The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-07-24
America will Make Her Tin Plate.

Our readers who have followed the
course of economic discussion are some
what familiar with the history of the
efforts that have been made to make
tin plate in this country and with the
means employed to defeat those efforts.
But for the wholly irrational exception
that has been made in the case of
tin, in the application of the prin-
ciples of protection to the industries of
this country, English manufacturers
would not now have monopoly of this
branch of trade and the United States
would not be sending yearly some
S2O,0OO,OO0 to England for an article
the constituent parts of which are all
produced in this country in great abund-
ance. To convince any who may still
be skeptical about the ability of Ameri-
cans to produce tin plate, plant for
the production of this article will be
put into operation at the Pittsburgh
exposition grounds this coming fall.
1t will be proved beyond doubt that
Americans possess both the knowledge
and the skill, as they do the material
in abundance, to make tin plate sue
cessfully, just as they are making fine
qualities of steel and iron, provided
only the protection the laws give to the
manufacture of the latter is extended
also to the former.
1t has not been generally known that
this country has tin mines adequate
for the supply of this essential article.
A single mine in San Bernardino
county, California, known as the
Temescal Mountain mine, has deposit
of ore sufficient to supply the markets
of the United States for a hundred
years. OF this mine and related mat
tiers a correspondent of the Mining
and Scientific Press, writing from San
Diego, Cal, says:
| :" 1t is reported that two Englshmen have
! been kept there to watch all the time, and
| they are paid regularly from some source,
but no one seems to know where it comes
! from. According to reports, there are also
! large deposits of tin ore at Mount Harvey,
in Wyoming territory, of both vein and
stream tin, in inexhaustble quantities.
| There are also tin mines in Mexico, but
there is no account of any shipments from
that country. All the tin seems to come
from England, and whenever tin mine is
discovered in any part of the world an agent
from England appears on the ground to in
vestigate its extent and value, and if it is
Of Importance enough to create COMPETE
ton to their monopoly what is the most
likely thing for them to do? OF course
buy it and lock it up. We hear of no tin
though we had reports of a company being
organized in New York over two years age
to operate them. Have Engishmen been
over and bought them off? But why
should they buy them off? For the best
reason in the world. 1t is well known that
the mines of Cornwall are now being
worked to great depth and miles under
the sea, and in order for the stockholders &c
get dividends from them they have got to
keep up the price of tin to twenty-five and
twenty-five cents per pound. 1t is said
they work ore that only yields five pei
cent and even as low as three per cent
What could they do in attempting to com
pete with American tin where you can &C
and dig it out of the surface that will
yield fifteen and twenty per cent, as it does
mere III ltlHtSChlg NOW II OOTuWdll 1nlnbTe
can make it pay to work five-per-cent ore a
twenty-five cents pound, fifteen and
twenty per cent ore ought to be made tC
pay, even to sell it at fifteen cents pound
Tin is a metal that AS yet has been found il
few places in the civilized world, and
think that if congress passes law allowing
foreigners or aliens TO hold mining ground:
in this country there certainly should be al
exception made in regard to tin-miners
Tin is metal that enters largely into sci
entitc and domestic use, and to allow it L
remain monopoly in the hands Of alieI
mine-owners, to be locked up or worked a
their option, think would be one of thu
greatest mistakes that congress could pos
sibly make. At this very time child cal
not take drink of water at the spring GU
of tin cup without being indebted to Eng
land for that cup. | venture to say that
aliens are allowed to buy and hold thes
mines there will not be pig of tin pro
duced in the United States for the next tw,
generations TO come. Can the Unite,
States afford to do that when we are paying
millions every year for foreign tin?"
: Twice when American enterprise ha,
, bnuun Tho mauufaptura ,f lin n1ata /,