Inflation intensity
Sir: In Professor Allen's otherwise admirable article (' Can we blame the economist? ', October 27) he let loose the sentence, "To find another price inflation of comparable spread, intensity and persistence, we have to go back to the price revolution of the sixteenth century." In contrast with the inflation of today, the sixteenth century ' price revolution' was spread over the 120 years between 1510 and 1630. The intensity of the price rise is nearly negligible in mpdern terms: a mere 11 per cent or 2 per cent, or a six-fold increase over the period. It is true That the society of the day due to Its rigidity was less able to adjust to the problems posed by the price rise. The masses were cushioned to some extent by the fact that they lived on the land, although they still had to pay increased rents; this was little consolation to those living on fixed incomes, urban dwellers and the government. The utterly different conditions and scale of inflation make comparison between the two extremely difficult4 tind:Ithey are certainly not compbrablei,a,1 I.
Wav Friends' School',' Saffron Walden, Essex
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