known as tin-plates, and in what we shall here say of tin-plates the pop ular use of the word will be observed unless otherwise indicated.

The United States is not only, by virtue of its large population, a large consumer of tin-plates for culinary and other domestic purposes, and for the uses of the dairy, but it also makes greater use of tin-plates for roofing and canning purposes than any other country. The thinnest sheets are generally used for cans, and the thicker sheets are used for other purposes. We consume more tin-plates than all the rest of the world.

GREAT BRITAIN MONOPOLIZES THE MANUFACTURE OF TIN-PLATES.

Nearly all the tin-plates of commerce are manufactured in Great Britain, and the greater part of the tin-plates of that country are produced in South Wales. The quantity annually manufactured in other countries is so small that it exerts but very little influence on either the total supply or the market price of this commodity. Not one box of tin-plates or terne-plates is made in the United States, all our supply being obtained abroad.

The production of tin-plates in Great Britain has rapidly increased in recent years, caused chiefly by the increased demand for them from the United States. In 1865 there were 47 tin-plate works in Great Britain, and in January, 1888, there were 87. The production of tin-plates in Great Britain in 1887 was 424,773 gross tons, of which 354,773 tons were exported and 70,000 tons were retained for home consumption. In round numbers, five-sixths of the whole quantity produced was exported. An English statistician shows that, reducing the tons exported to boxes averaging 128 pounds in weight, there were exported in 1887 a total of 6,207,388 boxes, of which the United States took 4,526,367 boxes, or nearly three-fourths of the whole quantity exported and nearly twothirds of the whole quantity produced in Great Britain in that year.

The exports of tin-plates from Great Britain to the United States have increased from 1,931,128 boxes in 1878 to 4,526,367 boxes in 1887— a period of ten years.

OUR ENORMOUS PAYMENTS TO GREAT BRITAIN FOR TIN PLATES.

The following table shows the quantities of tin-plates imported into the United States from all countries, in each calendar year, from 1871 to 1887, with their foreign values:

The total quantity of tin-plates imported into our country in these seventeen years was 2,663,855 gross tons, and the total foreign vaule of these importations was $242,181,578. In addition to this sum our people paid freights and duties.

It will be seen that the consumption of tin-plates in the United States has greatly increased in the seventeen years mentioned, and from the statements already made it further appears that Great Britain has supplied practically all the tin-plates we have required. Her tin-plate indus try and her iron and steel industries have been greatly benefited by our rapidly-developed demand for her tin-plates.

WHERE TIN IS OBTAINED.

Tin itself, with which iron and steel sheets are coated, is obtained chiefly from Cornwall in England, from the Malayan peninsula and neighboring islands in the Straits of Malacca, and from Australia. The supply of tin which Great Britain obtains from Cornwall is far from sufficient to meet her wants, and she is consequently a large importer of tin from the East Indies and Australia. Indeed a large part of the Cornwall supply is annually exported to other countries in the form of block-tin, imported tin being regarded as superior to that of Cornwall for coating iron or steel sheets. An English authority states that Corn. ish tin "is not so fluid, not so soft, and will not cover so large a surface of plate" as imported tin. The production of tin in the East Indies is largely in the hands of the Dutch Government.

We give herewith the official statement of the production of tin in Cornwall for the nine years ended December 31, 1887:

The following table shows the shipments of metallic tin from the Straits and Australia during the five years ended May 31, 1885:

We have given the latest statistics of the production of tin for a series of years which are at hand. It will be seen that in the nine years from 1879 to 1887 the supply of tin from Cornwall was virtually stationary, with a declining tendency, being about 9,000 tons annually, while from 1881 to 1885 the production of the East Indies increased more than 21 per cent. The East India shipments to London increased threefold in the five years last mentioned, and in each of the last two years these shipments were larger than the total supply obtained from Cornwall. In 1885 the combined shipments of tin from the East Indies and Australia to all countries aggregated more than three times the quantity obtained from Cornwall. In 1887 Cornwall produced 9,282 tons of tin,

TESTIMONY

TAKEN BY THE

3-2034

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE TARIFF

OF THE

SENATE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE

IN CONNECTION WITH

THE BILL H. R. 9051, TO REDUCE TAXATION AND

LAWS IN RELATION TO THE

ON OF THE REVENUE.

PARTS.

r IV.

ASHINGTON:

ENT PRINTING OFFICE.