But the Vacuum does not always undersell. Complaint is made that in some of the large tramway undertakings, especially municipal ones, no other lubricant but the Vacuum oils can get accepted, although other oils of equally good lubricating quality can be and are pro• duced by British firms at lower prices than the Vacuum obtains. The reason for this pheno menon is simply that the engineers in charge of the plants refuse to use any other than Vacuum oils. Of course they must be able to supply a plausible reason for this to their superiors, and such an explanation is provided in the " Official Circular " of the Tramways and Light Railways Association for April and May, 1905. This " Circular " reports a paper read at a meeting of the Associa tion on April 28, 1905, by Mr. William E; Parish, jun., chief technical expert of the Vacuum Oil Company, on " Friction as Affected by Lubrication." The keynote of Mr, Parish's paper may probably be found in these lines :— It is possible to exactly duplicate a fine lubricating oil on the basis of chemical tests with an improperly manufactured article. The results from the use of both oils, while the chemical readings show they are exactly the same, are widely different when applied to actual work.
Translated into plain English this means that the lubricants supplied by the Vacuum's com petitors (manufactured out of the Standard Oil Trust's own oils) are by every recognised chemical test as good as theirs, but yet that it is right and proper that the engineer who actually uses the lubricants on the machinery should prefer the Vacuum oils—a very satis factory doctrine for both the Vacuum Company and the engineer ! Further on in his paper Mr. Parish was good enough to give various tables and experi ments relating to what he called A full efficiency test of a textile mill where an effort is being made to reduce the total horse-power by means of applying lubricants more suited to the work than the oils in use.
That means, in plain English, by applying Vacuum oils, whose chemical readings are exactly the same as those of their competitors, and whose virtues can only be discovered by the engineer. In the debate on the paper I notice that Mr. W. Scott Taggart, while con gratulating Mr. Parish on his paper, let fall this very valuable observation :— I must say there is only one thing that spoils these tests for a society like this or any other society of a scientific character, and it is that these tests are all made by a person or an engineer responsible to the oil company making them. I think they would be of much greater value if carried out by some unprejudiced engineer.
In replying afterwards on this important point, Mr. Parish urged that comparative
testing was very difficult, and that Engineers for work of this kind absolutely cannot exist out side the large oil companies, where they have practically all the world to operate in, and the unpublished knowledge of many experienced men in this particular line of work to draw upon.
Whether this reply is scientifically sufficient I do not know, but it is obvious that it is not likely to satisfy the competitors of the Vacuum Oil Company, who regard all these novel scientific merits, which cannot be distinguished by any recognised chemical tests, as so much clever " advertising bunkum "—to use Mr. Paul Babcock's language about the Anglo-American Oil Company's orange-barrel advertisement.
But it can hardly be doubted that tramway and other engineers find such papers as that read by Mr. Parish, jun., before their technical association a very useful argument in justifying their exclusive use of Vacuum lubricants.
Before I leave this subject I may note that Fairplay, the well-known shipping journal, has drawn attention to another aspect of this question, and that is how the Inland Revenue collects income-tax from this combination. As the Vacuum Company is a branch of the Standard it can buy its oils at a high price and sell them at cost, so that its books would show no profit assessable to income-tax. That profit, of course, would have really vanished into the balance-sheet of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. The same applies to the Anglo American Oil Company, which, according to the evidence in the Missouri case, sells oil here on commission. The lower the commission •the " Anglo " accepts from the Standard Oil Com pany of New Jersey, the lower its profits on its balance-sheet, and the less income-tax. But I ad vise Mr. Lloyd George to look after the " richest Baptist on earth." I fear that he is not paying his proper share towards the expenses of the country where he makes so many millions.
Such, then, is the evidence, summarised of course, which has accumulated in all parts of the world against the Standard Oil Trust. In the examination of this evidence, which has now been completed, I claim to have established the following propositions : 1. That the Standard Oil group have always aimed, not at fair competition, but at absolute monopoly.
2. That they secretly obtained from the United States railroads rebates on the carriage of their own oil, and even larger rebates on all the oil carried for their competitors—thus rendering it to the interest of the railroads to decrease the shipments of " independent " oil, by refusing to furnish adequate cars, and by delaying delivery.