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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
The economic activity of the state in the British Dominions conforms throughout to a common pattern, which might be described as neo-mercantilist, conditioned by the geographic and peculiar socio-economic forces of frontier countries. That activity issues in a complex of policies concerned with tariffs, bounties, quotas, marketing controls, and varied forms of financial assistance, or outright public ownership, in order to establish fresh industries, or to aid those existing, in the face of intense competition from more mature industrial competitors; to facilitate the exploitation of natural resources, and to increase populations. These policies broadly resemble the older mercantilism in that their end, where rationalized in terms of the state, is the achievement of national power and prosperity by the development of the ill-balanced economic life of sparsely settled colonies into economies integrated and diversified.
The interpretation of what contributes to national prosperity is determined by the contemporary interests politically powerful, and ordinarily it is a composite product of the many interests with free play under the parliamentary regime. Sometimes there is agreement among the chief interest-groups in recognizing that the claim of a small population to an extensive territory is precarious unless it furthers settlement and development. Such a recognition underlay the generous bonusing of the Canadian Pacific syndicate in the eighties in order to ensure a transcontinental railway, tariffs to develop in Canada east-west traffic, the numerous controls of Commonwealth and state respecting Queensland sugar to guarantee a white population in the Australian tropics, and the aggressive efforts made at some time in every Dominion to increase immigration.
1 Report of the Customs Tariff Commission (U.G. no. 5, 1936).
2 As the wheat economy developed in Western Canada, the farmers in the East turned more to such specialities as dairying, and soon encountered in the tariffs of the United States a barrier to the markets of that country. Irritated by the protective policy of their neighbour, they were easily persuaded to defend the home market by tariffs. See Innis, H. A. (ed.), The Dairy Industry in Canada (Toronto, 1937), especially part v.Google Scholar
3 The sugar industry is distinguished by elaborate “controls.” Under legislation of Queensland in 1915 a tribunal was created (the Central Cane Prices Board) with a final authority, still existing, to allocate to each mill the lands from which it should draw its supply of cane, and to fix the value of the cane delivered to the mill. During the war the Government of the state acquired the sugar as it was milled, and sold it to the Government of the Commonwealth, which controlled distribution and fixed prices, imposing embargoes on export and import. After the war the Commonwealth retained the embargo on imports while increasing the domestic price to enable the industry to get on its feet. Since then the Commonwealth has withdrawn from direct control of the industry and merely negotiates periodical agreements with Queensland, whereby it maintains the embargo on imports while Queensland “agrees to provide sugar at such a price as will enable the consumer to obtain it at a definite price over a term of years.” Thus sugar presents the interesting example of a protected industry with an imposed maximum price and with a degree of rationalization through state direction uncommon in protected industries. In addition to these controls over production and marketing, the industrial court determines the wages and working conditions of the employees in the industry. See Brigden, J. B., The Story of Sugar (Queensland Bureau of Economics and Statistics, 1932).Google Scholar
4 See Richards, C. S., “Subsidies, Quotas, Tariffs and the Excess Cost of Agriculture in South Africa” (South African Journal of Economics, Sept., 1935)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Official Year Book of the Union; van Biljon, F. J., State Interference in South Africa (London, 1939), especially chaps. v and vi.Google Scholar
5 Leppan, H. D., Agricultural Policy in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1931), p. 28.Google Scholar
6 Wadham, S. M. and Wood, G. L., Land Utilization in Australia (Melbourne, 1939), p. 8.Google Scholar
7 Of course the Labour parties in the Australian states have at intervals been actuated by a genuine socialist doctrine, notably in Queensland and New South Wales, but, as Professor Hancock contends, the labour movement in general has been well content that socialist doctrine “should be proclaimed among the faithful and suppressed before the electors” ( Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. VII, part i, p. 494 Google Scholar). A Labour party that attempted to press rigorously towards a truly socialist goal would promptly lose its middle class support, and that support has been too important to be sacrificed. An informative analysis of the aims and actions of a Labour party in a period of aggressive leadership is found in Socialism at Work (Queensland, Government Printer, n.d.).Google Scholar It refers to the policies of the Queensland Labour party under the leadership of T. J. Ryan.
8 See remarks of Eggleston, F. W., State Socialism in Victoria (London, 1932), chap. ii.Google Scholar
9 Bailey, K. H., “The Constitution and Economic Policy” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov., 1931)Google Scholar; also, Copland, D. B. and Norris, J. G., “Some Reciprocal Effects of Our Anti-Trust Laws, with Special Reference to Australia” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Jan., 1930).Google Scholar
10 Copland, D. B., Australia in the World Crisis, 1929-1933 (Cambridge, 1934)Google Scholar; Maclaurin, W. R., Economic Planning in Australia, 1929-1936 (London, 1937).Google Scholar
