In Europe it is less evenly distributed: Hanover (Wenigsen). Alsace. Italy. Poland. The Ukraine. Rumania. Hungary: a subsidiary company of the _Anglo-Persian_, the _D'Arcy Exploration_, found oil deposits in March 1921. Asia is nearly as rich as America: The Caucasus. Persia, Mesopotamia. Dutch Indies. Siam, Burma. China. Japan and Formosa. Africa and Oceania, on the contrary, seem to possess only small quantities of the precious oil. There is some in North Africa, in Egypt, and possibly in Madagascar. The great British prospecting group, which I have already mentioned in connection with Hungary, is making a thorough search at this moment in Western Australia and New Zealand. Now nearly all these oil-fields, scattered in the four corners of the world, and in so many different countries, are at the present moment in the hands of two great trusts--one American, the _Standard Oil_, and the other Anglo-Dutch, the _Royal Dutch-Shell_--and certain companies controlled by the British Government. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: Cp. Part III, chap. xiv, _How the United States Lost Supremacy over Oil_.] PART II THE STRUGGLE OF THE TRUSTS CHAPTER IV THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY Although it sometimes happens that governments oppose each other openly in the struggle for oil, as in the case of Poland, Rumania, the Caucasus, and Turkey, they prefer, in general, to hide behind trusts. There exist in the United States numerous oil concerns whose power is far from negligible, such as the _Sinclair Oil Company_, with a capital of 500 million dollars, and the _Texas_ and the Doheny interests, which together represent another 500 million dollars. But all these independent producers must bow before the unchallenged supremacy of the _Standard Oil_. The _Standard Oil_, a purely American concern, preceded the _Royal Dutch_--a Dutch company with considerable British, and recently a little French, capital[9]--by twenty years. As a matter of fact, there is no longer to-day one _Standard Oil_, but forty companies, all bearing this name followed by that of a town or State: _The Standard Oil of New Jersey_, _The Standard Oil of Pennsylvania_, _The Standard Oil of Kansas_, _The Standard Oil of Ohio_. The first is the most important. All are federated under one great administrative body. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of _Standard Oil Companies_ is at the present time Mr. Bedford, formerly Chairman of the _Standard Oil of New Jersey_, where his place has been taken by Walter Teagle. This great Council is the real brain of the _Standard_, from which emanates the general policy of this federation of companies, as powerful as the Government of the United States--more powerful sometimes.