Arizona silver belt., 1889-05-25
THE DUTY ON LEAD IN sSLyER.LEsD
 ORES.

1He iHquiJ y NohSStHlD1 me claSSlU-
 cation ct lead ores imported into the
 United States from Mexico, now being
 held before the Assistant Secretary of
 the Treasury, at Washington, is inn
 portant as bearing upon lead and sil-
 yer mining in the United States and,
 co-rslatively, upon the smeltlng in-
 dustry.
 It has been the practice heretofore,
 under rulings of the Treasury Depart
 ment since 1880, to admit the lead Tn
 silver-lead ores, in which silver pre-
 dominated, free of the duty imposed
 by our customs laws. The arguments
 favoring th,S liberal policy at the time 1t was inaugurated, were plausible, since the lmportations of silver lead ores through El Paso as late as 1884, amounted to only 1915 tons for the year, and contained 1,042,650 pounds of lead, exercising no appreciable ef- feet upon the price of lead in this country, while It fostered commercial relations between the United States and Mexico, and, apparently. was ad- vantageous to both countries. Amer ican capital found profitable invest aent in-lninskurufr~prise jn Our sister republic, demand was created for American mining machinery, and our commercial interests, generally, with Mexico were stimulated.
 In another respect the admission of lead in ores, free of duty, seemed to operate ben ensficially, inasmuch as it opened a lucrative field for establish ing custom smelling works at points on or near our Mexican border, there- by affording facilities for the reduc- tion of ores from the mines of New Mexico and Arizona, and other limited sections of thASout6west. Under this stimulus the smelling industry on our southwestern border rapidly grew to large proportions; and Tn the argu- ments of the opponents to the exactlon of duty, the preservation and lostering of the big smeltlng works at Fl Paso, Kansas City and elsewhere, takes prec- edence. They protest against the i'm position of d duty of $50 per ton on lead, because it would destroy their business, in which upwards of S750,- O00 Is invested, and some 1500 men are employed. In addition, it is ar gued that to exact the duty would divert nearly all tbe silver now com ing to this country to England as well as large share of our present trade with Nexico-American capital and influence would be displaced by English. This is the glst of the argu- ment favoring the admission of silver lead ores as has been the practice since 1880.
 Arrayed on the other side are the lead producers of the United States (which of feou5se includes large ma jority of our silver mines whose ores carry lead). and the smelhng compa- nies of Colorado and the Northwest who depend upon local mines for thelr supply of lead ores. The cost of ton of Mexican lead at most Mexican plants, does not exceed one cent per pound f. o. b. cars, and previous to the opening of the American market to Silver-lead ores, the lead was accounted of no value whatever. How the i'm portatien from Mexico of lead Tn ores has grown ln four years IS shown by the statement that whereas the lead in ores imported through the Fl Paso custom house in 1881 amounted to but 1,042, $50 pounds, in 1888 it reached fl, ,657 .290 lbs. and adding imports through Laredo and Eagle Pass, the total of Mexican lead admitted free of duty last year. was 57,277,379 lbs!and this does not include ores admitted through NogaIes and other pelnts. The result has been to seriously de- press the price of lead and do incalcu- fable injury to silver and lead mining in the United States. It would seem as though the investigation by tbe Treasury Department could result in but one course, namely, the reversal ct previous rulings which admitted lead Tn ores free of duty.