248 THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE IN RELATION 
sented by an enlarged population would expand a market that 
for many industries is now almost stationary. Many of these 
industries, established under the protection of a tariff devised 
for that purpose, are in a static condition because of the im- 
possibility of realizing the economies of large-scale organization, 
on the one hand, and because of excessive competition for a 
limited market on the other. On a smaller scale the same argu- 
ments for the ‘rationalization’ of industry apply in Australia as 
in Britain; but every industry in the Commonwealth needs 
urgently the impulse to be derived from a more rapid enlarge- 
ment of the body of consumers. 
But the very real difficulties connected with an acceleration 
of the stream of migration during the difficult transition period 
that confronts us cannot be ignored. New settlers mean capital 
provision; and that implies a continuance of the external 
borrowing policy. This in its turn tends to maintain an arti- 
ficially high standard of living which is the greatest barrier in 
the way of a successful migration policy, because it both in- 
creases the resistance on the part of the Australian worker who 
fears that immigration means lowered living standards, and 
decreases the ability for the products of Australian industry to 
compete in world markets owing to the relatively high cost 
of production. Looked at from another angle, it is clearly to 
be seen that every economic inducement exists for a reappor- 
tionment of population as between Britain and Australia. 
Apparently, the only method of achieving this redistribution of 
people is by means of capital loans. Again, this implies an 
increasing volume of Anglo-Australian trade to implement such 
a policy; and here, also, mutual advantage would seem to lie 
in its realization. But the industries which would be stimulated 
by this overseas trade are not those ‘sheltered’ industries pre- 
dicated by the tariff policy. Such, in outline, is the economic 
impasse at which the Commonwealth has apparently arrived. 
In the light of what has been said, consideration of this rela- 
tion between tariff policy and overseas indebtedness may be 
conveniently taken a stage further. In the traditionally difficult 
transition stage, from an industrial organization as a purely 
primary producer to an organization as both primary and 
secondary producer, there is necessarily much vacillation and 
sxperiment. The effect of a relatively large external debt is to