In this connexion we read with much satisfaction in the
Evening Standard of Tuesday a _statement by Sir Robert Home, who argued that we ought to rest content for the time being in the matter of debt redemption with the over-payment made to the Sinking Fund as a result . of the huge surplus. Trade, he said, ought to be given the benefit in the shape of tax reduction. We are sure that Sir Robert Horne is right. We have reached a point where money will be much more fruitfully spent by being invested in trade than in paying off debt. What may be called an orgy of paying off debt is not necessarily either so righteous or so serviceable as at first sight it might seem to be. What we need more than almost anything else is a steady standard of value. Every trader wants to know exactly where he stands. During the War we could not help upsetting the stability of value, but we need not continue that evil now by wild rushes in order to trim the boat. A violent lurch to one side is just as bad as a violent lurch to the other. A period of commercial depression is, in our opinion, not the time to pay off debt, strong believers though we are in the virtue of paying debts in general.
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