OUR TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA
[To the Editor of the SrEc-raron.]
- -A letter signed by C. IT. I/. 'Howard and published in ...your issue of January 16th, contrasts,. unfavourably -to Australia, the trading attitude towards Great Britain of the Commonwealth and Denmark. Mr. Howard says that Australia imposes a sixty per cent, tariff on all British goods. This is an untrue and damaging statement,- When the present . great slump oceurred,.about forty-eight per cent, .of goods from Great Britain were entering Australia duty free, and on the greater part of the remaining fifty-two per cent, the duties were largely of a negligible order ; but virtually all articles entering Australia from foreign countries Were subject to customs duty, often of a substantial kind and always higher than any duty upon British goods. At the present time the -Commonwealth; while taxing more heavily than ever products from foreign countries, still 'admits approximately twenty per cent. of British •goods free. of duty altogether and on at least fifty per cent, charges duties which are: moderate. On' the remainder the duties are high because of the present emergency conditions. For years past Australia, although having a population of round about only 6,000,0011 people, has been buying no less than one-twelfth of Britain's total ciparts to all the world. The "naturally strong *commercial connexion" between Denmark and Britain to which Mr. Howard refers has all along been one benefiting Denmark. Much the same may be said of Britain's trade with many foreign countries, as the following figures prove : During the six years ended December, 1930, British trade with each of the following countries showed an annual debit balance or loss against Great Britain as under':
£881,595,000 Arlo dins 248,430,000 Denmark 2/8,317,000 Netherlands .. 134,346,000 Russia 103,151,000 Sweden 77,163,000
Spain 46,523,000 Latvia 24,797,000 In the same period Australia's trade showed the Motherland a credit balance or profit of 1288,000,000.
Even taking investment, shipping and other trade results also into account does not affect Australia's position, because she yields the Mother Country a further 134,000,000 a year on British investments in Australia, as the Commonwealth is, I believe, the greatest field of British overseas investment in the world except India.—! am, Sir, &c., • Director, Australian Trade Publicity. Australia House, Strand, London, WC. 2.
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