Unilever’s Founder
p. 129 · Read in the full issue
[?]Lions Of Pounds
[?]Nd Dollars
[?]ne Memories of Unilever’s Founder
Letter to the Editor ;EAD the article in June issue q “Unilever and Lord everhulme” with much interest, was born a few miles from Sunlight and I remember the when W. H. Lever got his ict for £50,000 against the / Mail; and I can see him now, ng down from the George’s in his carriage, on the way the ferry, waving his hat ;antly to cheering spectators. 1949 I travelled with his son, second Lord Leverhulme, a laturely aged man who died 2 in America soon after. We many drinks together, when his id wife (he divorced his first) a, discovered where I came . It was hard to believe that hesitant individual was the son heir of such a dynamic mality as W. H. Lever, e latter hated Lords so much he walked away from what he ?ht was the safe seat of il, to contest Ormskirk against Derby’s heir, Lord Stanley, till remember his posters •ting the country yokels: ’t be afraid, the ballot is as as the grave”. But he took i beating, and his Party also L»ever’s old seat to the Tories, •emember that the barristers s case against the Daily Mail led Rufus Isaacs (afterwards Reading); “Galloper” Carson, later a Lord; T. E. Horridge, defeated Prime Minister A. J. ur at Manchester; and hy Freddie” Smith (Later Birkenhead). erhulme was undoubtedly a man; but your correspondent ht off the beam in reckoning the earnings of his company the efforts of all other ilists. You say that the 1956 s of Unilever were £98,000,000. year, General Motors’ net s were over 1,000,000,000 s—over £360,000,000 sterling. 0 not have the latest figures; 1 1952 (since when there has considerable inflation and s are much larger) there were merican Corporations listed as ig over 10,000,000 dollars, s USA Company did not in these and Colgate )live, which are a much bigger my than Levers USA Co. (I 1 think), only made 10,840,295 s. er big earners were Standard yho are, of course, spread over nber of companies, such as, f New Jersey, 519,000,000 odd; rnia, 174,000,000 odd; Socony im (the New York Company), 9,000 odd; Indiana, 121,000,000;
Ohio, 17,500,000; Kentucky, 10,250,000; while American Telephones made over 406,000,000.
Incidentally, American Telephones have over 1,000,000 shareholders, compared with Unilever’s 198,000.
Ford figures were not published, as it was a private concern in 1952 in USA; but the baby Ford Canadian Corporation made oyer 15,000,000. The Ford Foundation assets in 1955 were listed at 580,918,567 dollars, and I read that the Ford Family gave one thousand million to this Foundation for the advancement of peace, education. etc., etc. At the rate cars are
increasing in USA, General Motors and Fords will be racing still further away ahead of Unilever. In the record production year 1955, 7,920,000 passenger cars were produced, 53 per cent, of which were made by General Motors, Ford’s contribution being 30 per cent. In Greater Los Angeles alone there are 6,000,000 people owning 2,700,000 cars, and each day the population increases by 600 people and 300 cars.
I am, etc.,
Charles Sullvian.
Sydney.
July 2, 1957.