New York Times
SAYS FOREIGN COIN WON’T
REGAIN VALUE.
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Buyers of Cheap Money, Pounds Excepted, Will Never Gain, Prof. Miller of Oberlin
Thinks.
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NEW STANDARDS WILL RISE
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Danger of Revolution in Middles Europe Is Passed, He Believes — 1,961 Arrive on
the Lapland.
Professor Herbert A. Miller of Oberlin College returned on the Lapland yesterday from a three months’ tour of Central and Southeastern Europe, during which he visited Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Rumania, Bulgaria and Jugoslavia to study economic conditions. Professor Miller said he found conditions generally improved in those countries and was convinced there was no danger of a revolution in Middle Europe.
"If there had to be a revolution," Professor Miller continued, "It would have taken place last String. The People have become accustomed to restlessness during the last five years. Hunger makes politics, they say over here, and not, with the abundant crops this year, there is more food everywhere except in Austria, which was the only country I visited where I felt depressed. Vienna is like a blank wall. One can see nothing beyond.
"Germany is orderly as compared with the rest of Europe and the old systematic efficiency of the people still remains. If the French do not push Germany too hard there will not be the slightest chance of her returning to the old imperial régime. But if they do press Germany it will increase reactionary activities and radicalism."
Americans who have purchased foreign moneys at low prices in the hope of its returning one day to its value will be much disappointed, because that will never happen, Professor Miller said. The English pound may recover its former standard of $4.85 in American currency, but the other European money never will, he declared.
"It is impossible to imagine, he continued, "that the kronen which are printed daily in Vienna and are worth half a cent can ever get back to their pre-war value of 20 cents. The prices of commodities and wages are being based now on a scale to meet the depreciation of the currency. For example, in Czechoslovakia, the kroner is worth 2 ½ cents and the workman is paid 300 a moth, while in America where the coin is valued at only ½ a cent, labor is paid 1,200 kronen a month. The rate of exchange is based on the value of imported goods. Later on the production in these countries will become stabilized and a new standard of currency adopted.
Paper money has no value in Europe, but production has. All business depends upon the final analysis of the production in these countries and credit must be given them on that basis.
"The two happiest nations that I found in Europe were the Czechoslovaka and the Bulgarians, who are far superior to the Serbians and the Montenegrins,"
Professor Miller believes that the old League of Nations which was drawn up by school diplomats is dead, but that from that idea an indefinably something has arisen like a cloud and the people in Europe believe that some day it will be worked out into a tangible form.
Another passenger on the Lapland yesterday was Nathan Straus, who returned the Zionist conference in London with his wife. Professor Fankfurter also returned with his wife from the conference.
