WORLD EFFECTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 183, 4 August 1936, Page 7

WORLD EFFECTS.

AUSTRALIAN POLICY.

TARIFFS AND QUOTAS.

NEW MANUFACTURES,

Although the Australian Government's tariff on Japanese goods had, by reason of its effect on the wool market and the subsequent parleys between the two countries, received most of the publicity, other recent enactments restricting the Commonwealth's imports may also have far-reaching effects on international trade, stated Mr. Hastings Deering, managing director of Hastings Deering Company, of Sydney, who arrived in Auckland by the Marama this morning. Mr. Deering will leave again for Sydney by the Mariposa on Friday, accompanying Mr. Hubert French, manager in Australia of Henry Ford, Limited, who is returning to the Commonwealth from America aboard that ship. Car Importation Restricted. A recent enactment of the .Federal Government, Mr. Deering stated, restricts the importation of motor cars from U.S.A. and Canada to the same number as was imported last year, about 59,500, by means of a license system. There was, however, no restriction on the importation of British cars. This was, Mr. Deering thought, only a small part due to the Government's desire to prevent any increase in the country's income going out agaiir for the purchase of luxuries; it was really a defence measure. The Government's object, an ambitious one that would probably take years to achieve, was to make motor car manufacturers set up plants in Australia for the complete manufacture of cars. In time of emergency, therefore, the Commonwealth would have its own means of internal transport assured instead of having to rely on the importation of motor vehicles, and at the same time machinery that turned out motor car engines and bodies could be adapted to make other munitions.

Large numbers of cars were now assembled in Australia from imported parts, the bodies being locally cjade, but the casting of some of the engine parts presented technical difficulties. These would, no doubt, be overcome in time, as were the difficulties that were encountered when bodies were first made locally. Nowadays the Australian-made bodies were every bit as good as the British or American. For the marketing, however, the trained staffs of existing companies would undoubtedly be needed. Local enterprise would have as much as it could do in learning to build motor cars without having to waste time training a sales organisation. Absorption of Immigrants. "The efforts of such countries as Australia and New Zealand, hitherto purely agricultural, to foster their own secondary industries will undoubtedly have an important bearing on the trade of the whole world," Mr. Deering admitted. "Less of manufactured articles will be imported from Great Britain and America, who will have to seek other markets for their productions or else find themselves with a surplus. No doubt they will resent this, as they already resent the tariffs by which our young secondary industries 'are at present being protected from their competition, but I .think that we should still foster our secondary industries all we can, both in Australia and New Zealand, and, particularly in view of the disturbed state of international relations, become as little dependent on importations as possible. I did not always think so. In fact, I was for many years one of the most vigorous opponents of such a policy, holding, as many people on both sides of the Tasman still do, that we should concentrate our energies on the development of our primary industries only, but I can see now what a. tremendous mistake that would be, especially if we intend to augment our population by immigration from Great Britain.