POST-WAR LEVEL OF PRICES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2045, 23 October 1919, Page 2

POST-WAR LEVEL OF PRICES.

STABILISATION of prices at new levels is approaching, is the opinion expressed by the National Bank of Commerce in New York. The bank says: —“Our high prices arc--un-questionably the product of a worldwide curtailment of production and increase of consumption, as a result of the war, of those goods necessary to a peace-time life; of an increase in the circulating medium, and an expansion of credit; and of the increased margins of profit deemed necessary to. meet the risks involved in a period of rising prices. The era of extravagance which has

followed the restrictions of war has also been a factor in rising prices. When the buying public seems not only willing, but anxious, to purchase, regardless of cost, prices, respond as a result of what appears to be .a shortage of stocks when measured by -demand. Prosperity has but one possible basis. That basis is production, Volume of business in tons and dozen* and bales is its true measure. There is now-no .fundamental reason to deter~production, and not until it has increased to its new peace-time proportions can we rest in the assurance that as far as its effects on our economic life are concerned the war has passed into history. To this end, eyery man and woman industrially or commercially employed must produce to capacity. Not only is production essential, but capital must" be accumulated at a rate rapid enough .to-offset the destruction which took place during five years. The consuming public must recognise that it cannot continue imlfiuitely the scale of expenditure which followed as a reaction from the selfdenial of war, hut that thrift for personal benefit is as essential as thrift for one’s country. When every individual-capable of gainful employment is producing to capacity and spending conservatively, our economic adjustment will be complete.”