AUSTRALIA'S TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16491, 8 November 1927, Page 8

AUSTRALIA'S TRADE

SECURITY ENDANGERED WRONG ECONOMIC POLICY (Received Nov 8, 1 p.m.) SYDNEY, Nov. 8. Sir Lennon Raws, a prominent Sydney business man, addressing the Constitutional Club, denounced 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 to 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 contractinrr as the cost of transport rose, whereas the movement elsewhere was towards an expanding area of 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 a futile effort to maintain prices, while other countries were looking for profit margins iji reduction costs, and were viewing with comparative equanimity price reductions because they were an incentive to increased consumption.