I10 
MONEY 
light as those which a spendthrift or a drunkard is 
rightly exhorted by his friends to face like a man.” 
For the rake to stop his fatal progress and endeavour 
to lead a godly, righteous, and sober life is painful, 
but when he is at length succeeding, he should not 
turn round and belabour those who set him on the 
right road, but rather turn his indignation on those 
who before led him wrong, and now would like to 
get him back on the wrong road. 
At any rate we may congratulate ourselves that 
our people have been much better off than those of 
the countries which continued much longer on the 
wrong road. Some of them have been unemployed, 
but starvation and other forms of extreme suffering 
are to be met with among them far less than in 
countries where the wages of workmen doubled— 
In paper money—every few weeks. They are more 
contented, and their government is solvent. 
But why not, it is asked, have so arranged the 
limitation of currency as to stabilize prices at the 
level of April, 1920, instead of reducing them violently ? 
Would not that have obviated the depression and 
unemployment and also avoided the injustice inherent 
in a fall of prices, which does not compensate the 
same people as those who suffered by the previous 
rise ? 
The answer is, firstly, that when prices have been 
rising steadily for five years business has come to 
be so based on the anticipation of a continuance of 
the rise, that the mere taking away of that anticipation 
must cause a slump. - Part of the height of prices is 
due to the expectation that presently they will be 
higher still, and if that expectation is taken away, 
present prices must fall. Secondly, if the high level 
of prices has not been long attained, the same people 
who were injured by the rise will be compensated 
by the fall to such a large extent that a fall of prices