The
prices of luxuries will be lowered. The prices of chemicals will be
raised. The same article will fall in price in one country and rise in
another if the transportation from the former to the latter is
interfered with. This is true today of cotton.
There has already been a speculative movement to anticipate these
changes and arbitrarily to mark some prices up and some prices down. But
as this is guesswork, and will be subject to frequent revision, one of
the striking phenomena will doubtless be an increase in the variability
of prices. The general level of prices will tend to rise. The rise will
probably be greatest in little countries like Belgium, which are in the
war zone and largely dependent on foreign trade. The rise will be less
in England and in the United States than on the Continent. In fact, it
is conceivable that in England the hoarding of money and the shock to
credit, which is as predominant there as it is here, may actually lower
the general level of prices during the war, especially if we could
include in the index number the prices of securities, luxuries, and
articles of English internal trade.
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