EXPORT TAX ON TIN IN THE MALAY STATES.

Consul-General O. F. Williams writes from Singapore, June 19, 1903, that the Government has imposed an additional export tax on tin ore of $30 Mexican ($11.50) per picul of 1333 pounds, except when it is to be smelted in the colony. The export tax was formerly $13.63 Mexican ($5.22) per picul, all the ore being smelted within colonial limits. It is thought that the new export tax will discriminate not only against foreign countries, but also against British colonies, such as Hongkong, Australia, and Ceylon; it will also act against the smelting in England or Wales of any tin ore from the oriental supply stations. Local smelters will now have an absolute monopoly of tin smelting. The increase of the tax, Mr. Williams notes, practically multiplies it by three, so that local tin smelters. obtain tin ore with $13.63 Mexican ($5.22) export tax, while all outsiders must pay $43.63 Mexican ($16.71) per picul. Allowing 40 per cent dross in smelting, this export tax alone amounts to about $333 gold per ton of smelted or pig tin.

The American Asiatic, published in San Francisco, Cal., states in its issue of July 18 that the duty of $30 per picul (1333 pounds) on tin ore exported from the Malay States is "a protective act against the International Tin Company, which had begun to deal in ore direct for smelting in the United States," and adds that that company is now considering putting up smelters in the colony.

The duty of $30 per picul (1333 pounds), it says, is in addition to the duty on tin ore formerly existing.

In connection with the foregoing, the following table, prepared in the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce and Labor, will be of interest:

Imports of tin, in bars, blocks, pigs, or grain or granulated ( free), into the United States.

Under date of July 10, 1903, Consul Marshal Halstead, of Birmingham, transmits the following statistics from the London Times of July 9:

TIN PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD.

In 1875 the world's output of tin amounted in round figures to some 40,000 tons, of which 10,000 tons came from the Straits Settlements, 10,000 tons from Cornwall, 8,000 tons from Dutch East Indies, 11,000 tons from Australia, and the insignificant residue from South America and elsewhere. To-day the annual output exceeds 75,000 tons, and of this more than 46,000 tons-over 61 per cent of the whole come from the Straits Settlements, while Cornwall produces now only 5,000 tons and the Australian output has similarly declined. On the other hand, the Dutch East Indies export some 14,000 tons and Bolivia has an output of 5,000 tons. There are a few other places whence tin is shipped to the world's markets, but the amount of their production is comparatively insignificant. The fact which is of importance is that the tin produced by the Malay States under British protection exceeds the total output of the world in 1875 by more than 6,000 tons and represents to-day considerably more than half of the supply of the metal now annually available.

PROGRESS OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION IN

SAXONY.

In ADVANCE SHEETS No. 915 I described the state of commercial education in Saxony as it was in 1900. Since that time seven new commercial schools have been added to the list, making in all a total of 58 up to date.

The commercial school in Eibenstock has made good progress. In August, 1900, the Saxon government issued a decree which provided a better supervision of the commercial schools on the part of the chambers of commerce, and, what is of much greater importance, it provided that every merchant or manufacturer must pay $1 for every $1,000 of his income into the treasury of the commercial school located in his city. This system has placed every commercial school in Saxony on a solid financial basis.

In Eibenstock the board of directors has provided a small fund to be spent annually in purchasing new books for the students li brary, which already consists of 100 well-selected volumes. The director has received permission to retain after school hours all tardy and disobedient apprentices. The teacher receives extra compensation for the time thus spent, and the plan, on the whole, has been found to work exceedingly well.

In 1902, during a six weeks' vacation of the director of the Eibenstock commercial school, I was asked to give instruction in a number of classes. I consented to do so, and the director and school board expressed their thanks in the school catalogue for 1903, recently published.

EIBENSTOCK, GERMANY, July 14, 1903.

ERNEST L. HARRIS,

Commercial Agent.

GERMAN EXPERTS TO STUDY FOREIGN LABOR CONDITIONS.

The Prussian Minister of Commerce, Herr Moeller, a few days. ago addressed the Board of Trade at Osnabrück on the betterment of the handicraft and labor interests in Germany. Incidentally the minister stated that the Government would send commissions of experts to Austria, England, Switzerland, and the United States for the purpose of studying the institutions and methods existing therein. for the benefit of labor and trades. On the same occasion Herr Moeller advocated a governmental organization of chambers for trades and labor and urged the establishment of trade schools where craftsmen may be enabled to obtain a semimercantile education, so as to acquire the skill of making correct estimates, economic calculations, etc.

FRANKFORT, GERMANY, July 23, 1903.

SIMON W. HANAUER,

Deputy Consul-General.

TRAINING ENGINEERS.

The question of the best way to train engineers being regarded as of considerable importance in England at the present time, Principal Laurie, of Heriot Watt College, Edinburgh, writes to the London Times announcing an arrangement his institution has made with some of the leading firms in Edinburgh which will enable parents to give their sons a complete training as engineers without having to send them first to a technical college and then search for a suitable firm in which to apprentice them. Mr. Laurie's scheme is in the combination, in the course of instruction, of the technical colleges with that of the actual workshop, the agreement with engineering firms being that students shall begin their apprenticeship before they have finished their college course, the apprenticeship to be shortened for the students who obtain the technical college's diplomas. So favorably was the plan received by several engineering firms in Edinburgh that they have agreed to take a number of college students into their works at reduced premiums and to shorten by one year the term of apprenticeship, which is to begin at the end of the student's second college session, the complete course of training at the college for electrical and mechanical engineers and in the actual workshop taking from five to six years.

