AGRICULTURAL WAGES. 221 



provided — (a) that the tariff on agricultural 

 machinery should be raised to a rate sufficient 

 to give adequate protection against the American 

 competition ; (b) that, in return for the wider 

 Australian market thus secured to them, the 

 manufacturers of the stripper-harvester should 

 materially reduce their price to the farmer, and 

 should better the wages of their employees. 

 Thus, by exclusion of foreign competition, a 

 fair local price and fair wages were both ensured. 

 The Act studied the interests of consumer, 

 producer, and worker. It might have left the 

 settlement of wage conditions to private negotia- 

 tions, but it was natural, in a country where 

 industrial arbitration is a settled principle, to 

 arrange the wages too. 



The theoretical Free Trader will, at first 

 thought, be confident that the above repre- 

 sents an economic impossibility. But, after all, 

 the legislation was only an attempt to exploit 

 for the public advantage a familiar principle of 

 modern industry : that the greater the pro- 

 duction and the surer the market, the cheaper 

 the possible rate of production. A manufacturer, 

 or combination of manufacturers, assured of, 



