66 HOW TO PAY FOR THE WAR

workers are content with the same money-wagesas before; so that the profiteers continue to makea profit of £650 million in the second innings andto act as tax-collectors for the Treasury on thesame scale as before without the aid of anyfurther rise in prices. But in fact the workerswill press for higher wages,—with at least partialsuccess. For employers will put up much lessresistance than usual to a rise in wages. Thescarcity of labour will force them to agree if theyare to retain their men; and, since the Govern-ment is taking away in taxation 75 per cent oftheir excess profits, it will not cost them muchto share their profiteering with their employeesand their salaried staff. If, indeed, wages andother money costs were to go up fully in pro-portion to the cost of living, we should be faced,as before, with an unlimited inflation, proceedingby 20 per cent at each step,—the process generallyknown as the vicious spiral.

But we still have one more card to play. Somecosts are fixed by law or by contract, so that therentier and pensioner class who have fixed money-incomes cannot escape the sacrifice. Wage adjust-ments and the like take time. It takes time, andsometimes a considerable time, before adjustmentsare made even when the pressure is sufficient tomake them inevitable sooner or later. It is thesetime-lags and other impediments which come tothe rescue. Wars do not last for ever. Wages andother costs will chase prices upwards, but never-theless prices will always (on the above assump-tions) keep 20 per cent ahead. However much