Evening star., 1951-03-09
Tin and the Commodity Scramble

In deciding to stop all new purchases of tin
for stockpiling the Government has acted in
line with the report made last week end by
preparedness subcommittee of the Senate Armed
Services Committee. The decsion-which calls
also for sharp reduction in purchases for in
duStrial uses-will be effective until prices reach
"a reasonable level" Just before the start of
the Korean War, they ranged in the neighbor-
hood of rs cents pound, but since then they
have almost tripled in the regular world market
an unreasonable increase, to say the least
With understandable indignation, the report
Of the subcommittee (headed by Senator John
son of Texas has branded this spectacular rise
as prohteer "gouging" ION the part of foreign
interests controlling the world tin supply-Brit-
ish Belgian Dutch, 1ndonesian and Bolivian
And that there is substance to the charge is
indicated by the fact that the net effect of the
report and the Governments decision to stop
buying has been to send prices markedly down.
ward
That said, however, 1t would be a mistake
to oversimpify the situation and berate our allies
without restraint. Tin, after all, is only one of
many strategic raw materials whose prices have
scared since last June With the supply limited
the demand for those materials has grown by
leaps and bounds because of the rearmament
programs being undertaken by the Western ma
tions at time when their civilian economies
by and large-are either vigorously recovering
or enjoying relative boom in terms of employ
ment rising individual incomes and the urge
to buy consumer goods.
AL this has led inevitably to a scramble for
commodities, and it is that scramble that ac-
counts primarily for the way the prices of tin
and practically every other raw material have
soared-an imitation that has been no respecter
of persons or nations. The United States is not
the only country that has been "gouged" by it.
Our allies have been hit by it, too, and they are
still being hit-much harder than we are, in
some respects. If their policies are partly to
blame, so are ours. The situation is too COM
plicated for the singing out of villains. What
is needed is an organized cooperative attack
on the problem.
That is why France, Britain and the United
States have been working together to set up
effective international machinery to put an end
to the commodity scramble. And that is why
the Organization for European Economic Co.
operation-Europes Marshall Plan agency-is
anxious to become part of that machinery. An
other interested party-whose functions possibly
could be taken over by the OEEC-is the Atlantic
Pact unit that is supposed to promote the
equitable distribution of raw materials Ger
tainly, given a concerted effort by all countries
concerned, sound solution can be found.
In any case, there can be no doubt about
the need for such an effort. Since the begin
ming of the Korean War, the steadily rising
prices of raw materials have cost the United
States and its allies billions of dollars that could
have been saved if there had been a strong in
ternational organization specifically designed to
check the inf1ationary scramble for commodities
"Gouging" will continue to trouble the free world
until that kind of organization is operating at
full blast.