Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/136

 commodities were quelled at the outset. It simply could not be mastered.

For that matter, it is possible that this economic catastrophe had also another cause: currency inflation. You see, the Absolute had likewise taken possession of the Government mints and printing establishments, and every day it flung out upon the world hundreds of millions of banknotes, coins, and securities. Utter devaluation was the result: before long a packet of five thousand mark notes meant nothing more than so much waste paper. Whether you offered a halfpenny or half a million for a child's lollypop, it was all the same from the business point of view: you wouldn't get the lollypop, anyhow, for they had all disappeared. Figures had lost all significance. This collapse of the numerical system is, in any case, the natural consequence of the infinitude and omnipotence of God.

At the same time, food shortage and even famine had already made themselves felt in the cities. The organization for the maintenance of supplies had broken down completely for the reasons just mentioned.

Of course there were Ministries of Supply, Commerce, Social Welfare, and Railways, and by our ideas it should have been possible to get control of the gigantic stream of factory production in time, prevent the goods from spoiling, and transport them