"The findings of the Reconstruction Research Division Council of National Defense, indicate that the high cost of living is primarily due to curtailment in the production of nearly all commodities except raw food products, to hoarding of storage food products, to profiteering, conscious and unconscious, and to inflation of circulating credit. The findings indicate that the situation may be most advantageously met by: "1. Stimulated production. "2. Some readjustment of incomes to the basis of higher price levels. "3. The repression of hoarding and profiteering. "4. Improvement and standardization of methods and facilities for distributing and marketing goods. "5. The perfecting of means of keeping the nation frequently, promptly, and adequately informed regarding probable national requirements and of current production and stocks of the more important commodities. "The findings emphasize the fact that high standards of living can not be maintained upon a basis of reduced production, regardless of whether price levels be high or low." [Illustration: The Ore Market--Cleveland] _PART II_ I--THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT WORK A Vivid Account from the Inside of the Machinery Which Produced the Peace Treaty. How the Crises with Japan, Italy and Belgium Were Averted By THOMAS W. LAMONT Financial and Economic Adviser at Paris to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace When we finally gain an historic perspective of the work of the Peace Conference we shall realize that, instead of being unduly delayed, it was accomplished in an astonishingly brief period. The Treaty of Vienna, back in 1815, took eleven months, and the factors to be dealt with were nothing like so numerous nor so complex. The Paris Conference occupied only about six months, and the earlier weeks were largely given over to questions relating to the renewal of the Armistice, rather than to the actual framing of the Peace Treaty. The Treaty text itself--aside from the League of Nations Covenant--was whipped through in a little over three months; for the active work of the Commissions which were to draft the various chapters did not get under way until February 1st; and the Treaty was presented to the German delegates at Versailles on May 7th. COVENANTS "OPENLY ARRIVED AT"