The Arizona copper camp., 1920-04-03
INPROBABILTTY Of DECREASE IN
PRICES And COST OF living

, foreign governments, foreign manu-
facturers, and foreign business men,
in order to rehabilitate the broken
and shattered industries of Europe.
This teing the case, we may expect
that larger volumes of checks and
credit instruments will be thrown in
to circulation, thus boosting prices
still, higher. If lit is impossible to re-
duce the volume of the worlds in
debtedness suddenly, it is even more
impossible to increase the quantity of
the worlds goods suddenly. OF course,
the worlds productive forces are be-
ing marshaled as rapidly as possible
in order to increase the production
from farms, forests, mines and fac
tories, but this is necessarily slow
process, especially in these times of
great business instability and labor
unrest. The 1919 farm crops have
practically all been marketed. The
only way that prices can be brought
down before next years crops begin
to find their way to market is through
deflation of the currency. AS pointed
out above, still further inflations are
inevitable if Europe is to rehabilitate
her industries so that she can in
crease her supply of material goods
and thus bring about lower prices by
increasing goods and decreasing
debts.
Some business men are apprehens-
i've that the United States will be
flooded with European made goods
which will bring prices tumbling
down. The price of foreign exchange
at the present moment is such as to
make it highly profitable for Ameri
can business men to buy large quan
titles of goods in Europe, especially
in Germany and Austria, if European
countries only had the goods to sell.
Not until Europe has rehabilitated it's
markets flooded with European goods
That puts off the tumble in prices
several years. The normal seasonal
drop in prices may be expected in
1920. This seasonal drop comes much
earlier than is generally supposed. In
normal times the price level for
all commodities combined comes in
March, April or May. These seasonal
price changes are relatively small and
will have but little effect upon the
housewives expenditures. No great
and sudden fall in prices seems pos
silte for long time.
People generally are yearning so in
tently for lower prices that they have
not thought much about the result IF
falling prices. The prices we kicked
garded as ideal Untold distress has
been caused by the rapid price in
creases of the past four years. The
sufferings already endured by the peo-
pie through rising prices will be null
tiplied tenfold if prices drop within
the next seven years to the 1913 level.
A period of falling prices is always a,
time of business depression, failures
and unemployment.
Production should be speeded up to
the limit and debts should be paid,
not with more debts, but with eco
nomic goods and services. These
processes should be set in motion
without delay. 1t will require sew
eral years to readjust industry and
trade on a firm basis again. In the
meantime, the United States govern
ment should, in my judgment, join
with the other leading governments
of the world in the creation of an in
ternational commission to study ways
and means of setting up a true and
relatively constant standard of value
to displace the present monetary
units of weight and consequently vari-
able in value or purchasing power.