Tintinnabulations

In the last eight years of world chaos, many a U. S. citizen has given fervent thanks that the U. S. is endowed with ample supplies of all but a handful of basic resources.

But the U. S. has not been spared from getting down to cases about tanks, torpedo tubes, guns, engines, propeller shafts, observation instruments, etc. Manufacturing these requires one of the few basic materials the U. S. happens to lack--tin. So does manufacturing tin cans to hold the No. 1 necessity of war and peace--food.

Over 80% of the U. S.'s annual tin imports (more than 75,000 tons in a "normal" year, 45% of the world's yearly production) comes from Asia, 18% from Europe, practically all of it is smelted in the British and Dutch empires. War at sea might cut it off. Already shipments from Singapore have been partly rerouted. The U. S. supply of tin is limited to tin-plate scrap reclaimed from U. S. junk piles, but that yields only about 30% of U. S. needs.

During World War I (which sent the price of tin to $1.10 per lb.), U. S. war planners became tin-conscious. A U. S. tin smelter was built to process East Indian ore imported direct into the U. S. but British interests, practically monopolizing world tin mining and smelting, slapped export taxes on ore shipments to the U. S., stifled the infant U. S. tin-smelting industry.

In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed the Planning Committee for Mineral Policy, which urgently recommended accumulation of a stockpile. But the President, who won his bet with Senator Borah that World War II would begin in autumn 1939, never pressed for action. When war came, the price of tin shot up from 49-c- to 75-c- a lb., then slumped back as the first wave of inventory buying passed. Last week, independently of Government initiative, U. S. tin smelting was cautiously getting off to a new start. Two famed U. S. copper interests--Phelps Dodge (No. 3 U. S. copper unit) and American Metal Co., Ltd. (No. 1 U. S. investor in huge Rhodesian copper mines, formerly No. 2 metal refiner) had independently contracted to import several thousand tons of ore from the rundown, low-grade mines of Bolivia.

In Brooklyn Phelps Dodge is already producing 100 tons a month. American Metal expects to follow it into production. Both companies deliberately put themselves under a handicap by using low-grade Bolivian ore rather than good Malayan ore, which may be cut off by the tin trust. This increases smelting costs so much that the U. S. State Department, which loves to promote trade with Latin America, has never helped it, believing it would be uneconomic.

Phelps Dodge's Louis Gates is pitting new U. S. smelting practice against the rutted methods of the British trust. Freight, insurance and greater demand have so far pushed the New York tin price approximately 29% above London. In spite of the ore handicap, Phelps Dodge can more than break even with tin at about 46-c-, which is more than 10-c- higher than the British break-even point. This should keep Phelps Dodge in the tin business even come peace. American Metal has the same economic problem. Meantime in Argentina, National Lead Co., St. Joseph Lead Co., and Patino are jointly working and smelting deposits similar to Bolivia's.

None of these projects, however, promises the U. S. self-sufficiency in tin. Phelps Dodge now produces only at the rate of 1,200 tons a year, Argentinian production is only about 1,700 tons a year. U. S. peacetime needs are 6-7,000 tons a month (current needs: 7-12,000 tons). In 1929, at their peak, Bolivian mines were able to produce ore equivalent to only 55% of U. S. tin needs. Main precaution against a tin famine remains the stockpile.

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