The Scotch refiners, some of whom have been in business forty years, have become as loyal subjects of an American ruler as of their own queen. They make only as much as he allows, and sell at the price he fixes. He has demanded year by year a greater proportion of their business.[635] In 1892 they were notified that they must reduce their output by 10 per cent.[636] The Scotch, anxious for the accelerating future, begged that the "arrangement" might be made for three years instead of one. But this was denied them. The agent from America who brought them their orders would promise no more than "to place the matter in a favorable light before his colleagues in America."[637] By October of that year the capital of the Scotch companies, held mainly by small investors, had shrunk $5,000,000 in value. But to this item the London _Economist_ adds the consolation that "that powerful organization"--the American--"has for years professed the kindliest feelings for the Scotch producers." Dr. Johnson said that much may be made of a Scotchman if caught young. The American caught him old. The disturbance fell heaviest, as always, on the working-men. "Reduction in wages is now being effected," writes the managing director of the oldest and largest of the Scotch companies in the _Economist_. "Another 10 per cent. reduction in miners' wages has been resolved upon," the _Economist_ announces in its issue of October 8, 1892. One of the causes that contributed to the downfall of the Scotch refiners was the fact that the British government reduced the test required for illuminating oil. This new regulation opened the British markets to a flood of cheap oil from America.[638] The Scotch oil is better made and more expensive. "We cannot tell," said a correspondent of the Glasgow _Herald_, "what powerful interest the American oil combination did not bring to bear on our government. The public had then no champion, and as a rule never have on these occasions." The unkindest cut of all is that it was from the Scotch manufacturers themselves that their American rival and ruler learned the secrets of the industry it is now absorbing on the instalment plan. In one of its publications it has told how its "experts visited the great shale works in Scotland, and studied their methods," and how "the consequence was that extensive works were erected."[639]