Whatever might be said about the national and cultural significance of the circulation of printed products, witnesses for the 1930 Tariff Board Inquiry were essentially engaged in a debate about the proper economic balance between home and overseas (imported) books. At stake from their perspective as printers, booksellers and publishers was the best strategy for securing interest in locally manufactured products within a book trade dominated by international publishers whose business practices often enriched the sale of overseas books at the expense of Australian-made books. One solution, put forward by James Howard Catts, was the call for a tariff or a duty that would severely limit the importation of books into Australia. But, as other witnesses of the inquiry revealed, to restrict overseas books by way of an economic penalty at the border posed some challenges for the Australian book trade that could not be easily resolved.