Borrowing and business in Australia

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 183051623X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-222122

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Wood, Gordon L. http://d-nb.info/gnd/1239193688

Title:: Borrowing and business in Australia

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Oxford university press, H. Milford

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: xv, 267 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part V. Australia during and after the great war

Collection:: Economics Books

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

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Borrowing and business in Australia

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation