Report of the British Economic Mission to Australia

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 179824683X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182286

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the British Economic Mission to Australia

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Office

Year of publication:: 7th January 1929

Scope:: 63 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Main problems

Collection:: Economics Books

20 generally, and such commodities as sugar, cotton, dried and canned fruits, wine and butter are either not being exported at all or are only being made exportable by means of a subsidy in one form or another from the public. We have felt much force in the oft- repeated complaint that successive increases in the tariff which affect prices and the cost of living, following upon, or being followed by, successive advances in the cost of labour as the result of decisions under the Arbitration Acts have involved Australia in a vicious circle of ever ascending costs and prices, and that this condition of affairs is crippling Australia’s progress and her power of supporting increased population. There lies no task before the Australian people more urgent than that of in some way breaking the vicious circle and of bringing down costs of production, as is veing done in the other industrial countries of the world, without owering the standard of living of the workers as measured not by money but by real wages, which are the reward of labour in the form of goods and services. Dbgervations 47. Qur views have merely been strengthened by our study of of the Tariff he reports of the Commonwealth Tariff Board, who, we observe, ’ in their report for the year 1925-26, say that they are— *“ strongly of the opinion that the industrial unions of the Commonwealth should be induced to realize the critical position into which the Commonwealth is drifting and the absolute necessity for preventing the wages gap from becoming still wider between the United Kingdom, the Continent of Europe and the Commonwealth, otherwise, the Tariff Board, placed as it is in the position to take a comprehensive and ‘ntimate view of all Australian industry, can see nothing but economic disaster ahead, and that at no very distant date *’ in their report for the year 1926-27 that— ! . + . . in some industries it is apparent that protection is failing to protect. In so far as recent increases in Customs Revenue have been due to the collection of higher duties imposed with the object of discouraging the importa- tion of the appliances or commodities on which such duties were imposed, the increased amount collected represented, in the case of goods used in manufacture, an addition to the cost of production, which indirectly increased the cost of living ; and to the extent that any such increased revenue was due to the imposition of duty on commodities imported in the form in which they are consumed it represented a direct increase in the cost of living. Such additional revenue is un- desirable and the sums involved would be far better in the hands of the indirect taxpayers—whether State Government activities or undertakings conducted by private enterprise—or the general public,” and in their report for the year 1927-28 that— . + + +. . One of the most serious difficulties which Australia has to face at present is the high cost of production

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