facing the bust
ness world.
Twenty years ago when James J. Hill
was the railroad giant of the West
he predicted that the railroads of the
United States would be forced to spend
a billion dollars year Ito keep up
with the procession"
Other railroad executives smiled at
this, but they did not laugh, because
already Jim Hill had become more sue
ceSSful operating in the Middle and
Far West than any of them had in
the congested and rich East.
Yet at the Washington conference
railroads announced that they had been
spending about four-f1fthS of that
amount each year during the last few
years. So the railroad billion-dollar
year, just for additions and betterments,
has almost arrived.
When Hill made this statement, the
light, power and gas companies of the
United States were spending about 10
per cent as much as the railroads. But
1880 will see their expenditures totaling
81 400 900 900, or about S50O,000,000 in
excess of what the railroads expect to
spend in 1880.
1T is not too imaginative to picture
the time when two or three huge COM
panies, similar to the American Tele-
phone g. Telegraph Co. in its field,
will control the light, heat and power
production of the country" says the
lvif in obi
ton.
For some time the oil industry has
been awaiting with the keenest interest
the address of Sir Henri Deterding on
Common Sense in the Oil Industry"
Sir Henry, Europe's oil magnate and
head of the Royal Dutch Shell Compa-
MES, will deliver this address before the
American Petroleum Institute, which
meets at Chicago today.
The American oil industry represents
an invested capital of approximately
$4,000, 900 900 and gives employment to
100000 persons. So any move to make
the oil industry more prosperous vitality
affects the life of nearly every individ-
ual In the United States.
Sir Henri is a world character. His
name would most certainly be included
among the first three master minds of
the oil industry. The others, possibly
would be Sir John Cadman OF England,
president of the Anglo-Persian Co., and
Walter Teagle. president of the Stand
ard Oil of New Jersey.
A short, stock figure, with close
cropped white hair, black eyes and
Swarthy complexion, Sir Henri possesses
the energy and enthusiasm of man
of 80, although he is perhaps twice that
age.
His father was an obscure sea cap
tain of Amsterdam, Holland. Young
Henri left school early TO become a mes
senger boy in an Amsterdam bank. in
which he moved UP to the chief clerk
ship. But in 1886 he quit the bank and
went to the Netherlands East Indies,
where he became a salesman for the
Netherlands Trading Co., selling, among
other things, kerosene at the remote
selling post at Deli
When the Royal Dutch Co. was or
ganized to develop oil wells in the
Dutch East Indies, he joined it as a
salesman That was in 1890. The COM
pany began business with about $780,
600 capital. Today the corporation owns,
controls or has an interest in more than
125 companies, which have a total cap
italization in excess of S1,000,000,000.
So Sir Henri's speech dealing with
the world situation will be read not only
In America but throughout the world.
(Copyright. 1929 by North American News
paper Alliancel