Preparation for the Slump No one with any foresight and
any regard for the lessons of the past expects the process of recovery which has con- tinued now for some five years to go on for ever. The slump is awaited as inevitable, and, given the example of the last depression, it is impossible to predict what its economic, political and social effects may be. In a letter to The Times of Wednesday, remarkable because it has the agreed support of every official economist in Oxford, Professor D. H. Macgregor and twenty-one other teachers of economics in that University, of all shades of political opinion, express their conviction that "it will be impossible to prevent this slump, or even effectively to mitigate it, unless preparations are made for this purpose before the depression starts." They agree in thinking that public works can be an effective safeguard against depression, but that they can only be used promptly and efficiently if plans for capital expenditure are carefully laid well in advance, that is, now or in the immediate future ; they agree also that, while rearmament still con- tinues, other forms of capital expenditure by public bodies should be deferred until the eve of the boom. Mr. J. M. Keynes, it will be remembered, recently put forward very similar propoials. They -deserve the most serious considera- tion. Economic experts are so fiequently at variance that when they do agree upon a course of action their unanimity is not only wonderful but important.
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