calculated, and all the conditions that entered into the consideration of those who were carrying on business were so well balanced that a marked change in any one of them was sufficient to divert the course of trade and traffic. Then, a rise in Bank Rate from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent. and then to 7 per cent. might really have been an important factor in the calculations of producers and merchants. But in 1919, and in the first quarter of 1920, the rise in prices was so quick and looked so unending, and the profits that it was pouring into the pockets of all who produced or handled goods were so fat, that a rise of a few points in Bank Rate and consequently in the price of the credit that they wanted, was almost an irrelevant detail in the calculations of those who were conducting enterprise.
They had to have money, or thought so, whatever it might cost them, because "the pace was too good to inquire" about a minor item in the prospective balance sheet like the cost of money, when whatever they bought with it soared up fast enough to cover its cost and leave plenty of margin, and when orders were so plentiful at any price that they chose to name that many of them found it necessary to invent ingenious devices for avoiding customers whose needs they could not satisfy.
