152 Australian Life 



of development as "our American colonies." It 

 is quite certain that Australia looks forward to 

 the day when certain of its raw materials, such as 

 wool and leather, will be manufactured in Aus- 

 tralian factories. With this end in view, quite 

 early in the history of responsible government in 

 Australia, some of the states began by imposing 

 customs duties designed to protect local indus- 

 tries, and the present Commonwealth Tariff, while 

 framed partly for revenue purposes, is also in some 

 measure a protective tariff. 



The industries created and fostered in this 

 way have had to contend with difficulties aris- 

 ing from a want of uniformity in the tariff of 

 the different states, and from the tariff war 

 the states waged against one another before the 

 Federal era. 



Their expansion has been more definitely 

 affected by the determination of the Australian 

 Labour party to preserve the favourable conditions 

 under which the city worker exists. The in- 

 dustrial legislation of Australia is designed to 

 maintain high wages and short hours of labour, 

 and under these conditions it is possible that the 

 amount of protection afforded by the present tariff 

 does not give the manufacturer sufficient en- 

 couragement. In any case, the dictum of Mr. 

 Coghlan, the leading authority upon Australian 

 statistics, is that ' ' progress of the manufacturing 

 industry in Australasia has been very irregular, 

 even in the most advanced states. ' ' 



