PROTECTIONIST SOPHISTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 10

PROTECTIONIST SOPHISTRY

Sir,— THE SUN, dealing with international trade editorially, says, “Australia does not believe in keeping other countries’ workmen busy at the expense of its own workers.” Here we have, once again, the common protectionist denial of the accepted axiom of economists that trade is barter, for, if so, it is clear that any employment Australia gives to foreigners must be offset by the employment which foreigners (as a whole) give to Australia. But be it noted, Australia’s trade with particular countries does not necessarily balance; far from it. Latest figures indicate that the Commonwealth imported from the United States in one

year £30,000,000 more than her exports to that country, so that her “unfavourable” balance was much greater even than that of New Zealand on a per capita basis. Therefore, by THE SUN method of reasoning, Australia must have employed countless American workmen “at the expense of its own workers!” As regards secondarv industries, I wonder if THE SUN knows that New South Wales during the last eight years of free trade increased her factory hands at a greater rate per cent, than she has done since she came under the “fostering” influence of the Commonwealth protectionist tariff? Had the free trade (1893 to 1901) been maintaihed the total hands employed in secondary industries in New South Wales in 1925 would have been well over 220,000; actually they were about 160,000. Tariffs promote employment in some industries (usually the least efficient), but they cannot increase emplovment in secondary (or primary) industry as a whole. C. H. NIGHTINGALE.