FEDERAL FISCAL POLICY

Otago Witness, Issue 3865, 10 April 1928, Page 52

FEDERAL FISCAL POLICY

PRIME MINISTER’S FAITH. ’ BUILDING UP INDUSTRIES. MELBOURNE, April 5. Mr Bruce, addressing the Australian Association of British Manufacturers, strongly affirmed his faith in the fiscal policy of Australia and her relations with Britain, and hinted that the time was at hand when a reciprocal trade treaty should be established between Britain and the Commonwealth on the lines of the trade agreement now in operation between Australia Canada, and New Zealand. Recitine the question of Imperial relationships, he said that it was inevitable that every group of human beings should place their interests before everything else, but the British Empire was growing up and the self-governing dominions were becoming vitally conscious of their own status and own importance. We had got rid of the problem of constitutional relationships and must move now towards a solution of the economic relationships. Reviewing the work of successive Imperia] Conferences, he commented on the growth of the feeling towards interim perial relations .and concentrating on the Empire trade question, rather than looking abroad for markets. What was re garded as almost heresy by the 1923 conference was being accepted by everybody in 1926. The explanation was found chiefly in the publication of the League of Nations report of 1924. which showed that the world’s trade had o-ot back to the position it held in 1913. There was still the same purchasing power in the world, but if one went back to the markets of the world and compared them with the British position it was easv to see that all was not right. British trade had not expanded to the same extent as that of other countries The only place showing a glimmer of lisht was within the Empire and in the dominions, but an examination of even these figures showed that the percentage of British trade had been cut into bv foreign competitors. The idea of . linking great European industries against the countries of the United States gave rise to the idea of Empire economic union. America’s 115.000.000 neopie provided their own markets Her exports were. only 4.1 per cent, of production, but if she increased her exports bv only 5 per cent, in machinery, the equivalent of £60,000.000 per annum, the situation would create appalling difficulties for the British people and the Empire. Freetrade within the Empire might have been possible a century ago: it was too late now. But greater co-operation between British and Australian manufacturers was possible. The Australian tariff had been altered several times of recent years, but British trade found an increasingly better customer in the Commonwealth. Mr Bruce stressed the point that if 1 Australian industries were built up by British manufacturers Australian purchasing power would be increased and money made available to develop other lines of Imperial trade. The type of arrangement that was going tn mean true expansion of interimperial trade was found in the Dorman. Long, and Armstrong Whitworth proposals for setting up iffdustry in Australia. Mr Bruce hoped to see many more similar combinations of British brains and capital to develop our export trade America was of little use to ns. We might look round the world, bnt the onlv place we would find a market for our expanded products was Great Britain.