APPENDIX 259
decline of from £40 to £50 in the income of every family of five in the
Commonwealth. This may convey some idea of the magnitude of the
disaster. Mr. J. M. Keynes has said: ‘The fall in wholesale prices of
rawmaterials has now taken on the character of a world-wide disaster.
The storm centres are to be found neither in Great Britain nor in the
United States, but in the great producers of raw materials overseas.
For great areas are being reduced to very serious distress by the
combined circumstances of a fall in the prices for their chief products
and the difficulty of obtaining funds on the International Money
Market.” What the future holds is beyond the skill of any man to
foretell ; the legacy of the past as far as Australia is concerned can
be read in part within these covers.
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