To Buy Or Not To Buy?
If Mr. Dalton could be regarded as an advocate of common sense in economic affairs, it might be just possible to treat his advice to consumers to postpone purchases of textiles as sensible. There is no reason why the public should hasten to buy goods whose prices they expect to fall. Consumers do not, or should not, require unasked advice from the Minister of Town and Country Planning before taking action so obviously to their advantage. But interference with trade has gone so far, and the tangle of regulations, restrictions, advice and exhortation has become so complex that the economic essentials of the situation have little chance of getting "to the surface. The present position is that Mr. Dalton, who more than any other individual is responsible for the creation of an inflationary situation, is attempting to avoid some of the consequences of it. He has discovered a situation in which he can damage the interests of producers, curry favour with consumers and obtain notoriety for himself at the same time. The roots of inflation remain deeply imbedded in the Government's own policy. It is no answer to this situation to advocate a sectional buyers' strike. All that can do is to shift the incidence of an inflated demand from one point to another. In an inflationary situation there is no guarantee that people who- refrain from buying clothing and other textile goods will save the money. They are more likely to try to spend it on something else—and quite possibly on something less useful and necessary. A mere sectional (and mischievous) exploitation of the difficulties which a few industries have sud- denly run into is not the answer to our present 'economic problems.
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