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Show LAST PHASES OF DEPRESSION. A number of students of economics recently have pointed out the fact ' that the closing phases of every depression de-pression we have had in the past have been accompanied by demands for inflation. in-flation. Recovery from the depression, depres-sion, they add, has come, in each instance, in-stance, after the government and the people had taken a firm stand for sound money and had defeated inflation. infla-tion. If growing demand for inflation marks the final stages of depression then we have undoubtedly arrived at that time in our present era of diffi- culty. Inflation is one of the much : discussed topics of the hour and bids i I fair to be one of the big issues of the ! i next administration. i Already there are around a half i I hundred bills in Congress providing j : for some form of inflation. Some of i these contemplate cutting down the ! gold content of the dollar, others the j ! free and unlimited coinage of silver, i and still others inflation by speeding j up the printing presses in turning! out of currency. If history is to repeat itself, there-i there-i fore, we will pull out of this depression depres-sion only after all schemes for monetary mone-tary inflation have been defeated. Whether this can be brought about remains to be seen. Enthusiastic in-: in-: f lationists some time ago expressed the belief that some kind of inflation would be written into law by the "old" Congress. But there is little chance of this for the reason that President Hoover would veto any such measure. It is then up to the incoming administration. ad-ministration. Just what it -will do remains re-mains to be seen. Both parties in their platforms last year declared for sound money, and there is no reason rea-son as yet to believe that the incoming incom-ing president is not in line with the majority of his party on the subject. But his cabinet appointments and his first message to the new Congress, which is to be called into special session, ses-sion, will be awaited with interest. As to the necessity for defeating inflationary movements if we are to get out of the depression, there can be little doubt. Controlled inflation, if inflation can be controlled, would be of little avaU. We already have enough money in the country for commercial com-mercial purposes. Controlled "inflation would not help. It has not helped in Great Britain, where it was predicted predict-ed that abandoning of the gold standard stan-dard would raise prices and help industry. in-dustry. And uncontrolled inflation means ruin ruin first to the creditors and then to those in debt. The example exam-ple of Germany along this line ought to be eloquent and convincing proof of this fact. Francis H. Sisson, president of the American Bankers' association, re-' re-' cently well summed up the situation when in part he said: "Inflation is not the pathway to business recovery in the United States. The nation has an ample vol-! vol-! ume of currency and resources for sound credit expansion to finance the restoration of business to normal proportions pro-portions and activities. The great need of the hour is to set our existing exist-ing currency and credit powers in motion mo-tion to give them velocity and dynamic dy-namic force which are in fact just as effective in stopping deflation and stimulating business activity as inflation infla-tion is thought by its exponents to be, without its known baneful effects and deceptive evils. "And what is needed to give our currency and credit resources velocity is business confidence confidence among industrial and business leaders for their undertakings, courage to ask the banks for sound loans to finance them and prudent courage among bankers to grant them courage, also, among our people to resume normal spending and replenishments, and among our investors to resume normal nor-mal investing. "I believe that the government at Washington has largely within its grasp the possibilities of making business confidence a plain, everyday, practical working reality. A program of real economy in government expenditures expen-ditures ami a sound plan oT taxation revision to produce adequate revenues lo balance the budget and yet relieve productive economic activity from its repressive weight would be n mighty power for restoring confidence." |