Inflation and Deflation .
BY STEPHEN LEACOCIU
ALITTLE while ago—just after the War ended, wasn't it ?—everybody was absorbed in the idea of making things •"'bigger and • brighter." Thera was a movement' for a " bigger and brighter London," " bigger and brighter, schools," " bigger and brighter gaols." These mass ideas always take effect. Things really began to get bigger and bi er, and brighter and brighter. Houses grew higher ; apfl thzants got larger ; the streets got wider ; the,hotels went up ; servants went up ; food went up. Trains went fast! ; 'buses went still faster ; motor-cars went faster still: Babies ran at two ; children bicycled at six ; old people flew at sixty. Everything inflated and expanded.' Narrow people got broad. Heavy people got light. Small-minded people got wider ideas. The whole race improved. There were beauty contests in every village ; marathons for old Men ; efficiency tests for imbeciles and imbecility tests for the efficient. The sheer lightness and brightness of things set everybody on the move. All the people in town rushed to the seaside. All the people who lived by the sea flocked to the town. Tourists filled all the hotels and the hotel men went on all the tours. The continent was full of Americans and Americans were full of the continent.
It began to get so big and so bright there really wasn't any night. Night was extinguished in a glare of light and a babel of sound. All round the bright world jazz called to jazz, and radio squawked to radio. People in London listened at midnight -to an anthem sung by priests in Thibet to-morrow morning New York watched the pictures of the Oxford. and Cambridge boat-race hours before it happened.
And everywhere was money—money, • money, lots of it.
" Take it, my dear felloW don't need it. How much did you say Ten pounds ? Better have twenty ; you might need it." Jones lent to Smith, Smith lent to Brown, and Brown lent to Jones. Tokio floated a loan in New York, and New Yrirk floated it back to South .America. Money floated like scum all over the ocean. Also investment.. People without a penny invested thousands. Shopkeepers bought up mines and miners bought chain Stores. Bankers bought farms and farmers bought banks.
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