The remarkable world deluge of paper money and its effect on the rise of prices are among the many points of interest to be found in a White Paper by the Board of Trade in response to questions asked in the. House of Lords by Lord D'Abernon.
At the end of 1919 the issue of currency notes in the United Kingdom reached £356,152,000. By last March this had fallen to. £335,372, 000, but bank notes in circulation had risen in the same period from 108,748,000, to £130,097,000. Allowing for gold in reserve and circulation on June 39, 1914, and also the silver and bronze coinage, the total circulation on March 31 was approximately—£536,000,000. The total before the war was £214,000,-
000.
This inflation is moderate, however, when compared with that of Germany and Austria. In 1913 the Imperial Bank of Germany had £129,672,000 of notes 'n circulation. In 1919 this had risen to £1,784, 918,000, and last March to 58,- 489,000. The Austrian figures are £103,902,000, £2,270,053,000, £2,466,- 962,000.
Errect on Prices, The following table shows how the expansion in currency in various countries has been followed by a proportionate rise in prices, the normal figure in each case being taken as 100:
United States (Mar,) 177 263 196 Kingdom (Mar) 250 321 236 France (Peh.) 400 522 297 Italy (Dec. 1919) 565 452 562
The fact that retail prices are less than wholesale is due in many cases to Government control and subsidies.
The use of gold as currency has greatly diminished since the outbreak of war, so that the world's resolve stock of gold have been added to from the amounts previously in circulation, as well as from new production. The considerable decrease in the world's production of silver is mainly the result of the disturbed situation in Mexico, but there has been a substantial addi tion to the supplies available for other purposes by the melting down of reserve stocks of silver held by the United States Treasury.
From Coix 10 Buiiiox, In this way some 270,000,000 oz. of silver had been released, and it is generally believed that further additions had been made to the world's available supply by the reduction of German and other coins to bullion form and its sale in the markets of the world, under the stimulus of the high bullion value of the metal.
Dealing with the question of the world's breadstuffs position, the statement shows that the estimated import requirements for 1919-20 for countries in Europe amounted to 20,200,000 tons of wheat and rye, as compared with 16,688,000 tons im-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.