HIGH PRICES IMPASSE.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16945, 21 September 1920, Page 2

HIGH PRICES IMPASSE.

« . AN AUSTRALIAN JUDGE'S WAY OUT. (raou OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, September 7. An interesting comment on the economic confusion from which the world is suffering, was made the othor day by Mr Justice Starke, one of Australia's most thoughtful public men, during a sitting of tho Federal Arbitration Court, in Melbourne. His Honour said that all tho increases in wages which the workmen were obtaining, By legal and other means, did not benefit the workmen at all. The remedy lay in another direction. The real remedy was tQ bring down the extraordinary inflation of credit which had been brought about by the raising of the value of the pound sterling. It could be done partly by stopping that credit, and partly by creating a free market for gold, so £hat gold would appreciate in value. At present there was not a free market. In some countries paper money had to be taken —gold wits not wanted. The result was that gold had not a market that gave to it its real intrinsic value. The problem for the financiers seemed to bo to re-establish the gold standard and bring back the ratio of the sovereign in respect to commodities to what it was before tho war. This could only be done by making a free gold market, which must be accomplished by international financiers reducing the extravagant paper issues all over the world, also by everyone setting to Tvork and producing as much as possible. The present position, in the opinion of his Honour, was an appalling one. Wages could be increased and increased, but that led nowhere. As soon as they were increased, just so soon did the , price of commodities go up. Tho men who. drew the increased wage reaped no advantage. After every great war, continued, his Honour, it had been the same. There had been an enormous inflation of credit, a fall in the value of gold, which led to increases in the cost of commodities. These things had been very marked -after the Franco-Prussian and Napoleonic wars. The only relief that could be expected lay in the directions he had indicated.