Only a Prices Board

of her unprecedented experiment to control prices and incomes, more and more attention is being focussed on the organisation which was set up to ensure that wage and price increases do not get out of line with the overall growth of output. This organisation, the National Board for Prices and Incomes. has been for a year or so in a kind of limbo. After all, if there is a statutory freeze on wages and prices, in theory there should be no reason for any price increases. The Sterling crisis of last July brought six months of total freeze on wages and prices and this was followed by six months of "severe restraint". It was never intended that there would be a free-for-all after this, and the period entered into last month is supposed to be one of moderation. Just what "moderation" is to be interpreted as is one of the jobs of the Prices and Incomes Board.