The Sydney bridge
Insufficient Australianism.
Sydney, February 15.
“If this idea of buying a foreign bridge for Sydney goes through,” said Mr. Randolph Bedford, “we will sell good money overseas and get the bridge. If it were made here, we would have the money, and the bridge, too. There is no hope for intelligence that can defend purchasing, abroad, even if it be cheaper in figures. The truth is to-day that there is not sufficient Australianism in Australian politics. We have a Nationalist bleating for the dear old Mother Country as propaganda for British preference. That should not be. We should not give preference to any one, but we should make reciprocal tariffs with any nation whose reciprocity pays us. With New South Wales wishing to buy its bridge in a foreign market, and South Australia and the Commonwealth already ordering locomotives from abroad, Queensland’s habit of buying within its own borders wherever it can with recourse to every other Australian State before it touches the foreign market, will continue to secure the support of the majority of Queenslanders as a real Labour policy, as it has succeeded in doing for eight years.”
Source:
The Brisbane Courier (Brisbane, Qld.), Saturday 16 February 1924, page 23
Leave a Reply