KEEPING WHITE

Evening Star, Issue 19774, 26 January 1928, Page 4

KEEPING WHITE

AND THE COST OF IT POLITICS IN THE SUGAR SACK. Australian protection sometimes reaches the piano of prohibition, and the embargo on sugar is a case in point. The ' Prime Minister (Mr Bruce) once stated that his sugar policy was dictated by consideration of maintaining a White Australia—not by fiscal reasons. A White Australia means a fence round Queensland sugar. Yet the sugar-using industries of Australia murmur at the Government’s sudden renewal for three years of _ the sugar embargo. “ A bombshell timed by the Federal Ministry to fall on Christmas Eve,” said a Victorian trader. 1 “How is it?” he continued, “that Queensland is a child so favored of the gods. It gets an embargo on bananas to the great loss of Australian trade, a bounty on cotton, and duties on maize, butter, and timber. Can anything more for the Canberra Pandora box come to it. Representatives of the planters from the standpoint of endless propaganda, have achieved a notable victory, but it is at the expense of everyone else in the Commonwealth. The reasons given by the Prime Minister for the continuation of the embargo are surprising. What does he mean by the statement that the imposition of any further burdens on the industry will not be justified? The general feeling is that it is the rest of Australia, which has had to suffer from the patronage bestowed upon the sugar industry. In pre-war days the duty on sugar was £6 per ton, and tho excise £3 per ton —an effective duty of £3 per ton. Growers and the Colonial Sugar Company were highly prosperous then. The trouble was that the yield was not sufficient for Australian consumption. After the war, to meet altered conditions, the duty was raised by Mr Hughes, before an election, from £6 per ton to £9 per ton. This higher duty has never been effective, for Queensland persuaded politicians to agree to the embargo as now renewed. To-day, the sugar crop is in excess of requirements, and the spectacle is presented of the consumer paying 4Jd per lb for sugar, while the surplus is being sold to consumers abroad at Ifd per lb. Foreign sugar can be landed here at 3Jd per lb duty paid, fit would be an amusing situation if it did not mean such a heavy cost to the Australian householdots.” A Victorian manufacturer said that it was impossible to understand the hurry in renewing the embargo. He suggested that the Prime Minister owed an explanation in that regard to every industry which has to use sugar as well ns to the great body of consumers in the Commonwealth. The contention also is that if there is an embargo against sugar it might be as well to place one upon oatmeal or a score of other articles of Australian origin. The statement of the Prime Minister that the retail price of 41d per lb represents, a percentage increase oyer the pre-war price less than the price increase of practically every other foodstuff and commodity entering into the family budget, is challenged. To say also that the mai’ket fluctuations of sugar are a consideration of prime importance is to disregard the fact that improvements of the kind affect every article of merchandise. Lead and 1 zinc, for instance, have fallen in price heavily in the last two years, but the industry has adjusted itself to the situation. The right thing to do,” it is said, is to stop coddling and return to sound economics in the interests of the sugar industry itself.”