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