Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I wish in the first place to say that I regard my role here to-night as a very modest one. I came here by invitation of your President on the understanding that the Institute desired to discuss questions of inflation, and I am here really to make a statement, which I will try to make as methodically as possible, the object of which is simply to open a discussion. My purpose, then, is rather to clear the issues for debate, and if I add an expression of my own opinion on some of these issues it may serve perhaps to present a target for the attacks which I am sure will follow, and thus to set the ball rolling.