LENDER AND WORKER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 100, 30 April 1931, Page 9

LENDER AND WORKER

INFLATION HITS BOTH

TEST OF FRENCH WAGES

Is it not a striking fact that th« gospel of inflation is being heard im Australia and not at all in those countries of Europe that,have tried itt This point is raised by the Canterbury! College Department of, Economics in itt periodical bulletin- issued through tlia Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. "Europe is facing difficulties greater than those of New Zealand," says the bulletin, "but.Europe has had intimata practical experience of inflation' during the recent past, and she has learned, out of her bitter experience, .that hii flation is a disease worse than anything it may be required to cure."

la explaining that in certain case* the producer in inflated France made temporary gain, at the expense; of tho leuder and also of the labourer, tha bulletin says: "The producer- gained; first by having all his borrowed capital written down to about one-third of its' cost; second, by tlte possession ;bf modernised equipment bought with loan.' money partially repudiated;-third, by; the payment of real wages appreciably] lower than those ruling among his foreign' competitors. About 1925 real wages in France were estimated at about 33 per cent, lower than in Eng« land, and this relatively low level :o£ wages is an important cause of the ap* parent prosperity and comparative ah* eence of unemployment in Franco diir* ing recent years." ■ • ■ ■■ ■ In short, French inflation wrote off iwo-thii'ds ,of debts, and not l*s» )Uua one-third of wp^ijpr, ■