Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1892 — Yes, We Make Tin Plate. [ARTICLE]

Yes, We Make Tin Plate.

According to the report of CoJ. Ira Ayers, Special Agent of the Treasury Department, our total output of tin and terne plates is as follows: Poondf. July 1,1891, to Sept. 30,1891 838,928 Oot. 1, 1891, to Deo. 81. 1891 1,409,831 Jan. 1,1893, to March 81,1892 8,014,087 Total for the nine month! ending Maroh 31, 1893 8,340,880 The same report states our average yearly Imports of tin and terne plates as (178,000,000 pounds. We can at this rate produce enough of these plates to run us nearly one day—about 1-12 of 1 per cent, of our consumption. Considering the fact that we have, during the last thirty years, taxed ourselves at least $100,000,000 to start this industry, the result does not appear to be very great. It Is, however, highly satisfactory to the New York Tribune and other high tariff papers which are now dally giving these figures to the American people. C. 8. Trench <fc Co., of 64 Cliff street, New York City, in their tin plate circular for May, give the result of an investigation made by their firm. It appears that twelve of the nineteen firms reported by the Treasury Department as making tin plates, buy their plates and simply do the dipping, only four firms make their own plates, and that only four make any bright plates suitable for the canning industry—all the others making only roofing plates. Whether there has been any bright tin plate made here—that is, made from beginning to end—ls doubtful. The price at which the product is offered is for IC 14x20, 6J cents for bright*, and $6 per box for roofing. These prices being above the present cost of imported plates, the reason is clear why “American" tin plate does not yet sell in commercial quantities or play any part in the market* The real question is whether we are not paying too much for our tin plate, and whether the actual damage done to other and more important industries has not already exceeded all the chimerical gains for the next twenty-five years that the most ardent McKinleyite can conceive of. The canning Industry is fifty times as large as our tin plate industry, and one hundred times more important to the farmer and laboring man. It consumes the farmers' surplus product and gives oMap food to the laborer. The greater cost of tin plate, glass, and sugar in the United States during the last twenty-five years has not only prevented us from exporting canned goods to all parts of the world, as we would have done under favorable conditions, but has so burdened this industry and increased the cost of canninggoods here that England, less favored by nature, has not only been supplying the marketß of the world but has been competing with us in our own markets with many kjnds of canned goods. Thus, because of the lack ot canning factories all over pur land, large quantities of small fruits, vegetables, etc., are left to rot, and millions of hungry laborers are deprived of cheap food. The higher duty on tin plates under the act of 1890 is still further depressing this and many other important industries. The Tin Plate Consumers’ Association has been investi-

gating these evils. It has received replies from forty-one firms. These tell of increased cost of raw material, lessened sales, fewer hands employed, a decided check iq business, and the substitution of other and inferior material for tin plate. These are only a few of the evils that should be put on one side of the scales when weighing the good that protectionists say will he done by the higher duty on tin plates.