Industrial Gold

For many a reconverting industry that needs bearings, metal containers, etc., tin is literally worth its weight in gold. As far back as last fall the War Production Board solemnly warned that tin was so scarce that the U.S. might run out completely in 1946. The hope had been that when Far Eastern tin sources, which produced 92% of prewar U.S. tin, were surveyed, enough hidden stockpiles would be found to end the shortage.

Last week one of the first detailed reports out of Malaya, biggest producer in the Orient, scuttled this hope. After jeeping through the Malay peninsula, TIME Correspondent John Luter reported: no hidden stocks of tin, and no mine would operate for months to come. The Japs had looted the bulk of the engineering tools, flooded the mines, left destruction and decay behind them. The plight of the tin mines was far worse than that of the rubber plantations, which had been comparatively unharmed.

Rested Trees. The trees, untapped by the Japs for years, were ready to ooze latex far faster than they normally did. But production will be comparatively small until the managers of the big estates, who were chased out or imprisoned by the Japs, return. There were 1,400 in Malaya before the war. Now there are only 120. Many are still recuperating in England and Australia from the starvation of concentration camps. Nevertheless, production of natural rubber (not nearly as vital at present as tin to the U.S.) is expected to be up to 25 or 30% of normal in six months. Within a year it is expected to reach 60%. Few planters were worried about the competition of the war-built U.S. synthetic industry. They are sure that they can undersell synthetics.

But tin would reach only half its pre-war production 18 months from now. By last week a few European managers and mining engineers had drifted back to Malaya. Manpower, siphoned off by the Japs for war jobs, was still short, although returning coolies were doing preliminary chores around the mines.

Wrecked Dredges. But the real problem was the restoration or replacement of Malaya's 126 dredges, which are used to scoop up alluvial deposits, where much tin is found. All of these machines, badly handled by the Japs, are in varying states of disrepair. Thirty-nine of them will have to be completely replaced, which will take two years. Of the rest, only 41 will be in operation by next August while the 46 others will not be back in service until June 1947. Thus it will be from three to four years before the industry hits its full prewar rate of 76,800 tons a year.

There is still more than a year's supply (95,000 tons) of tin on hand in the U.S. But industry is already feeling the pinch. Example: auto men have had to redesign motor parts to cut the use of tin from four Ibs. per car to two.

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