222 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



say, the supply of 50,000 locomotives yearly in 

 England could turn them out at a much cheaper 

 rate than if they had to keep their works going 

 for a supply of perhaps 35,000, perhaps 40,000 — 

 they could never tell — or perhaps, indeed, only 

 20,000, because of some great dumping of a 

 foreign rival's surplus stock. 



The harvester legislation in Australia was 

 doomed to failure ; but the rock on which it 

 split was not an economic principle, but a 

 constitutional law point. The manufacturers of 

 agricultural machinery were themselves quite 

 satisfied that, if the tariff were raised so as to 

 exclude altogether foreign competition, they 

 could raise the wages of their workers and 

 lower the price of their goods. But when the 

 Federal constitution defined the ambits of au- 

 thority for the Federal and the States legis- 

 latures, it left the matter of industrial legislation 

 partly in the hands of the State authority ; 

 and the High Court of Australia ruled that this 

 harvester legislation was a trespass by the 

 Federal power on State rights, and therefore 

 void. In Great Britain no such difficulty would 

 arise, as the power of Parliament is absolute. 



