gets less, and the employee gets more"—not a bad thing when the uneven distribution of wealth is a cause of much social mischief.
Professor Lehfeldt himself adds that "whilst rising prices bring more profit to the employing classes, this very fact makes them careless, and the opposite conditions, which make it difficult to run business with profit, eliminate the careless and incompetent employers and screw the whole body up to a higher pitch of efficiency and enterprise"; and finally Dr. Snow in the Manchester Guardian Commercial article already quoted on page 245, says that in the leather producing industry "it is almost axiomatic that trade is good when prices are low and bad when prices are high."
It is true that falling prices would increase the weight of the debt charge. But it is safe to rely on high prices for securities if prices of goods are low, and so the course of the market would enable the debt charge to be lowered—perhaps cut in half—by conversion. In 1896 when the Index Numbers were at their nadir Consols touched their zenith—114.
We come then to the conclusion that the practical thing to do is to leave Index Numbers, stabilization, international conventions and Consortiums of Banks of Issue in the hands of the learned and able gentlemen who understand these matters, wishing them, with the
