108 MODERN MONETARY SYSTEMS
felt at once, but they also constitute a warning not to for-
get that many different factors influence general price
movements and that currency expansion itself may have
complex results.
Attempts have also been made to confirm the Quantity
Theory, not by examining the curves of the note issue
and of prices in one country, but by comparing at a given
date, e.g., the end of 1919, monetary inflation and prices
in various countries with the object of discovering
whether the rise in prices is proportionate to the inflation.
Thus after allowing for the part played by larger or smaller
bank deposits M. Rist! has drawn up a comparative
table showing currency expansion in various countries
between 1914 and 1919, and arrives at the conclusion
that during this period the greatest rise in prices took
place in those countries where currency expansion was
greatest.
An inquiry made in England led to similar results, but
calls for the same reservations.2 This is the most sig-
nificant phenomenon observed for this period, although
the comparison involves very few countries, chosen per-
haps because they seemed to afford a better illustration
of the theory. But even so, it is not possible to draw
absolutely certain conclusions; for apart from the diffi-
culty of comparing the effects of currency expansion in
various countries whose credit structures differ widely,
other economic factors must be admitted as being per-
haps adequate to account for the differences shown ; for
instance, differences in the rate of exchange, in freights,
in the price of coal, in the organisation of consumers,
may very well account for the fact that prices rose more
in Italy than in France and in France than in England,
apart from the fact that normal production was much less
affected by the war in Great Britain, the United States
1 Rew. &’écon. polit., June-July 1920.
2In the British Parliamentary Papers, “Statement on Currency
Expansion, Price Movements and Production in Certain Countries,”
analysed in The Times of June 11th, 1920, a table will be found showing
similar results as regards the rise in prices and currency expansion in Italy,
France, Sweden, Japan, Canada and the United States.
