TARIFF AND WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 4, 5 July 1927, Page 5

TARIFF AND WAGES

HIGH PROTECTION REQUESTED

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 23rd Juno.

A marked feature of tho proceedings of t'io Tariff Board rocon ly, ospceially in Sydney, hns been tho increasing number of applications for higher protection in respect of Australian, commodities. Tho fact that tho Board has, for somo time, been listening to those applications daily would suggest/ that tho present duties, although considorod sufficient whon they -.vero originally imposed, hnvo not checked the volu 10 of importj. Tho proposal which manufacturers put boforo tho Primo Minister (Mr. Bruco), recently as regarded as somowhat extraordinary in somo commercial qunrtors in Sydnt. .

Tho suggestion, in offoct, was thnt until the Fodora Government had matured plans to deal with tho economic position,/ of industry thoro should bo n. link between the Arbitration Court and tho Tariiff Board which would ens- c that all extra costs imposed by tho decisions of tho court and of Parliament, should bo automatically covered by nn immediato increase of an equivalent amount in tho protection afforded by tho tariff.

This plan, howover, it is contended, would develop rapidly v process of economic strangulation, in that lughor duties would involvo hig. -r cost of living and applications to tho Court as a natural corollary for more wages. In othor words, tho Court would constantly bo chasing tho Tariff Board, and vice versa, in a sort of economic mcrry-go-round on which tho system of protection would ultimately become dizzy and collapse i That, at all events, is how tho proposal is viewed in somo quarters.