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Show : I The New Tin-Plate Industry ! j By Frederic J. Haskin. ! v j WASHINGTON', June 21 So rap!.' lias! been the development of the tin-plate in- dustry in this country t.;at our chid" competitors, com-petitors, the - Welsh inanuiiicturcrrf, huvjj appointed a joint .ieu':U!on of en:; '.o crs and workmen to visit the United States immediately to study and investigate American methods. A Quarter of a century ago South Wales was the leading tin-plate manufacturing ! country of the world. It supplied ju-ariy ' all the tin-plate used in the United Stateti. Today, America stands first, : producing approximately three-fourths of the entire world's output. From 1 V'-, the first calendar year of the industry, to 1016, the annual production of domes- i tic tin-plate showed the remarkable increase in-crease from 42,OuO,000 to i,TritiP4o l.OuQ J pounds, according to the department of commerce. The rapid progress made in this Indus- j try by American manufacturers during ; the last few years has both interested j and alarmed Welsh producers, wiio wuut i to know the reason why. j It is cheaper production that hns en- j abled America to become the world's t largest exporter of tin-plate, and even to compete successfully with the Welsh manufacturers In their own markets. In 1916 the United States exported 3SP-OOO.OOo 3SP-OOO.OOo pounds of tin-plate to England, while before the war not a single pound of the American product was sold in that country. In 1914 our total exports of tin-plate were 10;;u00,000 pounds, while last year 560,000,000 pounds were sold In foreign markets. The necessities of war played an Important Im-portant part In the development of the tin-plate industry. Before the war America Amer-ica depended almost entirely upon England En-gland and Germany for refined tin. Now a superior grade of this product is turned out by a concern operating at Perth Am-boy, Am-boy, N. J. This plant came into existence during the war to fill the gap caused by. the cutting off of the supply of refined tin from Germany. The output of this firm Is constantly increasing. Heavy demands for tin-plate .for strictly strict-ly war purposes, in addition to the usual demands of the canners, brought about a tin shortage in this country in 1917, which, for a time, was of serious nature. All small cartridges are partitioned with tin-plate, and they are then inclosed in tin boxes, and soldered up air-and-water tight. Tin is also used in the making and packing of larger shells, while much of the food for the army was put up in tin containers. This increased demand for tin Immediately after this country entered en-tered the war was therefore tremendous. For instance, milk, one of the most essential es-sential army rations, was packed in such Increased quantities that one concern which bought 18,000,000, cans for packing in 1916, purchased about 80. 000,000 cans for 1917. The same was true of other kinds of canned food used by the soldiers. sol-diers. About the time of the tin shortage, Secretary Redfleld of the department of commerce became interested in the situation, situa-tion, and chiefly through his efforts, our government made an arrangement with the Bolivian government whereby the United States got most of the output of tin ore from the rich mines of that country. coun-try. Formerly Bolivian tin ore was shipped to Hamburg, and much- of it was then exported from Germany to this country in its refined slate. German agents In Bolivia failed to defeat de-feat the efforts of this country to get the output of the Bolivian mines. In 191 S about o,00 tons of tin ore was imported into the United States from Bolivia, while last year just three times that much was sold here by Bolivian mine owners. Most of this tin ore is refined at Perth Amboy, N. J. From the mines of the Malay Peninsula, the British Straits Settlements and India comes more than half of the world's supply of tin in the form of concentrates. This- is, for the most part. handled by great smelting works in Singapore and Penang. In addition, these huge smelting smelt-ing plants, wilh a capacity for smelting, more than 7000 tons of tin each month, receive ore supplies from - Siam and. the neighboring Dutch islands. Added to the output of the large smelting smelt-ing works at Singapore and Penang is the tin from many small smelting plan Us in the Straits Settlements and tho Malay Peninsula, which la brought to Singapore for export. By reason of these facts, Singapore holds first place both as to the quantity of tin ore received and treated, treat-ed, and the quantity exported. The production of tin in the Malay Peninsula is decreasing, due mainly to a labor shortage caused by the increasing attractiveness of the rubber industry. The United States is not entirely dependent de-pendent on foreign countries for its supply sup-ply of tin. As this metal was a wartime necessity, and a domestic source of supply sup-ply was urgently needed, all known deposits de-posits oX tin in the United States were examined during the war by geologists of the United States geological survey. One of the most promising of these deposits is in the Irish Creek district, in the eastern east-ern part of Koekbridge county, Virginia, near the summit of the Blue Ridge mountains. moun-tains. The existence of tin ore in the Irish Creek district has been known for many years, and between and 1S93 the deposits there were worked. The mining company, however, became involved in-volved in litigation as to tho land title and abandoned work in 1893. Work on the deposits was resumed some time ago, but not to any great extent. Thero are also tin mines in South Dakota Da-kota and Alaska, but the yield from these sources is not very great. It Is interesting to note the fact that in 1914 the importation of tin from the United Kingdom and from the Straits Settlements Set-tlements formed 90 per cent of the total, while in 1918 the importation of tin from these sources was about one-half of the total. The loss was made up by heavier shipments from Bolivia, China. Australia and the Dutch East Indies. Thirteen per cent of the total imports of tin came to us in the form of tin ore, mostly from Bolivia. |