MARSHAL HALSTEAD,

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, July 23, 1903.

Consul.

MEAT-INSPECTION LAW OF PRUSSIA.

In order to do away with difficulties and misunderstandings which became apparent when the law for the import and inspection of foreign meat began to take effect, the Prussian Ministers for Agriculture, Finances, and Trade and Industry, with the sanction of the Chancellor, have issued the following instructions:

1. Fresh animal blood must be counted as meat, and can therefore be imported only in "whole bodies of animals." Salted blood is excluded because the necessary certainty of harmlessness to human health can not be arrived at in blood which is not contained in bulk. Heavy salting of blood of sick animals gives no guaranty against danger to human health. Also all other parts of warm-blooded animals, as long as they are intended for food for human beings, are allowed to be imported in fresh condition only when these parts are in natural coherence to the whole animal body or its halves. This includes particularly such inner organs the importation of which does not naturally follow the import of other parts; for instance, fresh lard or fresh intestines which are not contained in the animal body are forbidden to be imported, even if they reach the place of inspection together with the bodies of which they were presumed to have been a part.

2. The admission of well-boiled liver, which up to date was permitted to enter, is declared to be contrary to the law of inspection of meats. Prepared meat is admissible only if in its origin and preparation there is, according to experience, no danger to human health, or if its harmlessness to health can be proved positively at its importation. Neither the one nor the other of these conditions exist with cooked livers, for if the cooking of livers is not sufficient to kill all animal or botanical germs, unsound adhesions to the liver can not be removed at all by cooking; therefore, unsound livers, even after the most thorough cooking, still retain the condition of rotten and disgusting nutriments. Besides all this, the cooking of the liver, more than any other system of preparing the same, is calculated to cover up the unhealthy condition of this organ; fresh tuberculous formation, young cysts, etc., are liable to be so changed by the process of cooking that they are not very easily detected on examination.

3. Since the inner organs of animals, particularly of pigs, singly, seldom reach the weight of 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds), there has been developed in several places of inspection the import of such organs adhering to different parts of the animal body in a pickled condition. As long as these coherent parts really weigh at least 4 kilograms, and as long as it can be proved that a rigid examination shows that these inner parts have absolutely lost the condition of fresh meat, there is no objection to the importation of such parts, provided that the final inspection permits a favorable report.

4. The ordering of lard prepared in foreign countries very often is done after the receipt of samples; therefore it happens often that samples of this lard are imported in small lots and of unimportant weights. It is ordered that the chemical inspection of parcels up to 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) can ordinarily be dispensed with, and it is considered necessary only when on first examination the condition of the sample causes suspicion.

5. Meat peptones as such are allowed to be imported, but since meat powder and meat flour are named among such products of meats as sausages, etc., which, on account of consisting of hashed meat, are excluded from import, there exist

doubts as to meat peptones having the privilege of being imported. Until further orders, peptones necessary for medical purposes, even if they quite resemble meat powder, are not to be considered as meat in the sense of the law for inspection of meats and can be imported without examination.

6. It has been found that some imported meats contain borax, of which, according to appearances, it would seem no use has been made with the intention of preserving the meat. For instance, the meat could have become affected by the borax contained in packing material which had been used previously to carry goods containing boral; but since the importation of all meat containing borax is strictly forbidden, meat thus affected must be excluded.

BAMBERG, GERMANY, July 17, 1903.

W. BARDEL,

Consul.

GERMAN MEAT

INSPECTION.

The results of the German meat-inspection law which went into effect on April 1 of this year are already quite noticeable in the figures of German meat imports.

In the two months of April and May, 1903, only 2,138 tons of fresh meat were imported into Germany, against 4, 160 tons during the same period of 1902, and only 1,800 tons of simply prepared meat, against 4,852 tons in April and May, 1902. Sausages and canned meat are not included, as such imports of "prepared meats" have been prohibited since October, 1900.

As the new law applies to fatty substances for food purposes, imports of lard and artificial lard have also decreased from 17,141 tons in April and May, 1902, to 10, 109 tons for the same months in 1903.

The fresh-beef imports decreased from 2,150 tons to 1,192 tons; fresh pork, from 1,988 tons to 936 tons; pickled pork, etc., from 1,365 tons to 474 tons; hams and bacon, from 2,875 tons to 853 tons.

From the United States only 7.4 tons of ham were imported in April and May of this year, against 262 tons in the same period of 1902; of bacon, 507 tons against 1,749 tons.

FRANKFORT, GERMANY, July 7, 1903.

RICHARD GUENTHER,

Consul-General.

Statistics just issued concerning the importation of meat give the following facts:

The importation of prepared beef from the United States for the month of May, 1902, amounted to 466,600 pounds and for the month of May, 1903, to 99,600 pounds, a decrease of 367,000 pounds; as to prepared pork, the figures for May, 1902, show an importation of 800, 400 pounds and for the same period of 1903 only 29, 200 pounds,