【明報專訊】LAST October inflation was high at 4.4% on the mainland, up 0.8 percentage point on last September. The rapid rise is alarming. To ordinary people high inflation is worse than high property prices because it directly makes their lives harder. There are myriad complicated factors in high inflation on the mainland. Some are external. One of them is the US' new round of quantitative easing. Foreign measures are beyond the Chinese authorities' control. They can only cope with them as best they can. However, they ought to do whatever it can in what is within their control to prevent human factors from fuelling inflation. For example, they ought to reduce money supply and crack down on hoarding for speculation farm produce that people need in their daily lives.