The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1920. UNREST AND PROFITEERING
The sentiment underlying the appeal made by Colonel Mitchell, M.P., for the cultivation of a less selfish spirit has so much to commend it that one could wish he had based it on broader grounds than the supposed effects of profiteering. It is, of course, a popular cry just now to denounce the profiteer and to lay at his door all the hardship and worries of the high cost of living; but however much the profiteer, when found, is to be condemned, he has in fact played only a small cart in influencing the prevailing high prices. There is not a- single economic authority of standing in the world to-day who would seriously venture to argue that the high cost of living is due to profiteering as generally understood by the public hero. Moreover, much of the agitation directed against profiteering is based on misapprehension, and arises out of »■ confusion of high prices with high profits. That there has been and that there still is profiteering going on is doubtless true enough. It should as far as possible be stamped out, but no good purpose is served, and indeed much mischief may be clone, by fostering the erroneous idea that the short cut to normal prices is to be reached through a wholesale crusade against traders and others _ whose prices are high compared with prewar standards. There is no shortcut of this nature, and Colonel Mitchell and others who hold similar views will be disappointed if they expect any material reduction in the cost of living to follow on the elimination of what is known as profiteering. The position was very clearly stated by Professor Murphy, of Victoria College, in his address before the members of the W.C.T.U. on Monday evening last. Why, he asked, had the price level doubled (luring the war years? The answer was that the supply of money exceeded the supply of goods. The money simply had been vastly increased, the goods supply had not. Professor Murphy added that so long as there were, over-production of money and under-production of goods no amount of Board of Trade rulings, no amount of insincerity or humbug, would make a pennyworth of difference. The remedy was to deflate the currency. Mr. R. C. Meeker, United States Commissioner of Labour Statistics, who has had charge of the collection of cost statistics for many years, recently expressed his views on the subject : n almost identical terms. The chief finite of the high cost of living, he said, was currency inflation. The finniifi"? of the wnr, he proceeded, has made two dollars grow wlicic one dollar grew before. This coupled with, the fuel that there has been an enormouh destruction of economic goods and of the farms, mines, forests, and factories supplying these goods explains the enormous' and world-wide decrease in thn purchasing power rvalue!, of money which causes increased prices. As long as Hio people have twice as many dollars with which to buy a smaller number of coinmodifies, prices are bound to remain high. . . . The profiteer is being blamed on all heads for the increase in prices. Undoubtedly profiteering of a most reprehensible sort bar existed, and
does exist to-day, but the profiteer is a result of ever-increasing prices rather than a cause thereof. If all tho profiti'oi's in tho world could be apprehended and thrown into gaol or lined up and shot it would have no appreciable difference on prims. Loud d'Ahkrnon, formerly financial adviser to the Egyptian Government, and chairman of the British Dominions Royal Trade Commission, goes even further than Mr. Meeker an to the effects of currency inflation. He does not think the production of essentials has been so much reduced, but wither attributes the whole trouble to the fact that, since. 1913 the amount of paper money in circulation has increased four hundred per cent. Loud d'Abernon quotes the tables of iroi'ld prices prepared by the British Government, and claims that these show that prices in each country have risen in close accordance with the excessive issues of. paper currency. Here again the remedy suggested is deflation of the currency. That a great deal of the prevailing utxrest and discontent is, as Colonel Mitchell contends, due to the siisi'' .-rim that profiteering is the cause <- the high cost of living is no doubt true enough. It is also true that there is a widespread and bitter resentment against the profiteer, but it will not help matters if we allow this to blind us to the real facts of the position. We must go to the root of the evil, and Processor Murphy points the way. "The currency must be. deflated, production of goods must be stimulated, and the people must live within their incomes, putting aside their desire for rubbishy goods and amusement, and a revision must be made in the tariff system." This is sound advice. It might well form the basis of discussion at a- national conference such as that advocated by the New Zealand Welfare League and others as a means of enli; s tening the public and promoting -.better understanding amongst all classes of tho community.
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Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 147, 17 March 1920, Page 6
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864The Dominion WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1920. UNREST AND PROFITEERING Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 147, 17 March 1920, Page 6
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