ECONOMIC WELFARE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19993, 9 November 1927, Page 9

ECONOMIC WELFARE

HIGH TARIFFS DENOUNCED CONDITION OF AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY (A. & N.Z.) SYDNEY, Nov. 8. Sir Lennon Raws, a prominent Sydney business man, 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 to Government extravagance. Referring to excess of imports over exports, he declared that as the result of excessive borrowing overseas ana 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 rose, whereas eslewhere every nerve was being strained to reduce costs. It was shirk ling industry with control boards, priceflxing associations, and the like, in futile efforts to maintain prices, while other countries were looking for profit margins in a reduction of costs, and were viewing with comparative equanimity the price reductions, because they were an incentive to increased consumption.