Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/52

xlviii cause great price upheavals through inflation and so lead to discussion as to causes and cures.

The tendency, at such times, to suspect the stability of money encounters, however, the ingrained faith in that stability; so that after the price movement slows down the public soon relapses into its old childlike confidence that "a dollar is a dollar."

It is at the end of a long swing of prices that the public interest and openmindedness is at a maximum. This was true in 1896 after a prolonged fall of prices and it is probably about to be true to-day after a prolonged rise of prices.

2. The Present Plan Grew Out of the Price Movement Beginning in 1896. It was not till prices had been rising five or ten years after 1896 that the movement attracted attention. Then articles, books, and official reports on the High Cost of Living came in quick succession and increasing numbers. A project to hold an international conference on the subject was in progress when the Great War broke out. One of the special objects of this proposed conference was to study the rôle of money in the High Cost of Living.

3. Approval of the Plan for Stabilizing the Dollar has been expressed by economists, bankers, business men, and men in public life. Resolutions favoring it have been passed by chambers of commerce and other commercial bodies. Its actual adoption is now being considered in some countries.

1. Contracts in Terms of a Commodity, such as wheat or steel, in preference to current money, have sometimes been drawn.

2. The Tabular Standard. Contracts in terms of a