RISING COSTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 8 November 1927, Page 7

RISING COSTS

LATE EDITION

PRODUCTION IN AUSTRALIA INDUSTRY SHACKLED. HIGH PROTECTIVE TARIFF. Bi r CABLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYBIGHT. Received 12.35 p.m. to-day. SYDNEY, Nov. 8. Sir Lennon Raws, a prominent Sydney business man, when 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 oi Government extravagance. Referring to the excess of imports over exports, he declared that as a result of excessive borrowing overseas and high costs, production in Australia seemed to be moving opposite to that of the remainder of the world. Its local market was contracting as the cost of transport rises, 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, price fixing associations, and the like, in futile efforts to maintain prices, while other countries were looking for profit margins in reduction of costs and were viewing with comparative equanimity price reductions, because they were an incentive to increased consumption.