AN AUSTRALIAN DILEMMA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22475, 20 July 1936, Page 8

AN AUSTRALIAN DILEMMA

The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act provides that "trade, commerce and intercourse among the States shall be absolutely free." In spite of that provision, the Commonwealth Government has fathered various schemes in recent years for the marketing of certain primary products, schemes which have involved restrictions on the freedom conferred by the Constitution. Producers have been given only limited access to the home market where prices have been held at artificially high levels. They have had to quit the remainder of their output in the open markets of the world. This system of exploiting the iocal consumer in order to help the producer could not have been main- • rained without controlling interState commerce in the affected j commodities, a control that the j Privy Council has just declared is I exercised unconstitutionally. Thus the various schemes for "orderh marketing"'—those relating to buttei and dried fruits being the most important—are deprived of their legai basis, and so are other schemes in contemplation. Mr. Lyons says the position created will have immediate attention. It is difficult to see how any remedy can be found, short oi amending the Constitution, a process that takes time and that may not be approved by electors. Certain of the less populous States are bound to regard any amendment with suspicion. Their development of manufactures is prevented by the dominance of Victorian and Xew South Welsh industries through the ireedom of inter-State commerce. Their primary producers might gain some compensating advantages in the great markets of Melbourne and Sydney, but not if power is now given to limit freedom of access. These conflicts between Federal and State powers and interests are bound to occur in every Federation. The same difficulties are being experienced in the United States and Canada. They do not arise in New Zealand, where sovereignty is undivided. being vested in the single Parliament at Wellington.