Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1892 — How Much Tin? [ARTICLE]

How Much Tin?

Professor Claypole, of Buchtel College, Ohio, has written a report on the famous Black Hills tin deposits which is not calculated to cheer the hearts of the

protectionist wiseacres who look to the Black Hills for a vindication of McKinley’s wisdom in putting a duty of 4 cents a pound on tin. Professor Claypole is an expert geologist. After making a careful personal investigation of the deposits in question, he reports that “a sanguine estimate” might place the proportion of tin ore in them “at 2 per cent, and probably in order to attain this some of the poorer mineral must be excluded.* This, he says, is about the same percentage as the tin mines in Cornwall, England, yield. The result of this examination does not bear out the extravagant claims made for the Black Hills tin deposits. All sorts of extravagant assertions have been made about the richness of those> deposits. It was reported last year, for example, that “about April 1 a flve-stkmp mill was started on ore that is said to have yielded 10 per cent of tin and eight tons of ore were crushed per day. ” April 1 was a very good day on which tt> start this tariff industry. Its tin has never been heard of in our markets. We now import about 40,000,000 pounds of tin for use in the various industries of the country. The tax on this quantity after -the McKinley duty goes into effect July 1, 1893, will he $1,600,000. If the tin-plate enthusiasts should ever realize their dream of supplying the home market with American made tin-plate, an additional 25,000,000 pounds of pig tin will be needed every year, making the annual duty then foot up a round $3,000,000, not to mention the far larger tax on the tin-plate itself. All the protection afforded by this tax, too,will be gobbled up by the English companies which own or control the few mines in California and South Dakota. How do American voters like the McKinley plan of taxing themselves for the benefit of English capitalists?