INGERSOLL ON INFLATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 December 1935, Page 11

INGERSOLL ON INFLATION

.: (To the Editor) ! Sir,— I These days >when the writings of America’s famous infidel orator are valued so much that they appear' in the press under another .man’s name it may interest your many readers ■ who have suffered much with, the lengthy epistles on "Costless. Credit.” "Douglas Credit,” “National Credit” and the various brands of nebulous inflation'theories,, to learn just what Bob Ingersoll had to say on the'matter away back in 1870. Even in those days long ago there were paipnt cure-all quack economic nebulous notions advocated. Jt is well, to remember that the unanswerable economic/law of survalue though, ably propounded years before by Karl Marx was practically unknown- To-day it, is well known and is the only theory that satisfactorily , explains all of the thirteen economic'crises the world has, suffered. Incidentally it completely refutes the idea that moneytinkering is the felution. This by the way. ' Let’s see what’lngersoll. had to say. ■ ; In his, great Republican ispeech : “We ; have i found out that-money is something* that can’t be made. ‘We have found out that money is a product of future,/t , t Wf wapivour wpe^gogd

in any civilised nation. Yes we want: it good in Central Africa and when a’ naked Hottentot sees a greenback blown about by the wind he will pick it up as eagerly as'if it were a lump of gold. They say*that money,is adevice to facilitate exchange. ’Tisn’t so! Gold is not a device. Silver is not a device. You might as well attempt to make fiat suns, moons and stars as a fiat dollar. Again they say that money is a measure of value ’tisn’t so. A bushel does not measure values. It measures diamonds as well as potatoes If money bore the same relation to trade as a yard stick or a half bushel you would have j the same money when you got through ' trading as you had when you begun. A | man doesn’t sell half bushels. He sells j corn. All we want is a little sense j about these things . . . . I don’t blame the man who wanted inflation. I don’t 1 blame him. for praying for another period of inflation. ‘When it comes’ said the man who had’a lot of shrunken property on his hands, ‘blame me if I don’t unload you may shoot me.’ I don’t suppose any of you kno v anytiing about the game! Along towards morning the j' fellow who is ahead alwftys wants an- I other deal. The fellow that is behind says his wife’s sick and he must go ■ home. You ought to. Hear that fellow deegnf ou domesfig virtue, , , We-wer

in trouble. Some-said there wasn’t enough money. That’s so; I know what that means myself. They said if we had more money we would be more prosperous. The truth is if we, were more prosperous we would have more money. They said more money would facilitate business. I’ll tell to you a Grease Story. “Now suppose a shareholder in a railroad that had earned 18,000 dollars the past year .should look over the books and find , that, in that year the railroad had used 12,000 dollars worth of grease. The next year, suppose the earnings should fall to 5,000 dollars and the man in looking over the accounts should learn that in that year he had used only 50U dollars worth of grease. Supposing the man should say ‘The trouble is we want more grease. ’' What would you think of a man if he discharged the superintendent for not using more grease? Hero we come to a ferryman with his boat hauled up and the river dry. ‘How’s business?’ we ask him. He says business is rather dull. We say ‘You need more boats.’ I guess he’d tell us: ‘All 1 need is more water for this one.’ . . . Fou hate to admit you were wrong. You hate to eat your words. You would rather rfcmain in the hell you have made 'or yourselves than eat all your words, ft’s .a hard thing to do. You had al- > most rather bp with the damned, Bui

you have got to do it'arid you ( will do The point to make from all this is that inflationists of the many contradictory schools and their critics should refute the Marxian law of surplus value or spare us from any more literary effusions.—l am, etc.. lllmn , T ELMER GANTRY.