 These initial concerns, however, were short lived, at least in the beginning as the British government provided assurances that it would underwrite a large amount of the war risk insurance for shipping in order to allow trade amongst the Commonwealth to continue.Shortly thereafter the wartime direction of trade began when the British asked the Australian government to place certain restrictions upon overseas trade in order to secure resources vital to the war effort and to limit the ability of the Central Powers from obtaining these goods from Commonwealth nations via neutral third parties.To an extent these restrictions served to reduce the ability of Australian producers to find buyers for their products, at least initially, however, in many cases the British stepped in to buy these goods, thus alleviating Australian concerns about a significant reduction in the standard of living.