358 
The  Raw  Material  Situation.  {AmjuTn0eu,rIJIh9!rm" 
merits  of  the  war  period  was  a  tremendous  and  almost  universal  ad- 
vance in  prices,  brought  about  chiefly  by  scarcity  of  materials  and 
increased  cost  of  production  and  transportation.  Many  of  the  pro- 
ducts you  are  constantly  using  went  up  to  from  5  to  25  times 
their  normal  values.  Some  finally  disappeared  entirely,  while  others 
were  kept  in  limited  supply  by  provisional  domestic  manufacture, 
which  had  become  possible  only  because  of  the  high  prices  obtain- 
able. The  obvious  problem  which  arose  out  of  this  condition  was 
whether,  upon  the  ending  of  the  war,  this  entire  fabric  of  enor- 
mously inflated  prices  would  collapse  suddenly  and  at  once  like  a 
punctured  balloon,  or  whether  there  was  a  fairly  good  chance  of  a 
slower  and  more  gradual  decline,  the  one  alternative  of  course 
spelling  terrific  losses,  and  the  other  an  opportunity  to  make  the 
transition  from  the  one  level  to  the  other  with  reasonable  safety. 
There  was  a  deep-seated  fear  that  the  countries  of  the  central 
powers,  having  suffered  practically  not  at  all  from  the  actual  de- 
vastation of  "the  war,  might  by  some  magic  be  able  to  resume  manu- 
facturing and  shipping  their  usual  products  immediately  upon  the 
cessation  of  hostilities.  Needless  to  say,  very  few  men  if  any, 
were  able  to  foresee  the  conditions  under  which  hostilities  actually 
did  cease,  and  no  one  could  have  imagined  what  really  took  place 
and  is  still  taking  place  within  those  countries.  When  the  crisis 
came,  the  signing  of  the  armistice  was  the  signal  for  a  swift  and 
general  change  of  position  and  attitude  by  manufacturer,  merchant 
and  speculator  alike.  There  was  no  panic,  but  the  feeling  was 
very  much  like  one.  To  get  rid  of  high  cost  stock  on  hand  with 
minimum  loss  and  to  refrain  from  buying  more  except  from  sheer 
necessity,  was  instinctively  felt  to  be  the  thing  to  do.  Business 
inevitably  received  a  distinct  set-back,  but  there  was  no  collapse. 
Individual  articles  went  down  in  price  for  varying  specific  reasons. 
Others  on  the  contrary  went  up — some  logically  as  had  been  ex- 
pected of  them;  some  unexpectedly  and*  for  reasons  which  had 
not  been  foreseen.  The  general  average  of  prices  however  remains 
abnormally  high,  and  we  now  know  that  it  could  not  have  been 
otherwise  and  that  it  cannot  be  for  some  time  to  come.  There  must 
of  course  be  a  steady  and  increasing  pressure  downward  on  those 
commodities  which  are  still  being  produced  under  what  are  prac- 
tically war  conditions,  or  the  prices  of  which  are  being  kept  up 
artificially.    But  we  could  not  expect  to  have  low  prices  on  goods 
