THE RISE IN PRICES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 220, 11 June 1919, Page 8

THE RISE IN PRICES

INFLUENCE UPON PROFESSIONAL CLASSES. Mr. Hilaire Belloc, speaking s , on "Prices" at tho National Liberal Club recently, asked whether tho chango in prices was temporary or permanent. AVere we going to have a lower purchasing value of the nominal monetary unit? There was. good reason for stating that prices as a whole, though they would, of course, advance and fall, would never in our lime come down to tho pre-war level. Put in concrete form, the salary of ,£IOOO a year, after taxation, wortn now .£SOO or X4so, would not riso in real value to more than i! 750, even if it readied that figure. History revealed I hat humanity, in order to check too great fluctuations in prices, had instinctively used "efficiency in circulation" as a sort of fly-wheel to regulate prices. Rather than allow prices to fall too rapidly traders themselves created instruments of credit. It was tho 'customary salary"—that payment over and above what was necessary for 6ubsistou.ee—which had been alversely affected, and would be affected by tho great rise in prices. This in time would bo remedied, but the remedy would bo slow. The future of the professional and middle classes, in this respect, was a black one. The rise in prices, however, would restrict purchases by the wealthier classes of expensive luxuries, whilst the smaller luxuries of tho less wealthy classes would tend to rise. Expensive seats at the. theatre would be abandoned by the wealthy, and the kinema, for example, would be ihoro patronised by the class to which that form of entertainment appealed. The expensive motor-car would give way to the cheaper car, not so much because of the shifting of tho wealth, but owing to psychological influences. People were heard to complain of tho demands of the workers for increased pay, but wages would always tend to fit in with higher prices. '■' ' '