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