POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION.
The important question arises, however, as to how far the- recovery in commodity prices can be regarded as a bona fide movement, or how far it has been produced by artificial means. It can readily be admitted that even if -the means used have been in the nature of organized inflation, those means might conceivably be justified if they are not employed too freely and if they result in a _genuine revival in trade. The fact, however, that so, far the outstanding feature has been the spectacular change in Stock Exchange prices is not altogether an encouraging feature. Moreover, a point which gives cause for some concern is that while the authorities in America seem to have been busy in organizing credit expansion, there are fewer signs of tile recognition of certain fundamental causes of depression, such, for example, as the deficits in successive budgets and the obvious excessive produc- tion in the years immediately preceding the slump of 1929. During that period mass production was indulged in to such an extent, that even to-day industrialists must .be embarrassed by the fact that no moderate trade revival -can serve to employ the plant and machinery erected for mass production. Nor at the present—though allowance must be made for political elements on the eve of a Presidential election—are there any signs of America having adequately recognized the need for a solution of Europe's problems, including that of international War debts, if there is to be a trade revival of a sufficiently pro- nounced character to affect all countries, including the -United States. For the moment, therefore, we seem rather to have reached the point when although there are un- doubtedly favourable signs to note in the situation, it is a little too early to determine whether the tide of adversity has really turned, though there is certainly a more hopeful feeling than for some time past.
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