bepvciuuer 27, 1917 
LAND & WATbK 
13 
he and the President of the Republic arc agreeO, and to sub- 
mit it for the approbation of Parhament. , . - • 
M. Painleve has already passed the ordeal of his first 
meeting with the Chamber of Deputies. His success on this 
occasion was moderate, for reasons which are not perhaps 
evident to outsiders. To begin with M. Painleve is not an 
orator cither by talent or by training. He is before every- 
thing a mathematician, illustrious in the estimation of that 
handful of specialists who know something about high 
mathematics. In other words he is a Professor, a distinguished 
member' of the Academic dcs Sciences, and nothing in his 
manner or gesture savours of the popular speaker. His 
delivery is hesitating, abrupt, uninspired, and gives one the 
impression of a school-boy painfully reciting, a lesson. I 
knew him once, on the occasion of a great official ceremony 
at the Sorbonne, lose the thread of his argument, and after a 
few minutes of embarrassing silence, sit down without finish- 
ing his discourse — which was, however, concluded with great 
tact and eloquence by that practised orator M. Barthou. 
\\ ith such a disadvantage one cannot help marvelling that .M. 
Painleve even succeeded in securing election as a deputy. 
But what is more marvellous still, is hrs actual attainment. 
In a few years he has, in spite of his lack of the gift of oratory, 
forced recognition of his remarkable intellectual qualities 
from the most critical assembly of speech-makers in the world. 
This achievement is in itself a good omen. W'c have 
for many generations suffered from the fatal habit of empty 
parliamentary oratory. Words, words, words, and as few 
deeds as possible, has been the motto of the average French 
politician intent on escaping real responsibility. As a nation 
we are alas ! much more sensitive than the British, or the 
Americans, to the persuasive power of sonorous and har- 
monious phrases. Briaud, Ribot, Viviani, in fact all. or nearly 
all of our recent stat^?smen, have been worthy disciples of 
Gambetta. And this passion for making brilliant speeches 
and for listening to them is certainly oneol tne cliaracteristics 
of our Republican regime. Can it be that M. Painleve 's 
accession to power w ill inaugurate an era of realization instead 
of illusory promises and predictions f 
The profound distrust of politicians which at the present 
critical time exists in most democracies, is principally, if not 
entirely, due to this policy of as much talk and as little action 
as possible. For the first time since the beginning of the 
war, the French people have a leader who, as he cann<pt talk, 
must either act or go. We can be certain, however, that ^I. 
Painleve's intention in assuming the Premiership is to accom- 
plish what his predecessors have failed to do. 
The French iration looks to him to purge our country from 
the German peril within as well as without. He comes at the 
psychological moment, when the Government of the United 
States has proved to the world that a democracy, when well 
organised, can take even better than a despot all measures 
necessary* to expose and to punish the crim.c of treachery, 
however securely the criminal may be entrenched behind 
international and financial interests. 
I have no shadow of doubt that if M. Painleve carries out 
fearlessly the policy, outlined the other day at X'erdun by 
M. PoJncare. he will have behind him the solid mass of the 
nation. ^ There is, moreover, no time to lose if the whole- 
hearted confidence of the hrench people in their political 
leaders is to be restored. While the war lasts nothing: not 
even the disquieting revelations concerning the Bonnet 
Rouf^e, should be allowed to endanger the " Sacred Union " 
of all parties in the State. Even if the Socialist party has 
for selfish reasons, adopted a sulking attitude towards M. Pain- 
leve's Ministry, public opinion is not likely to tolerate any open 
rupture that might weaken the united front which the whole 
French nation must oppose, first to the armies, and secondly 
to the spies and diplomatists, in the service of the Central 
Empires. 
The Perils of Restriction 
To tlie Editor of Land & Water. 
SiR,~The difficulty about Mr. Arthur Kitson's plea in 
last week's Land & Water for our not attempting to deflate 
the inflated currency after the war, is that the plea runs 
counter to both current economic theory (or a good deal of 
it) and the big financiers' interests. It is rather a powerful 
combination for him to be against. 
