II

INFLATION AND DEFLATION

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waistcoats tight, but to be in a mood of expan-sion, of activity—to do things, to buy things, tomake things. Surely all this is the most obviouscommon sense. For take the extreme case.Suppose we were to stop spending our incomesaltogether, and were to save the lot. Why,every one would be out of work. And beforelong we should have no incomes to spend. Noone would be a penny the richer, and the endwould be that we should all starve to death—which would surely serve us right for refusingto buy things from one another, for refusing totake in one another’s washing, since that is howwe all live. The same is true, and even moreso, of the work of a local authority. Now is thetime for municipalities to be busy and activewith all kinds of sensible improvements.

The patient does not need rest. He needsexercise. You cannot set men to work by hold-ing back, by refusing to place orders, by in-activity. On the contrary, activity of one kindor another is the only possible means of makingthe wheels of economic progress and of the pro-duction of wealth go round again.

Nationally, too, I should like to see schemesof greatness and magnificence designed andcarried through. I read a few days ago of aproposal to drive a great new road, a broadboulevard, parallel to the Strand, on the southside of the Thames, as a new thoroughfare join-ing Westminster to the City. That is the rightsort of notion. But I should like to see some-thing bigger still. For example, why not pull