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The Forum > General Discussion > Happy 150th Birthday Banjo Paterson – An Australian who cared about Australians

Happy 150th Birthday Banjo Paterson – An Australian who cared about Australians

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The power of the words and thoughts of great writers have relevance well after time has disposed of their mortal remains. This very topical piece by Banjo was written about a decade before Federation.

Start;

The question between free trade and protection, when you come to the bedrock of it, is simply whether it is better for a community such as ours to exchange its raw materials for the manufactures of other countries, or to tax its own people and so create manufactures. It is quite clear that the stock protectionist arguments hardly put the matter properly. It is rather feeble to talk about being overwhelmed with foreign boots, and inundated with cotton material. These things are not curses but blessings. We wear boots and clothes; the question is whether it is better to make these things for ourselves, or to get them from other countries where they can be produced cheaper. The free trade theory is that so long as any foreign country will furnish us with manufactured goods cheaper than our own people will make them, it is advisable to let them come in free, because our own people can go to something else more profitable.

...So long as there are unemployed or only partially employed men, crowding into our cities eager for a job of work, it is no use for the free traders to say that there is no need to foster manufactures, because the people can go to something else. They can't get anything else to go to. So long as they try to keep up their wages, i.e., to maintain a high standard of living, they cannot hope to compete with the underpaid labourers of the Continent and England.

...The true reason of the American success is simply that they have a huge local market secured to them by protection. The bigger the market, the cheaper can the articles be sold. If any coachbuilder here were to try and make buggies of the same quality as the Abbott or Fleming buggies, he would promptly go smash.

Cont...
Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 12:02:49 AM
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Cont...

They have a huge home market, and where he could sell one they could sell a hundred, so that they can gain all the advantages derived from doing things on a big scale. They can compete with foreign labour because of their huge home market, because of their immense start in machinery and scientific knowledge, and because they are protected heavily against foreign competition both of goods and labour - no unemployed foreigner can land in America without paying a tax, nor can his goods go in without paying a tax. It sounds rather well for them to talk about fair competition with the world! The fact is that where labour is high no manufactures can stand without protection.

...This question of free trade and protection is purely a wages question. While we have men unemployed, or half employed, it is idle to talk about the economic value of their labour and to say that they need not manufacture, as they can go to something else. It is for the free traders to say to what else they should go. Failing an answer to this question, the country will inevitably go for protection.

...We can of course, all devote our attention to wool growing and farming, two things in which, by reason of our superior natural advantages, we are bound (for the present, at any rate) to find something to do. We can exchange our products for those of other countries. With all our best land available, we might command the markets of the world for raw material. But is it a fitting destiny for such a nation as ours that we should have no higher objects than to grow wool and reap corn? Are we to have no arts nor manufactures? These things will only grow by protection.

Cont...
Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 7:51:43 AM
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Cont...

...Our own farmers and wool growers will have a certain market with their own manufacturers; and the manufacturers will have a certain market with their country people, instead of having to compete with auction sold goods sent out here in huge batches, and made by starving wretches working fifteen hours a day.

... But we cannot long devote ourselves entirely to wool growing and farming, and as soon as we get any surplus labour we must give it a chance. Here is the gist of the whole matter. Adam Smith says, "It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy." No, but if he has to keep some of his family doing nothing, it is better to make the article, even at a loss, than submit to the loss of keeping the family idle, and also buying the thing. This, then, should be our policy: Reform our land tenure, so that we may get the best possible use out of our lands; and reform our tariff, so that we may give our industries a start on some other basis than that of cheap labour. We will, of course, amass a huge revenue of Government; but I have yet to learn that that is an evil. There are plenty of ways of spending Government money besides building the North Shore bridge. We can start irrigation works, and go in for artesian water.

...We must always keep in view that our object is the greatest good for the greatest number; and as soon as we get all the colonies under one government and under a proper land system, then we will know that everyone has a fair chance, and it will pay us better to put some of our people on to manufactures and art, rather than to go on being "a country where they grow wool". This will be better than letting our manufactures grow up, by our population growing down in their standard of living.
Posted by SteeleRedux, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 7:52:54 AM
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Brilliant Banjo!
And even truer today. Where is the "something else" for today's 700,000 unemployed?

More mobile phone salesmen? More fast food cashiers? Is that all we want to be and do?
And with industries dying and the world in economic crisis (it ain't over), we still import 100,000 people every year, to do jobs we supposedly "won't do".

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0

Employment has stagnated, while the unemployment rate goes steadily upward, yet we see no revision of our trade or immigration policies.

Because political policy today has nothing to do with practical reality and only based on utopianism (both globalism and multiculturalism are utopian).
Posted by Shockadelic, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 8:48:36 AM
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Perhaps, Shockadelic.

>>Because political policy today has nothing to do with practical reality and only based on utopianism (both globalism and multiculturalism are utopian).<<

By the same token, protectionism is utopian.

The concept that we can produce all the things we need and want through the sweat of our own brow and the strength of our own calloused hand, without severe social repercussion, is pure Utopia.

The beauty of the protectionist argument is that you swathe yourselves in the cloak of nationalist pride - yeah, no worries, we're Aussies, we can do it ourselves - and avoid the trivial details of how it can be achieved without causing riots in the streets.

For a start, perhaps you could explain how replacing imports will reduce unemployment.

Using numbers, instead of blind jingoism.

Go on. Give it a shot.

Remember to use dollars, because that's what we use to buy food and lodging.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 9:30:27 AM
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I got the garbled version of economies of scale, [it took a paragraph], allow the US to make stuff.

I looked for the fact that US wage rates are half ours, but that minor fact did not fit the argument so was ignored.

No wonder Tasmania is such a mess, when greens are so damn stupid they can even try such rubbish as a con job.

I wonder if they believe this crap, or just hope to fool some with it?
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 18 February 2014 9:50:16 AM
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