LABOUR AND TARIFFS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22067, 25 September 1933, Page 2

LABOUR AND TARIFFS

POLICY IN AUSTRALIA (Feom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 14. If a Labour Government ie returned to power at Canberra at the Federal elections due to be held at the end of next year, but which may be held earlier if the Country Party continues to quarrel with the United Australia Party, resort will be made to an extreme tariff policy. Whether the controlling faction of a Labour Government is to be the extreme Lang faction or the less radical Sculhn group, the party e tariff programme will undoubtedly aim at Australia's economic independence. The two non-Labour parties—the United Australia and the Country Parties —are at present in the midst of a serious disagreement concerning fiscal policy. The former,.which governs.independently of all other parties, avers that it is implementing its pre-election promise of scientific tariff revision through the inquiries of the Tariff Board. The Country Party, with a low-tariff mind, says that the United Australia Party has broken its pre-election pact to lower tariffs, and threatens to make the question a matter of censure in the House of Representatives. The Labour Party, itself internally divided, ie gleefully watching that quarrel, and is planning to make the tariff one of the main issues at the next elections. With that end in view, no doubt, a committee of tie New South Wales A.L.P. has reported to the executive of that body recommending a revolutionary programme of tariff proposals which, with the socialisation of credit, are expected to form the basis of the Lans Labour Party s policy at the next elections. The report makes no reference to preference* for British goods, but contains a sweeping condemnation of the Ottawa agreement, the abrogation of which it urges. It is made clear that Australian manufacturers desiring tariff protection will be bound by a rigid code of conditions designed to regulate their business operations and to compel them to pay a wage rate acceptable to the unions. The committee believes that a large proportion of the Australian tariff schedule has been inflated for revenue purposes, and that the resultant increase in the cost of living has not been returned in proportion to the workers in industry. It advises the establishment of an expert committee for scientific classification of the tariff. The abrogation of the Ottawa agreement by a Labour Government is presumed on the ground that long-term tariff preferences are detrimental to the development of new trade markets while the security they give to the recipients of the preference tends to stagnate old markets. The inclusion in the tariff programme is recommended of an adjustable preference clause to be utilised not only for equalisation of trade balances, but also for providing credits overseas through a central marketing, organisation for the sale of production surplus of the primary industry. Such preferences, it is suggested, should be on the basis of specified products, with a fixation of time and value overseas. To prevent Australian manufacturers "using the employment lever to safeguard tariffs by threatening unemployment if a tariff i a reduced, whether such a reduction is justified or not," the A.L.P. committee recommends, certain conditions to be imposed on manufacturers. Among those conditions is the compulsory signing of a Labour convention by concerns benefiting by the tariff, such convention to provide for (1) fixed quota of employees in proportion to gross turnover; (2) automatic variation of the percentage of protection in proportion to the variation of the baGe rate of wages in the industry; (3) heavy automatic cash forfeits for every conviction for any breach of legal labour obligations; and (4) automatic suspension of tariff protection during the currency of an illegal lock-out in industry, whether general or local. "The Lang Party's tariff policy proposes to establish a Fascist dictatorship over the factories of Australia, from which the importing houses will be exempted," said an official statement published on behalf of the rival Labour faction (the Federal Labour Party), when the new programme was announced. This statement outlined the faction's tariff policy as follows:—(1) Effective tariff protection of Australian industries, with measures to prevent profiteering and to assure industrial protection to the workers; (2) import embargoes to assure the home market to Australian industries capable of fully supplying the demand, subject to control of prices and industrial conditions of the Australian standard; and (3) additional tariff preference to the United Kingdom or other countries to be conditional on equitable reciprocal arrangements. The statement makes no direct reference to the Ottawa agreement, but speakers representing this faction have declared, both inside and outside Parliament, that the party will rescind it if returned to power.