AUSTRALIA'S FINANCE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19153, 9 November 1927, Page 9

AUSTRALIA'S FINANCE.

PROTECTIVfi TARIFFS DENOUNCED. (BT CABLE —FKX3S ASSOCIATIOK —COPYBIGHT.) (AUSTRALIA* AND HZ. CABLB ASSOCIATION.) SYDNEY, November 8. Sir Lennon Raws, a prominent Sydney business man, addressing the Constitutional Club, denounced high protective tariffs and extended borrowing abroad as dangers to Australia's economic security. He described the enormous Customs revenue as a charge upon production and an incentive to Government extravagance. Referring to the excess of imports over exports, he declared that as a result of excessive borrowing overseas and the high costs of production in Australia, the country seemed to be moving in the opposite direction to the remainder of the world. Its local market was contracting as the cost of transport rose, whereas the movement elsewhere was towards expanding 'the area of the home market. Its costs of production were rising,_ whereas elsewhere every nerve was being strained to reduce costs It was shackling industry with Control Boards, Pricefixing" Associations, and the like in futile efforts to maintain prices, while other countries were looking for proGt margins iiVjJhe reduction of_ costs and were viewing with comparative equanimity price reductions, because they were an incentive to increased consumption. -j