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Show HIGH PRICES DUE TOGOLD. Tracing the present high prices to the great inflow of gold, Prof. Irving Fisher, department of politioal economy econ-omy of Yale university, says: "Never, since the Civil War, has the price level in this country" shot up with buch prodigious speed as in the last few months. The excitement of the present war at first made us forget for-get our anxiety about the 'high cost of living.' But ret ontly the war itself it-self has reintroduced the problem and re-aroused our interest in 1L In Eur ope the price levels of various coun tries have shot up even faster than our own. Professor Cassel of Sweden found that by April last, prices in Russia Rus-sia had risen flnce the war began by 165 per cent, in Germany, 11 per cent, in Franco, 87 per cent, in England 6G per cent and even in neutral Sweden, 46 per cent. The price level in the united States had at that time rien according to Dun's Index Number onlv 19 per cent. Since thn prices in the United States have continued to rise J until they are now 40 per cent more than before the war. Undoubtedly European prices have continued their much steeper ascent. "The price level depends on certain fundamental factors, the quantity of money, the superstructure of credit built on this money foundation, the velocities of circulation of the money and the credit, and the quantity of goods brought to market. "These are the only proximate causes. Myriads of other causes war, tariffs, anti-trust laws, trusts, trade unions, gold discoveries, rapid transportation, shortened hours, advertising, ad-vertising, waste of natural resources, etc., may affect the high cost of living, either upward or downward, but as I have shown elsewhore. thoso rausos are anterior to, and act only through, money, credit, velocities, or goods "To question, which of these fundamental funda-mental factors is, or are, responsible for the sudden uprising of prices in the last few months, I would reply that the chief causes both abroad and at homo pre (1) growing scarcity of goods and (2) growing abundance of money Apparently the more important import-ant of these two Is, even in Europe, the growing abundance of money. To put it in a nutshell, the whole world is now suffering acutely from war Inflation. In-flation. In belligerent countries, this inflation ha? been chiefly in the form of paper money issues, while in neutral neu-tral countries it has been chiefly in the form of gold Imports. The gold flowing to neutral countries, like Sweden Swe-den and the I'nited States, is gold displaced by paper money in bolliger-ent bolliger-ent countries and attracted to neutrals because the belligerents could not export ex-port other goods than gold." 00 |