long as the marketing of staple commodities, which enter into the general Index Number of prices, are [sic] carried on under competitive conditions," so he proceeds to a plan to apply stabilization to "certain basic raw materials and foodstuffs such as coal, petroleum, wheat, sugar, cotton, rubber, nitrates, and other similar commodities in universal and fairly constant demand."
Well, all this may happen some day and may be very nice when we have got it, though on the other hand regulation of the prices of staple commodities by international control opens a wide door to possibilities of economic mistakes. Mr. Lloyd, in his very fair examination of the objections to his scheme, admits that "a new use for rubber to replace some more expensive commodity, or the substitution of wheat for rice as the staple article of diet for the Far East, might enormously increase the demand for rubber and wheat and necessitate the raising of prices as the only means of checking consumption."
In the meantime, after this rather dizzy walk along the mountain tops in the company of minds that are able to soar into the region of the problematically attainable, let us get back to a less rarefied atmosphere and consider what in this world of workaday fact we should like to
