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:heaply than further extensive development is likely to do.
Paras. 40 to 42.)
(12) Most vexed and most important of all Australian ques-
tons is that of the cost of production with its effect upon
export industries and of the combined effects of the Tariff
sand the Arbitration Acts. (Para. 44.)
(18) Their effects and that of the Navigation Acts have laid
+ an unduly heavy burden on the unsheltered primary industries
? which have to export at the world’s price, and on the States
principally concerned with such industries, viz.: Western
¢ Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. (Para. 45.)
(14) There is ground for the common complaint of a vicious
circle of increased prices due to the Tariff, and of increased
“sts of labour due to Arbitration Awards, and it is urgently
necessary to break the vicious circle without lowering the
standard of living, i.e., real wages. (Paras. 46 and 47.)
(15) The power to alter the Tariff by administrative action
must be prudently used if it is not to hamper trade. (Para. 48.)
(16) The merits of a policy of protection are not ln ques-
tion. It is the settled policy of Australia and may have been
adopted on non-economic as well as on economic grounds.
Both grounds may be sound, but it is important that it should
be possible to count the economic cost of the sacrifice. (Paras.
49 and 50.)
(17) It is a policy difficult to carry out in detail. There
is risk of error in the way of giving excessive or too prolonged
assistance to infant industries and in the way of protecting
inefficient industries, and the total burden of the tariff has
orobably reached the economic limits. (Paras. 51 to 53.)
"(18) Efficiency should be a condition of protection, and
protected industries should be liable to furnish the Govern-
ment with the fullest information as to their prices, costs and
conditions generally.” (Paras. 54 and 55.)
(19) A full scientific enquiry and investigation should forth-
with be instituted by the Commonwealth Government into
the whole question of the economic effect of the tariff and
the incidence of its duties. Pending this enquiry there should
be no avoidable increase of duties. (Paras. 56 and 57.)
(20) Protection when granted should be effective. Reduc-
tion of duties may mean decrease in the amount of the British
Preference, but if reduction be to the economic advantage
of Australia, Great Britain has really more to gain from that
source than from preference accorded to her. (Paras. 58
and 59.)
(21) The system of settlement of industrial disputes by
awards of the Courts set up under the Arbitration Acts has
failed, has involved overlapping jurisdiction and conflicting
decisions and has tended to divide emplover and employed into
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