A Spectator's Notebook
EASTERN POTENTATES used to con- struct their palaces sp that no single member of their household would know all the passages and chambers —and all the secrets. The oil com- panies appear to work on the same principle. Their ramifications are such that nobody in the business, let alone outsiders, can hope to under- stand all of them. I am not sur- prised, therefore, at the tendency to blame the fuel crisis on them—particularly as Senator O'Mahoney, Chairman of the Senate Anti-Monopoly Commission in Washington, has announced that his Committee is going to begin an investigation into the oil situation; which suggests that he has grounds for believing they have been using the crisis to feather their nests. But a conversation with an oil man has convinced me that there is another side to the case. The oil companies are certainly doing things now that they were not allowed to do by anti-Trust laws before Suez; but some of them are sensible. There used to be some ridiculous anomalies: the com- panies, for example, had to perform the (oil) equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle, simply to keep up the pretence that no cartel existed. The abandonment of this pretence has meant that supplies can be brought direct to Europe much more quickly than would have been possible under the old regulations.
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