science and discovery and on the training, education and organization of labour than on the rise and fall of prices—"the Bessemer process of steel production was invented when prices were rising fast—the Siemens Martin process when they were depressed." He decides that "there is no reason to desire an advance in prices on the ground that it stimulates production" and that "on the whole the social well-being is best advanced when prices are stationary or slightly declining," and in a note he thanks Dr. Marshall for a "pregnant suggestion" that under an ideal currency system prices should fall at such a rate that receivers of fixed salaries should secure a fair proportion of man's increasing control over his material environment.
For a theoretical authority Dr. Marshall should satisfy the most exacting. He is also quoted by Professor Lehfeldt, in Restoration of the World's Currencies (page 123), as stating before a Royal Commission at a time when the continuous fall in prices provoked widespread complaint that "it wants very much stronger statistical evidence than one yet has to prove that the fall in prices diminishes perceptibly, or in the long run, the total productivity of industry." He maintained that a depression of prices, interest and profits was consistent with prosperity—"the employer
