The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-13
AMERICA NOW SEES | CHANCE ID BUILD | BIG TIN INDUSTRY Bolivian Ore Can Now Be Brought Here Since Eng land Has Lost Control BANKERS ALREADY
 BUSY ON PROJECT Bolivia Has Greatest Deposits of Tin Ore in World and Their Export
 Constitutes Chief Source
 of Revenue
By HOLLAND

New York, October 12.-(Special)-I the
 in industry, within few months, is es-
 ablished in the United States it will be
 made possible, perhaps inevitable, by the . act that England and Germany are en-
 aged in desperate war. We have lever been able to establish the tin fn-
 ustry in the United States. Twelve years go capital was found for investment in plant for the smelting of tin ore. The
 liant was built at Bayonne, N. J., at a
 ,oint upon the harbor front convenient or unloading tin ore from vessels. The ,fsnt was to have large capacity. Those vho were promoting the enterprise were persuaded that tin could be secured from he mines in the Straits Settlement of the jar east and in sufficient amount to keep | The smelting plant busy.
 ' Suddenly the tin manufacturers of Eng hnd became interested. They were infiu- |&ntial enough to persuade the government |pf the Straits Settlement to put pro- |aibitive export duty, upon tin, and that mandate of the government was powerful enough to wreck the hopes of those who .lad invested in this smelting plant. k year or two ago of the 5000O tons of in exported from Bolivia only eight tons |fame to the United States, and this small L4ttntity was for a special purpose. Eng and chiefly, but to a less extent Ger
 many, controlled the tin smelting industry |pf the world. England bought her tin pre- from the mine owners of Cornwall,
 Wales, from the Straits Settlement and
 rom Bolivia, but she was able, having |tontrol of the market to fix her own price For the Bolivian product.
 E Probably nowhere else In the world are Ebere such deposits of tin as are those of Bolivia, but as England has controlled fhs tin industry the development of the
 B3ivian mines has been necessarily re- karded. limited, in fact, to such demands As the tin manufacturers of England were willing to make
 Not even the opening of the Panama ca snal to navigation was believed to be gikely to lead to the establishment in the United States of tin smelting plants, al- Enough this country is one of the world s Largest consumers of tin in it's commercial form
 A Sudden Change
 Suddenly, almost over night, the situa- g-ion has changed completely in Bolivia sand tentatively in the United States Bo- fiyia found her tin industry destroyed, temporarily at least when England de- clared war against Germany. There were many thousand tons of tin ore in the Bo- liyian markets ready for purchase by and
 Export to England. But no purchaser ap- .peared and this tin remains on the hands of the Bolivian producers. This condi- fion must be somewhat embarrassing to fhe Bolivian government, for at least 80 per cent of the national revenue based upon internal taxes and export tariffs has come from the export of tin to Great Britain.
 The Panama canal is now opened to 'nsf igation and Bolivia has three we'll equipped railroads which furnish trans portation from the tin mines to the Pa |cific seaports. The freight charges for 1, transporting tin from Bolivia to the United States by way of the Panama canal will presumably be less than charges for trans- .portation to Great Britain. The Bolivian government began to bestir itself imme- |diately after the continent of Europe was absorbed in war. There was only one possible market for the tin of Bolivia ard that is the United States. The South AS1erican republic possesses inexhs:usti- ble deposits of tin ore but the United states has not one in mine which can De worked to commercial advantage. In