by a Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly],
The Australian Financial Review, July 19, 1974, p. 3.
Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 60-61, as “Tariff Pressure.”

As you know, Eccles is an economist who lives in an ivory tower in Canberra and he is always preaching the message that for the wellbeing of the economy we should concentrate on using our limited resources to the best advantage.

To do this we should encourage those industries for which we have a natural advantage and discourage those which can only exist behind a high tariff wall.

You will remember too how indifferent I was at first to his blandishments and how I only became interested in this dull and unrewarding subject when my rural constituents, most of whom are exporters, became aware of how they were being damaged by having to pay the costs of tariff protection because these are always passed on to exporters in the end.

Then Mavis got into the act. She has never been quite sure what tariffs really were or why they mattered but when she found that my farmers wanted lower tariffs she too started to get on my wheel. So a lower tariff advocate I became. For a while all went well. Lower tariff protection became almost respectable and I began to bask in my knowledge of the subject.

And then all the good and the great, the wise economic journalists and the omnipotent academics suddenly discovered a new found respectability in Eccles’ theories and he became intolerable.

But now Eccles is beginning to feel the cold wind of disapproval blowing about his ears, he is feeling the agony of having his theories nailed to the cross of action. And it hurts.

He has taken some comfort from the words of Adam Smith who long ago pointed out the pressures which people who advocate lower protection have to withstand:

The member of Parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening tariff protection is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose number and wealth render them of great importance.

If he opposes them, on the contrary and still more, if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services, can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction arising from the insolent outrage of the monopolists.

So it was no surprise to Eccles to find that the hosts of the Philistines are gathering against him. And they are gathering indeed, and to some effect.

They came and smote the cause of righteousness when the Tariff Board report on electronic components first appeared.

They have since appeared to full force, led by the queer combination of Mr Hawke, hand-in-hand with Mr Burgess for the textile manufacturers, and have made the Government alter course yet again and hand out another generous dollop of protection to textiles.

And now the report of the IAC on cars has appeared, full of economic wisdom, full of sound comments about how too lavish protection has encouraged the unwise fragmentation of our car and component industries, and giving sensible solutions for the future.

But though the economic wisdom of the report is unexceptionable, nevertheless there will be great pressure to water it down even though it recommends a readjustment period of seven years.

But Eccles doesn’t like the cold wind of criticism and is distressed to see his economic logic questioned, so he has retreated in a huff to his ivory tower.

As he drew up the drawbridge he was heard to mutter angry comments about cowardly politicians, and there were some parting admonitions for me to stand firm in the cause of righteousness and to smite the hosts of evil hip and thigh. “Right will eventually prevail,” I think he said as he slithered up the stairs.

So here I am, left to carry the low tariff torch which Eccles has hurriedly dropped as it started to burn his fingers.

My comfort is that all sensible people such as the four wise men who wrote the rural policy Green Paper, all the economists who haven’t run to water, and thank heavens, my farmers, will be at hand to help me now that Eccles has shot through.

But it isn’t going to be easy — ask Adam Smith.