Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/84

70 they are outstanding and that may easily have an effect upon prices. However, that may be greatly overestimated.

Now and then we observe attempts to bull the market for a commodity on the strength of the idea that by virtue of its being lower than other commodities things are out of tune and ought to come into tune, which is of course a reflection of the inflation hypothesis. We have observed failures of such attempts owing to their prompt stimulation of production, causing the market to fall even lower than before. Competition is therefore still the real corrective of high prices. With us, however, competition is more or less restricted by bad laws and bad practices. These must be eventually broken down, for that is bound to happen to any system that is so devastating as what we have at present. When and how that will begin, I venture no prophecy.

Of course the American people as a whole would be better off with the same volume of goods per family, the same area of house room, etc., that they had in 1913. They can get it only by increasing production and balancing it properly. They will not get it by consenting to a 40-hour week for work, or by governmental control of the mines and railways. I should think that any one who experienced the consequences of macadoodling the railways might see that. I should think, too, that the aggrieved and bewildered public might begin to see where the evil is really rooted. Let there be reflection upon the thought that in quarrelling about the division of produce we have been forgetting to produce enough, and have been blind to the unbalance and distortion of our production.