Again, Socony v. Shell

When peoples war, corporations profit. When corporations war, the People profit.

Last week, New York motorists setting out to enjoy Labor Day were able to fill up with gasoline at 16-c- the gallon (plus 2-c- tax)---c- lower than the previous price. Official explanations were not elaborate.

Socony (Standard Oil Co. of New York ) opened hostilities by announcing the price cut "to equalize its prices with that of other dealers in the field." Sinclair and Beacon Oil (subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey) promptly followed suit without comment. Texaco and Shell merely remarked that they were adjusting their prices to those of their competitors. Gulf, Tidewater, Pure Oil and others followed.

Besides the laconic announcements there were plenty of other reasons why New York gasoline was cheaper. For one thing there are the figures of gasoline overproduction. For another thing independent dealers have been cutting gasoline prices. One company said: "Where competition is so keen it is necessary to meet the reduction."

The phrase "where competition is so keen" meant a great deal more to oil men than it did to the general public. All this year they have been watching New York and a large part of the East undergo a seachange. Across the landscape has been appearing a horde of mollusk shells, artistically represented in red and yellow, with the letters SHELL prominently inscribed upon them. Oil men know that the letters stand for Royal Dutch Shell, great Anglo-Dutch rival of Standard Oil, and for its U. S. subsidiaries-Shell Union and Shell Eastern Petroleum.

Peaceful infiltration was a proper term for the appearance of those yellow signs--infiltration into territory peculiarly sa. cred to Standard Oil Co. of New York Socony's declaration of war last week seemed to end the peaceful period.

As oil men diagnosed the situation, twc great oil generals were rubbing their hand; in anticipation of battle. One was Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding, head of Royal Dutch Shell, who from across the sea has kept his eye upon the progress of Shell in the home grounds of Socony. The other was Charles F. Meyer, President of Socony who from a vantage point nearer at hand has watched and waited.

Little more than a year ago they declared an armistice upon another front Then Mr. Meyer, recently elected to generalship, made a truce with Shell in India after a great price-cutting was resulting from Socony's bringing Russian petroleum down to Bombay and Calcutta (TIME July 16, 1928). Now another armistice may be necessitated. Shell having duplicated Socony's Indian tactics and spent some $40,000,000 for the acquisition ol service stations in Socony's homeland.

As far back as 1893 go the Standard-Shell battles. When the contest for markets was in infancy, Deterding was in the Shell service at Batavia (Dutch East Indies) and Meyer was managing the Bom bay office of Standard Oil. Standard anc

Shell, Meyer and Deterding, have fought for the custom of 50 million East Indians, of 320 million Indians of India, 400 million Chinamen. Now they are fighting for the custom of a public that possesses automobiles about as plentifully per capita as Orientals possess cats and dogs.