20 MARCH 1920, Page 3

The debate in the House of Commons on Monday on

high prices did not help very much. Mr. McCurdy played variations on the perfectly true theme that the first and fundamental cause of the rise in prices is the actual lack of commodities. Mr. Asquith, who recognized the soundness of this line of argument, did not think the occasion a suitable one for attacking the Government. It was nonsense, he said, to suppose that high prices were due to inflated currency and could be cured by deflation. They were due to under-production and over- expenditure. The recent Memorandum of the Supreme Council ought to have been published a year earlier.