Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/230

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tion caused by the depreciation of German currency. He would probably proceed to clamour for Protection and would be difficult to persuade that Protection in his own market would only make competition fiercer in neutral markets and would perpetuate the evil, which would best be cured by letting it work itself out.

It will be seen that both for the stimulation of home and export trade, the inflation must be continuous. As soon as it stops and the prices of goods are steadied at the new level arrived at, and higher home prices offset the advantage to the exporter from the large amount of home currency that he gets from his sales abroad, inflation is no longer a spur to production and export. Evidently therefore this remedy for unemployment, as advocated by Messrs. Kitson, Johnston, and many others, can only work for atime. There must be an end to the inflationary process and its apparent and questionable benefits. And its end, as seen in Russia, Austria, Poland and elsewhere, seems to be economic chaos, and a state of things which finally works its own cure because the country subjected to it is forced, with or without help from outside, to stop the process.

Even in its early and most flattering stages, there is a good deal of doubt about the extent