involve a continual depression of the general level of prices by about 3 per cent. per annum, and that "the most probable result would be a more or less complete killing of industrial enterprise, and of the very spirit of economic progress." On this point—the connexion between falling prices and depression, the Professor is strongly supported by Mr. Hawtrey, who says in his Monetary Reconstruction (page 145): "The relation of business depression to falling prices is so well recognized, not merely among economists but among practical men, that it is hardly necessary to labour the point. Experience has confirmed theory scores of times."
Shall we venture with Sir Charles to quote Cromwell to these learned pundits and beseech them to consider it possible they may be mistaken? We indeed dare to do so, because we have excellent authority on the other side. Mr. Hawtrey refers to the period 1873-96 as having been marked by a "chronic state of depression." Mr. W. T. Layton, now Editor of the Economist, on page 101 of his Introduction to the Study of Prices published in 1912, says that "the arts of production and the means of transport probably progressed faster between 1874 and 1896 than they had ever done before." He finds that national productivity depends much more upon the advance of
