TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 18857, 24 June 1920, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

In an editorial, “The Paper Pound,” the Auckland Star says;—“We may compare the present rise in prices with the rise during the Napoleonic and American Civil wars. In the Napoleonic war the price of cereals moved steadily upwards till it touched 250, and general prices touched 150. They fell to pre-war level in 1821, six years after the conclusion of hostilities. In the American Civil War prices rose to 190, and did not fall to their former level till 1878, or thirteen years after peace had been concluded. One great feature of both these wars was the inconvertibility into gold of paper money. It is worth noting that prices fell between 1810 and 1815, and rose again between 1815 and 1820, and the Bank of England was.cautious in issuing paper money during the first of these two periods, and incautious during the second. Still more important is the fact that in 1821 and 1878, the years when prices again fell to pre-war level, were also the years when the note was again made convertible into gold.” It concludes by saying—as many others have said— that only by reduced currency and increased output, less paper money and more goods—will the present high prices fall. There is nothing new under the sun. It now appears that so recent a novelty as the automobile was known in the eighteenth century, and its real inventor, according to an article by Mario Beilati in the Italian review, the Rasscgna Nazionale, was a French engineer by the name of Joseph Cugnot. Fie set about contriving a vehicle for the transportation of materials during war. It was to be run by steam. In 1760 he went to Paris and succeeded in constructing a mode! of his invention, w-hich he submitted to the examination of Gribenval, inspector of artillery. By one of those coincidences that is fairly frequent in the history of invention, the same idea had occurred to a Swiss officer named Plants, whose plans Gribenval found to be very similar to those of Cugnot. Cugnot was commissioned to construct at the government’s expense, a complete car in accordance with his model. It was tried out in the presence of the minister, a general, and various experts. F’our passengers entered it, and the automobile made six to nine miles per hour, but as the boiler could not generate sufficient steam, it had to make frequent stops. There were other defects, too, among them the inadequacy of the power to the work required to be done by the machine. Nevertheless, so great were the hopes roused, that another vehicle was ordered and constructed and this was able to carry greater burdens at the rate of six miles per hour. The inventor was awarded 20,000 francs for his invention. Minister Choiseul’s leaving the Cabinet in 1770 seems to have put a stop to the new experiments that were under way, although it is said that at the end of that year a vehicle was constructed to be moved by steam and capable of carrying a 5000pound cannon.