MARKETING LAWS

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 8

MARKETING LAWS

AUSTRALIA'S, PROBLEM

INTER-STATE FREE TRADE

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, July 22.

Chaos in the Australian dried fruits and butter industries and collapse of the Federal Government's home consumption plan for stabilisation of the wheat industry are expected to'result from the Privy Council decision in the appeal of Frederick Alexander James, of Adelaide, against the Commonwealth. James, an Adelaide dried fruits merchant, refused in 1926 to be bound by a South Australian quota system of marketing to prevent interstate sales beyond a certain proportion of the total marketable quantity, and so force the surplus fruit off the Australian market. Litigation ensued, and the Privy Council in 1932 held that the quota was an infringement cf the principle of the freedom of interstate trade. The Commonwealth Parliament thereupon came to the rescue of those who desired to continue the quota system, and using its legislative power over, trade and commerce among the States, passed legislation for the marketing of dried fruits (and later butter), virtually enforcing the quota system in the same way as the South Australian Act had done. James thereupon challenged the validity of the legislation, contending that it was a breach of section 92 of the Australian Constitution providing for "absolutely free" trade among the States. It was this contention that the. Privy Council upheld last Friday. Something like panic was created in political circles and among primary producers when news of the decision was received. There, has been a section of the Federal Government, principally Dr. Earle Page and his Country Party supporters, who have ridden roughshod over warnings that they were acting illegally in their extreme desire to making farming pay at all costs. They have used the marketing legislation, now shattered by -the Privy Council decision, to enable Au&; tralian farmers to meet world markets without bothering substantially to reduce production costs—all this at the expense of Australian consumers who pay more for their home-produced dried fruits and butter than Englishmen pay for the same goods 13,000 miles away. -V Hopes of continuing this artificial economic" system are now being placed in the carrying of the referendum to alter section 92. Those hopes may be false. ■ Referenda have been notoriously unsuccessful in Australia, even when their progenitors have been most confident of success. The; section 92 referendum may meet a fate far different from what Mr. Lyons, Dr. Page, and their co-Ministers think. TIRING OF REGIMENTATION. The Australian public are growing more and more tired of the regimentation to which government by boards and commissions has subjected them. That resentment may be expressed in the referendum voting, and the country's rulers may be thereby told to get back to the common sense of natural trade. The Privy Council decision is regarded as a victory for the rights of the individual, re-establishing the original intention of the Constitution and restoring rights which the Parliaments have been steadily and increasingly filching, or failing to protect. . Marketing boards are repressive.'' "The policy of increasing home consumption prices to enable Australia to compete overseas is obviously uneconomic," said one opponent of marketing boards, "and is steadily pushing Australia further from the world's markets. Aus^ tralia will nc*v be able to retreat from her old policy and develop economically and reduce costs of production.; Consequently she will be able to accept competitive prices, which will still be profitable for the primary producer and the manufacturer. Although marketing boards do a certain amount of good, the harm outweighs it. Many customers in England are opposed to them. Naturally when other markets are open to them they will refuse to accept dictation. It is folly to irritate customers, who, after all, are the final arbiters of a nation's products." If 100 per cent, co-operation was given by growers the marketing schemes could continue to function on a voluntary basis, but a small percentage has always resented the boards. A larger percentage is sure to. take advantage of the declaration of the boards' invalidity to secure the higher prices in the local market without the qualifying need of exporting a proportion of their produce at unreImunerative oversea prices.