HIGH TARIFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 106, 7 May 1934, Page 8

HIGH TARIFF.

COUNTRY ATTACK. MR. LYONS ANSWERS MR. PAGE. «SO MUCH IDLE CHATTER." (From Our Own Correspondent.) ■ SYDNEY, May 1. Dr. Earle Pago is still raging furiously against the Lyons Government, because it° has not cut down tariffs so far and so fast as the Country party desires and this week he has been more demonstrative than ever. Speaking at Kempsey— in his own northern district, where he is sure of a sympathetic hearing—Dr. Pa<*e declared that "Australia has been a ringleader in the orgy of embargoes prohibitions and tariff restrictions, and that now "Australia's policy of tariff restrictions is being followed generally. We refuse to buy their goods—-they refuse to buy our raw materials." Apparently Dr. Earle Page believes that protection is a policy that lirst burst upon a bewildered world five or six years ago, that it was invented by the wicked Mr. Scullin, and that it has been perfected by the perfidious Mr. Lyons; and that other protectionist countries are merely following our feftd example. Such poor ignorance of economic history is rather alarming, m the leader of a great political party. But Dr. Page goes further than this. Hβ maintains that our'protectionibt policy so angered Britain that the British Government has been driven to put up protective barriers against our primary products, and as a further proof of indignation and resentment, to make treaties with our economic rivals. According to Dr. Page, it is "the ill-will generated by our churlish treatment of Britain" tliat has induced her to make generous fiscal concessions to Denmark, the Argentine, Scandinavia, and even the Soviet State. The Balance of Trade. Dr. Page holds a responsible position, and Mr. Lyons was fully justified in calling him to account the other night. The Prime Minister dismissed Dr. Page's criticism of Australia's fiscal policy as "so much idle chatter," for Dr. Page takes no account of Britain's new policy of protecting her own primary industries, and he ignores completely the efforts that Australia has made to promote Britain's trade with us. As Mr. Lyons says, "the protection of British agriculture is a policy fjuite apart from consideration of reciprocal trade." As to the suggestion that the Australian market has been closed against British goods, Mr. Lyons gave the following figures: In 1932-33 we exported to Britain goods worth about £42,000,000 and we purchased goods worth about £24.000.000. The credit balance—between £17.000.000 and £18,000,000— was nearly £7.000,000 less than the amount which Australia had to find in London for payments in interest due to British investors. These figures disprove absolutely the charge that Australia has not bought us much as she could safely buy from Britain, in proportion to the value of her exports. Preferences to British Goods. But Mr. Lyons is even more severe upon Dr. Page when he comes to deal with the general question of preferential tariffs. He reminds us that "ever since Australia has had a tariff policy, she has granted preference to Britain on a wide range of commodities, while receiving in return preference on only a few items, which did not include our major export products." Britain did not realise the advisability of granting preference to Australia till 1932, while "Australia had been granting preference to the United Kingdom for a quarter of a century." All this is weir known to those who have considered the history of our economic development seriously, but Dr. Earle Page still believes that tariffs are in themselves an evil, and that they should be swept away in the interests of the primary producer. Apparently he has failed to realise that Britain is the only Power that ever adopted free trade, and that she has now publicly repudiated it, ami is falling back upon her traditional policy of protection for home industries, which she abandoned at the bidding of Cobden and Bright 90 years ago. "Recouping" the Graziers. But while Dr. Earle Page deserves thy severe handling he received this week from Mr. Lyons he has laid himself open to criticism from another quarter. Discussing the proposed restriction of exports a short time ago, Dr. Page is reported to have said that as this policy would mean that a number of workers in the primary industries would be deprived of their occupation, work must be found for them in other industries before the primary producers would agree to the new policy. This idea was largely confirmed by Mr. Jas. Walker, a prominent member of the Country party and president of the Graziers' Association, who has said openly that "the wool growers and the graziers ought to be recouped for the losses that they have incurred in recent years."

This calm assumption that the primary producer has a sort of "divine right" to preferential treatment has aroused wrath and resentment in the cities and among the representatives of the secondary industries. "What right" (asks "Truth," with a strong body of public opinion behind it), "have the graziers to be repaid their losses incurred by their own unsound finance during the boom years, when they scrambled for land at exorbitant prices, accepted mortgages at extraordinary rates of interest, and never put aside reserves against the evil day" Why should they be considered to the exclusion of the countless investors in industrial enterprises who have found these enterprises unproductive, and, as a result of the fall in prices, have been forced to write off their investment as a dead loss? Yet when the secondary industrialists remonstrate with Dr. Page and his followers in this strain, the spokesmen of the Country party deride their "city complex" and threaten to "teach them a lesson" at the coming Federal elections.

It is quite likely that, if "the selfishness of the wool-growers and the fanaticism of Dr. Earle Page" continue to play this conspicu%us part in political affairs, the Federal Government may sustain a very severe shock in the near future: but in the loner run it will he the primary producers who will suffer most from the folly of their leaders.