The Springdale news., 1919-03-21
LOWER PRICES NOT
 EXPECTED SOON
Governors and Mayors Get Behind
 Through Construction Works.

The Governors and Mayors in at tendance on the recent Washington conference appear to have been con vinced, pretty generally, of two things: There is to be no immediate or marked reduction in the price of building materials and labor wages, and an immediate resumption of building and construction activities throughout the country, more than any other one thing, is essential if business is to get back to the "as us- ual' basis of peace, or the "better than usual" possibilities of the pres ent and future.
 Some went to the conference be- lieving materially lower prices might be had if the Federal Government would "just do something" Others were convinced, that the situation would take care of itself of the Gov ernment would do nothing but keep it's hands off business and let the law of supply and demand run it's course These latter were disposed to believe prices in the building and construc- tion industries were too high.
 For this reason a statement by Prof. Irving Fisher of Yale Univer- sity. an acknowledged authority on price and market conditions, in which he says the United States has reached new price level and it is doubtful if prices ever again will go back to the pre-War level, was read with interest. Prof. Fisher says that one certain way to bring about business stagnation Is for everybody to wait for business to get better Prof Fisher states t this way:
 The fundamental practical ques- tion confronting business men is whether the general level of prices is going to fall. In my opinion, it is not going to fall much, if at all We are on permanently higher price level and the sooner the business men of the country take this view and ad- just themselves to it, the sooner will they save themselves and the nation from the misfortune which will come, if we persist in our present false hope"
 This international authority on prices shows there have been times in history when new price levels were established He says:
 "Then general level of prices de- pends upon the volume and rapidity of turnover of the circulating medium in relation to the business to be trans acted thereby If the number of dollars circulated by cash and by check doubles, while the number of goods and services exchanged thereby remain constant, prices will double"
 'The great price changes in his- tory have come about in just this manner. The Price revolution of the sixteenth century came upon Eu- rope as a result of the great influx of gold and silver from mines of the New " Oi ius EQiope was IlOOutQ Wlln new money. More counters were used than before in effecting ex- changes, and prices became high People talked then of temporary 'in- flation,' just as they talk of 1t now But it was not temporary; it was new price level. A similar increase in prices all over the world occurred between 1896 and 1914 following the the discovery of the rich gold fields of South Africa, Cripple Creek and Alaska, the invention of the cyanide process in mining, and the vast ex- tension of the use of bank credit"
 After analysing our gold supply and credits and pointing out that prices in Europe are higher than in America Prof Fisher arrives at this conclu- sion:
 Business men should face the fact To talk reverently of 1913-14 prices is to speak dead language today. The buyers of the country, since the armistice, have made an unexampled attack on prices through their wait ing attitude, and yet price recessions