How To Raise Prices
Reflation, as a reaction against the still continuing deflation movement is apparently to be termed by eonuirmi consent, is increasingly in the air. Sir Robert home's demand in the House of Commons on Monday for a drop of the bank rate to 2 per cent, and the purchase of Govern- ment securities by the Bank is one specific proposal which demands consideration, but the dangers of attempts to raise the price-level in this country by isolated action are serious. That point was most ably driven home by Mr. Churchill, who spoke in the House on Tuesday in sonic- thing very different from his recent vein, insisting that only immediate international action could save it situation already grown almost irretrievably desperate. Mr. Chur- chill wants an agreement with the United States, and, if possible, with France, before Lausanne. There is little time for that, for the Lausanne Conference is fixed for June 16th. But at Lausanne itself the monetary problem, if it has not been tackled earlier, must be faced in deadly earnest. It ought, of course, to be dealt with before reparations and debts, for decisions reached regarding it. may determine the whole incidence of the payments under those heads. But reparations and debts can wait no longer, and if they are wiped out the currency question will not affect them. They ean be postponed no longer. But the monetary discussions might be almost concurrent, whether they actually take Once at Lausanne or Geneva.
