OLD WIVE'S TALE

The present British governmental policies are in the hands of the "maiden aunts," according to H. N. Brailsford writing in the current New Republic. The maiden aunt, he says, "can do nothing, create nothing, not can she expand her inherited income; so she hoards and pinches herself" --so also the National government. The upper and middle classes have joined hands and have adopted a policy of complete retrenchment, throwing over-board the more masculine method of expansion. It was largely a class war in which the Labor Party lost out to the coalition of the Tory and Liberal parties. The new policy has brought a tariff, stopped public works, cut salaries and school expenses, the other classes doing all they could to the reduce the share of the working class.

"The lapse of a year has brought disillusionment with it," Brailford declares, ". . .all this paralyzed enterprise, lowered demand end lessened buying power." Everyone is sitting tight and the working class is showing increasing irritation. Brailsford feels that these in control will continue to wait, letting things contract until the bottom is reached and all public debts have been completely reduced. Then at the World Economic Conference, they hope "to engineer a scheme of international inflation." Meanwhile wages drop lower and conditions become worse.

The state of affairs as described by Brailsford is a decided contrast to the claims of the government, that the pound has the same value in goods as it had in 1929. Whether or not he is correct in his estimate of conditions, retrenchment is not the ideal remedy for an economic depression that has lasted so long. Sane economy requires a policy of controlled inflation to keep the buying power of money constant. An example of this may be seen in the agricultural actions of this country where grain prices have taken a disastrous drop while mortgages have remained the same. Retrenchment in the long run leads the boarding and the tying up of credit and money. Whatever the present condition of England may be controlled inflation is the only way in which to encourage people to buy and by establishing credit open the way out of the depression.