INCREASE OF PRICES 3 



At first sight the war would not appear to affect 

 this matter, since we retain the command of the sea. 

 That prices would rise in the event of a European war 

 w^as a foregone conclusion. That they have risen for 

 certain materials to an unprecedented degree is of 

 course due to the closure of ports in the fighting areas, 

 to German submarines, and to the shortage of freight 

 vessels, so large a proportion of the mercantile marine 

 being occupied with transporting troops and their 

 impedimenta and supplies ; whilst German vessels 

 have disappeared from the oceans. Such rises are 

 merely incidental ones, which the opening of the ports 

 and an addition to the available vessels for transport 

 purposes, other conditions remaining the same, would 

 readjust to some degree. 



But there are other increases in prices which the 

 end of the war is unlikely to see sink to their former 

 levels. Much of the cheaper timbers used in the build- 

 ing trade and for numerous other purposes fall within 

 this category. It will be admitted by those who have 

 followed the course of the operations of the war, pro- 

 vided they have some first-hand acquaintance with the 

 terrain in which it is being fought, that a very consider- 

 able destruction of forest is taking place and has taken 

 place within the fighting area. To this must be added 

 enormous amounts of timber felled and used up in the 

 preparation of trenches and fortified lines, which now 

 run into many hundreds of miles ; in the provision of 

 sleepers for the network of light railways behind the 

 firing line and elsewhere, and so on. Young pole 

 growth (i.e. young sapling woods) has been sacrificed 

 wholesale to form corduroy roadways and for other 



