Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1891-08-12
Tin Without a Bounty.

LIN WlCHOuC oOuHCy'
We are glad to have satisfactory
proof that bar tin from an American
mine is offered for sale in the market.
The quantity so offered is small, it is
true, but the American people have
not been compelled to pay tax Of
$S,000,O00 or $15,000,000 a year in
order that it might be produced, and
there are indications, apparently trust.
worthy, that very much larger quanti-
ties will come to market from the same
source without the assistance of such
tax. The San Francisco Chronicle
of the 10th inst. says:
"There is in this market and offered
for sale a shipment of American tin,
consisting of POI bars of pig tin, weigh
ing about 56 pounds each, which, with
the quantity previously sent to this
city for exhibition, makes about seven
tons on hand. This tin comes from the
Temescal mines, in the State of Cali.
fornia, and is the first American tin
ever offered to commerce"
The owners Of the mines expect, the
Chronicle says, to be producing tin
twelve months hence at the rate of g.
500 tons a year, and the Chronicle un-
dertakes to measure the Importance OF
such an output by the assertion that
"the highest annual product of the
world has been 10000 tons and the
average about 5000" The Chronicle
has been misinformed, for this country
alone consumes more than $4,000 tons
year, and the shipments of tin from
Malacca and Australia in 1890
amounted to 81, 900 tons. To this guam
tity must be added the Cornwall pro-
duct and certain other supplies before
the product of the worlds tin mines is
ascertained. But if the mines of the
San Jacinto Estate, Limited, in Cali
tornia. shall turn out $500 tons they
will be doing very we'll. They have
produced seven tons, which have been
sold or offered for sale, we understand,
at the market price of imported tin,
ard the company believes that it can
produce much larger quantity and
sell it profitably in the open market in
free competition with the tin of Ma
lacca and Australia.
"All on account of the Mckinley
BILL" say the Cleveland Leader and
two or three other organs of McKin-
leyism. Not at all. There is no tariff
duty on tin, the metal, and if the San
Jacinto Estate produces and sells $500
tons in the coming twelve months, or in
the following year. the work will not
be done with the aid of duty on for.
eign tin. 1t is true that it is provided
in the Mckinley act that duty of A
cents pound shall be imposed on
and after July /. 1898, but that date
is two years ahead, and it may be that
the tax will not then be imposed
Are the owners of the Temescal ores
relying upon that paragraph of the
Mckinley tariff Do they expect to
produce and sell $500 tons a year al
a loss, sustained by the hope that after
the tax shall haye been imposed, in
1893, they can make some money g.
We see nothing to confirm such sup.
position. They are producing tin and
they intend to produce large quanti
ties of 1t in the next twelve month,
because they can sell it at a prof
under present conditions, with foreign
tin on the free list.
Undoubtedly they would like to b
enabled by a tariff duty to sell at much
higher prices, but we see no evidence
that they were induced to enter tn,
market by the shadow of a possible
tax two years hence. The COMPANY
was organized and the investment wa
made before it was proposed in tn,
Senate that tin should be taken from
the free list. The development of tn
property has been delayed for year
by litigation as to the title. Thi
litigation did not come to an end unit
March, 1888, and many months wer
consumed after that date in making tn
examinations and tests without which