[Editor: This article, about supporting Australian industry, was published in Building and Real Estate (Sydney, NSW), 12 March 1915.]
“Australia First!”
Many well-meaning people just now are talking a good deal about taking immediate steps to “expand the trade of the Empire and the Allies,” so that when the war is finished on the battlefields of Europe, it will be continued on the battlefields of commerce.
The idea got a preliminary push at a Trade Expansion Banquet, held in Sydney recently, when appeals to patriotism were made to support the manufactures of Great Britain, Canada, Russia, France, Belgium and Japan. No doubt we will also be asked to give preference to Italy, Greece, and some of the Balkan States, if they throw in their lot with the Allies before the last shot is fired.
No special stress was laid on the necessity of making the support of Australian industry the primary consideration.
It is human nature to buy in the cheapest market. No one can safely appeal to patriotism in business. Our people should, by excellence of manufacture and an encouraging tariff, be influenced to buy goods made by Australians.
The first duty of Australians is to Australia. Our watchword in calm or storm should be: “Australia first”! For the strength of a chain depends on the strength of each link.
Source:
Building and Real Estate (also known as: Building: The Magazine of Interest for the Architect, Builder, Engineer, Property Owner and “The Man Who Thinks”), (Sydney, NSW), 12 March 1915, p. 51
Leave a Reply