CURRENCY AND CAMOUFLAGE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 19, 6 January 1920, Page 2

CURRENCY AND CAMOUFLAGE.

[TO TUB EDITOR.] Sir, —I am sorry that in your comments to my letter of December 30th, you again endeavour to evade the issue. You say that 80 per cent., plus in-come-tax, of Mr. Bonar La«v’s dividends (which 1 mentioned merely as an illustration) went to the Government. The proportion retained by the individual or confiscated by the State is a matter of indifference to the argument. ■ I was simply pointing out that there was an abnormal increase of nominal or paper wealth in war time. The circulation or division- of that wealth is a secondary consideration and surely does not disprove its existence For you to persist in mere reiteration that an inflation' of the currency was the initial step in raising the cost of living is rather futile, as your readers are hardly likely to be convinced without argument or proof. I again challenge you to prove it. A return to the tenets of sane conservative economics would surely be better than camouflaging about the currency.—l am, etc., VOX FABER.

P.S—ln referring to Parasites and their Pimps I only followed your alliterative example, viz-, Paper and Prices. Sorry if it hurt.—V.F. [This, the final, letter is accorded space by way of personal gratification to our correspondent, not that t|»e discussion is in any way forwarded by it. The opinion we have_ given as to wartime increases in prices being largely due to inflated currency is based on those of eminent ecomonists who are altogether free from financial or commercial influences, and whose . deductions from obvious facts appeal to us as sound. Absolute “proof” in such matters is out of the question, and, as our correspondent says, Reiteration is futile, although, after all, that is his own sole recourse. His own capae ; rj for forming or adopting a sound opinion may be best gauged by his assertion that “circulation or division of paper wealth is a secondary consideration.” If this be true, then conditions would have been the same had the British Government merely printed their notes and kept them in the Treasury, com/ mandeering without payment the supplies and services they required. As to the postscript to our correspondent’s letter, we can only regret that, in this age of free education, his vocabulary is so poverty-stricken that, stretching out for an ’ alliteration, ‘ he could think of no other apt word than that with which he seems so satisfied. In conclusion, it does not “hurt” a bit. “Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.” Fjnis.—Ed. H B.T.]