The Floating Pound and the Corrupting Influence of Inflation

My Lords, I rise to make a speech about inflation, but I do so with considerable trepidation, having regard to the speeches which have preceded mine. I should conceive myself to be, so to speak, between Scylla and Charybdis. I must be careful not to incur the reproach of my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for being a prophet of doom. Of course, I would agree with her that a prospective rate of increase in the level of retail prices of between 8 and i o per cent per annum, as has been predicted in certain quarters, is not the same as the rate of increase during the hyper-inflation on Continental Europe immediately after the War, but I submit that it is something to be seriously alarmed about. On the other hand, much as I sympathise with the noble Earl who has just been defending the policy of the Government with much the same determination and ingenuity as his opponent the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, I seem to remember, defended his Government in rather similar circumstances when he was sitting where the noble Earl is sitting to-day, I refuse so far in the debate to be persuaded by the contention that, although there is certainly something to be a little worried about, there are all sorts of small signs which show that here and there is some statistical improvement and there is nothing more serious than what has been suggested in the last two speeches to worry about here and now.