Many reasons can be given for the serious unemployment now existing in many countries, and we shal] not be far wrong in saying that searcely any class can escape some measure of blame. The watering of currencies first began the forcing up of prices (as stated in money units), and then a burst of speculation after the armistice, when wealth seemed plentiful but was not, hoisted them sky high. Labour helped by its ceaseless demands for higher wages, while' Labour extremists preached restricted production as the best preventive against unemployment. Not only did the shorter hours bring about this curtailment of output but business was made increasingly difficult by constant stoppages of work and the fresh demands which accompanied this phase. At the same time the world at large wanted goods, and the countries which were unable to pay seemed willing to work for them. But the world, impoverished by war, could not afford high. prices, and very largely had to do without things which in other days would have been regarded as necessaries. To enable these people to buy we should have to give them low-priced goods, but these could not be produced with inflated values and the small output of factories. A large and generous output means cheaper costs, with benefit to everybody, whereas all that the much-vaunted curtailment has done is to hasten industrial depression. Prior to the appearance of widespread unemployment the world seemed to be reaching a position when none would buy and none sell—the risks were too great. And those who stood apart from these risks seem justified by some of the results which deflation, now in process, has brought about. It has been a nasty experience for the world and it is not over yeu, but the lessons stand out in the boldest of type.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.