war, America increased the amount of her gold currency by approximately £200,000,000 sterling. No real benefit has accrued. "The currencies of the whole world have been artificially inflated to the extent that, under the most favorable circumstances existing in any part of the world, £5 are now needed to do the work in circulation that before the war was accomplished by £3. The loss to people with fixed incomes, the disturbance of trade, the potential labor difficulties are stupendous. And as a result of purchasing war material at excessively high prices, the dead weight of debt incurred by all the countries at war is very much greater than it need have been had currencies been kept within reasonable bounds." CURRENCY EXPANSION IN GREAT BRITAIN In Great Britain £200,000,000 worth of new paper currency was placed in circulation and there was a considerable expansion in the use of banknotes, silver and copper coinage. Proposals were made that the famous English Bank Act should be repealed and that excess issues of banknotes should be made legal on the payment of a tax. But apart from these theories of involving the banking system there was a good deal of adverse criticism. "Mr. Herbert Samuel made a masterly attack upon the vicious system of War Finance, by which no less a sum than £196,170,000 is added to the expenditure by bonuses and increases of wages, which, in their turn, only force prices still higher and raise the cost of living. Lives have been conscripted; incomes have been conscripted; the only thing which has not been conscripted is labor. If the Government had at an early stage of the war had the courage to fix wages, instead of prices, the cost of living would then have been regulated by supply and demand. By fixing prices of commodities, after they had risen to almost famine figures, we have the maximum of loss and inconvenience, high wages, dear food, and a war bill that increases day by day. Despite Mr. Bonar Law's assurance that the bill of the year would not be so high as he expected, we have the fact that we are spending over seven millions a day. The satire of 'the cheap loaf' consists in its cost to the nation at large of £45,000,000 a year. Bonuses to munition workers amount to £40,000,000, bonuses to miners come to £20,000,000, to railway workers £10,000,000, to potato growers £5,000,000. Is this anything else but a system of gigantic corruption? In order that artisans and agriculturists may be kept in good humor with the war, they are bribed with bonuses and allowed to buy food at prices which are partially paid by the rest of the community. If ever there was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul it is here." AMERICA'S EXPERIENCE WITH INFLATION