Nevertheless, this fact of itself need not hinder his con- 
tentions from containing very urgent truth. The points 
upon which it seems to be irnportant. that public interest 
should be awakened may perhaps be comprised under two 
heads : (a) the fact that to leave the currency, as if is, 
after the war, helps the borrower, while to try "to restrict 
it helps the lender ; and (h) the double fact that, given 
tnne, our dislocated currency should right itself, and that 
interfering cannot hasten the' process, it can only determine 
v.ho shall suffer during the process. The whole question 
se«^ms to be, whether will it be best for the nation to make 
it easy for those who have borrowed in the last few years or 
profitable for those who have lent ? 
This may perhaps not be the real question. And even if 
it is, to formulate the question is, of course, not to answer it. 
But at the verj' worst, it will be something if the formulating 
of it in this way enables someone else to see and say what 
is wrong with it. Meanwhile, I go on to give the elementary 
and simple reason for formulating it in this way. 
To inflate the currency is to raise prices. Increase the 
amount of money and, ceteris paribus, you decrease its power 
of purchasing. Like other things, when it is abundant it is 
held cheap and you get less for it. The pound or the shilling 
does not go so far as it did. If, at the very time when the 
currency is inflated, supplies themselves are getting scarce, 
prices go so much the higher. And this, of course, is the 
situation at present. 
Legal tender has been made abundant, therefore 
cheap. Th.e necessaries of life hav(; become scarcer than 
usual, and so more precious. In consequence, it takes a great . 
deal of the first to balance a given amount of the second. 
Tn^rc are clearly two ways in which the system can adjust 
itself again. 'l"he currency can be made' more scarce. If 
money is more scarce a given quantity of it will buy more. 
Or the necessaries of life may be made more abundant. If 
goods are more abundant, there will be more to he had for agiven 
amount of money, whatever sort of money it may be. The 
former is the artificial, the latter the natural way of readjust- 
ment ; in the sense that in the form-^r instance we interfere 
with the currency (burn pound-notes and the like) while in 
the latter we both leave the currency alone and leave thi- 
necessaries of life to find their own way back into the market 
again when the manv h;)nds now engaged in war return to 
their normal productive occupations. 
It makes no difference in the end which way is put into 
practice. If we succeed in restricting the currency, then, as 
production begins again we shall tend (at whatever cost 
in anxiety and trouble and loss) to have the old normal 
prices again. If we retain our present inflation we shall con- 
tinue to have what we call abnormal prfces, fjut we shall 
tend al.so to have abnormal wages, abnormal interest on 
money lent, higher incomes all round. .\nd plainly, the 
question is not what we have to pay for goods, but the relation 
between what we must pay for them and what we possess 
to pay them with. 
Since the end is the same, then, the whole question is jis 
to the most desirable path whereby to reach it. On this, 
Mr. Kitson's argument seems conclusive. Restriction means 
that people with money out, in tools, machines, factories or 
whatever else, are ' compelled to realise. They cannot now 
have so much out. Those who have bought goods from 
them to retail are compelled in consequence to. pay up, so 
they too must realise, and that at a loss, because the buying 
public have not the money — " in short, restriction of the 
currency is always followed by the industrial and commercial 
ruin of thousands." 
At the same time, further discussion is to be wished for of 
the point that the people benefited by the cheap money are a 
greater part of the nation than those hurt by it. The argu- 
ment about the National Debt seems at first sight to clinch tiie 
matter irrefutably. To restrict the currency is to raise the 
value of the pound. If we want, then, to escape all avoidable 
burdens, we should surely pay off that huge debt (whatever 
be the power of the cosmopolitan financiers to whom we owe 
it) with our money as it is ; and not first double the valur; 
of our pound and then pay out the thousands of millions 
which we owe. The argument seems conclusive. But we 
cannot surely forget the numbers of people whose small 
incomes will be partly supplied from the three hundred millions 
of yearly interest which the nation has to pay on that dvbt. 
All whose income comes wholly from this source must be 
reckoned among those benefited by restriction. All whose 
income comes in any proportion from that source, must in 
that proportion be reckoned in the same class. And there 
are many other similar points^— old-age pensions, people with 
annuities and so on. 
Nevertheless, the main line of the argument seems clear. 
The main thiifg is to i)roduce, and get the goods there again. 
The mere certificate for giving the individual a claim on the 
goods of the nation, which is all that money is, seems to be of 
its very nature a secondary affair. The natural course seems 
to be to let it alone, and keep our eye on the main task. 
The University, Glasgow. J. W. Scott. 
