PREFACE
THE current rise of prices is an exceedingly attractive problem for two reasons. The first is its intellectual toughness and intricacy. For though a great deal has been said and written on price-movements during the last hundred years, it cannot be said that anyone has explained in a really satisfactory way why and how prices move.
The other attraction is the enormous practical importance of the problem. Never has this been clearer than at the present time. For whatever other causes contribute to the 'social unrest' from which most nations are suffering, it seems certain that the rise of prices has acted everywhere as a main source of irritation.
Both these attractions led me to the inquiry which forms the subject of these chapters. It was not with the hope of reaching a complete
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