The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1942-03-13

II Excerpt from the broadcast of Eel
10, 1912 by Arthur Gaeth over Station
IKSL:
War Production Board officials is
sued a report on Monday that ths
shortage of tin in the United States
had now become acute, with the visi
BILE supply for the coming year only
$4,000 tons compared to normal an
nual consumption rate of 100000 tons
you can figure it out YOURSELF said
one official. We've looked all around
the United States and its possessions
| for tin and we were only able to find
Al tons year in Alaska Well get
another $4,000 tons from Bolivia. But
the war in the Far East has cut off
all other supplies. Further, there is a
great need for tin for defense and
lend-lease purposes. There is going
to be a pinch somewhere"
am wondering if this story of tin
is not the story of aluminium, man
agnese and magnesium all over again
plenty of it available in the unde-
veloped state but monopolies tying up
production so that local interests, par
ticularly western interests have not
been able to develop their deposits.
Therefore, the only way congress will
get to work on this tin situation is
for the public to get busy and inform
congressman of local deposits. The
report of the American house of rep
resentatives subcommittee on foreign
affairs issued in 1885 throws some
light on the international situation. A
review of that report as published
in the Technocrat of August 1941
gives the following account. al
though tin ore occurs widely scattered
on the earth's surface, only handful
of countries mine 80 percent of the
in order of quantity are: the Malay
States, Bolivia, Netherlands East In
dies, Nigeria, Siam, China, Australia,
United Kingdom, and Burma TWEEN
ty other countries mine tin in smaller
and varying amounts. Shelters are
the bottleneck in tin production. Who
ever controls the smelters controls the
flow of metallic tin. This fact is the
key to the international control of |
Tin. The principal tin-smelting cen
-ers of the world are in the British |
Isles and in British Malaga Some |
half dozen large smelters are located
n Singapore, Penang, and Liverpool,
smelling the bulk of the worlds tin.
Until recently all of Bolivias ore, for
was transported across the
Atlantic to England to be smelted and
hen the tin shipped out from there.
The bulk of Japan's metallic tin was
Imelted in British refineries in the
Ear East until they took over Penang,
where the British did not destroy a
hing. Great fleets of freighters have
'een kept busy carrying tin ore from
'ver the world to British smelters and
hen carrying the tin away again.
In answer to the question, why don't
ther countries cut in on this monop-
ly, 1t must be said that the British
interests tied in with Patino in Bo-
lvia and Dutch interests in the Indies
nd thereby controlled all the richest
developed deposits-thus they devel-
ped a monopoly by means of which
hey could regulate output and also
ontrol profits. And American big
honey interests have been willing to
lay the game with the sure-thing +,
hat had been proven, rather than in
est in American tin smelling and in ,
new industry in this country. Smelt- :
rs have been established in the :
United States - but they have been !
losed down. AS the 1885 congress
ional investigation reported: mo ma !,
on has monopoly on the technol- /;
gy of tin smelling, and so far as the !,