of unreason, injustice, and waste in the working of the economic system, by emphasising the conflict of interest between the passive and the active factors of industry. In the wild inflation of the war and post-war periods large masses of fixed interest payments in the shape of mortgages, debentures, pensions were cancelled or greatly reduced in many countries to the advantage of ordinary shareholders, and an era of 'profiteering' upon a hitherto unknown scale ensued. Some classes of wage-earners shared to a less extent in the gain from this cancelment of fixed charges upon industry.
Since the resumption of the gold standard in this and certain other countries, a reversal of this earlier unreason and inequity has been achieved through a deflationary fall of prices, which has greatly increased the burdens of war-indebtedness and of all other fixed charges, securing to the owners of such charges an increased share of the real income of the nation. This injury to the ordinary capitalist quite evidently cripples business enterprise, and no remedy is provided. under the current working of our economic system.
4. The apportionment of the national income and of the general income of the world between the stronger and the weaker industries in the several countries is based upon no sound principles of justice or economy. Economic force is the agent of distribution. Within each nation a certain number of sheltered or protected trades, often internally combined, with powers to restrict output and fix selling
