After an examination of the change in the condition of the great mass of wage-earners, it may seem surprising that few complaints were heard from them of unusual privations. This silence may be due in part to the fact that a considerable increase of money income produces in the minds of many a fatuous feeling of prosperity, even though it be more than offset by an increase of prices. But doubtless the chief reason is to be found in the absorption of public interest in the events of the war. The people both of the South and North were so vitally concerned with the struggle that they bore without murmuring the hardships it entailed of whatever kind. Government taxation that under other circumstances might have been felt to be intolerable was submitted to with cheerfulness. The paper currency imposed upon wage-earners a heavier tax—amounting to confiscation of perhaps a fifth or a sixth of real incomes. But the workingmen of the North were receiving considerably more than a bare subsistence minimum before the war, and reduction of consumption was possible without producing serious want. Accordingly the currency tax, like the tariff and the internal revenue duties, was accepted as a necessary sacrifice to the common cause and paid without protest by severe retrenchment.
Rent
URBAN RENTS
In studying the influence of depreciation upon rent, it is necessary to use that term in its popular rather than in its scientific sense. This fact is less to be lamented, because the theorist himself admits that the distinction becomes sadly blurred when he attempts to deal with short intervals of time. Capital once invested in improvements can seldom be withdrawn rapidly. In "the short run," therefore, it is practically a part of the land, and the return to it follows the analogy of rent rather than of interest.
The renting landlord found that the degree in which he was affected by the fluctuations in the value of the paper money depended largely upon the terms of the contract into which he had entered. It is clear from a careful examination that the landlord who before suspension had leased his property for a considerable period without opportunity for revaluation must have suffered severely if paid in greenbacks. The number of "dollars" received as rental might be the same in 1865 as in 1860, but their purchasing power was less than one-half as great. Somewhat less hard was the situation of the landlord who had let his property for but one or two years. At the expiration of the leases he had opportunities to make new contracts with the tenants.
In his capacity as special commissioner of the revenue, Mr. David A. Wells devoted some attention to the rise of rent. His report for December, 1866, says:
The average advance in the rents of houses occupied by mechanics and laborers in the great manufacturing centres of the country is estimated to have been about 90 per cent.; in some sections, however, a much greater advance has been experienced, as for example, at Pittsburgh, where 200 per cent. and upward is reported. In many of the rural districts, on the other hand, the advance has been much less. Mr. Wells later modified this estimate somewhat.
The advance in rents was greater in cities than in minor towns. In some cities—e. g., Cincinnati and Louisville—owners of workingmen's tenements appear to have been able to increase their money incomes rather more rapidly than prices advanced, but in Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and in smaller towns, their money incomes appear to have increased more slowly than living expenses. These conclusions rest, however, on a narrow statistical basis.
FARM RENTS
The rural landowner suffered serious injury from the paper currency when he let his land for a money rent. But renting farms for a fixed sum of money has always been less common in the United States than renting for a definite share of the products. It is probable that at the time of the Civil War more than three-quarters of the rented farms were let "on shares." Inasmuch as no money payments entered into such arrangements, the pecuniary relations of landlord and tenant were not directly affected by the change in the monetary standard. Farm owners who had let their places on these conditions escaped the direct losses that weighed so heavily on the recipients of money rents. But even they did not avoid all loss. For the price of agricultural products for the greater part of the war period lagged considerably behind the price of other goods. This difference, of course, meant loss to men whose incomes were paid in bushels of grain.