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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part III. Summary of conclusions and recommendations

Collection:: Economics Books

cheaply than further extensive development is likely to do. (Paras. 40 to 42.) 19) Most vexed and most important of all Australian ques- tions is that of the cost of production with its effect upon export industries and of the combined effects of the Tariff and the Arbitration Acts. (Para. 44.) (13) 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 costs 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 in 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. 19 and 50.) (17) It is a policy difficult to carry out in detail. There 's rigk of error in the way of giving excessive or too prolonged assistance to infant industries and in the way of protecting nefficient 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 ~onditions 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 se 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 »f 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 tailed, has involved overlapping jurisdiction and conflicting Jaeisions and has tended to divide emplover and employed into

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