The manner in which the sufficient cause to which I have traced them explains the main features of these industrial depressions is in striking contrast with the contradictory and self-contradictory attempts which have been made to explain them on the current theories of the distribution of wealth. That a speculative advance in rent or land values invariably precedes each of these sea sons of industrial depression is everywhere clear. That they bear to each other the relations of cause and effect, is obvious to whomsoever considers the necessary relations between land and labor. And that the present depression is running its course, and that, in the manner previously indicated, a new equilibrium is being established, which will result in another season of comparative activity, may already be seen in the United States. The normal rent line and the speculative rent line are being brought together: (1) By the fall in speculative land values, which is very evident in the reduction of rents and shrinkage of real estate values in the principal cities. (2) By the increased efficiency of labor, arising from the growth of population and the utilization of new inventions and discoveries, some of which almost as important as that of the use of steam we seem to be on the verge of grasping. (3) By the lowering of the habitual standard of interest and wages, which, as to interest, is shown by the negotiation of a government loan at four per cent., and as to wages is too generally evident for any special citation. When the equilibrium is thus re-established, a season of renewed activity, culminating in a speculative advance of land values will set in.[42] But wages and interest will not recover their lost ground. The net result of all these perturbations or wave-like movements is the gradual forcing of wages and interest toward their minimum. These temporary and recurring depressions exhibit, in fact, as was noticed in the opening chapter, but intensifications of the general movement which accompanies material progress. FOOTNOTES: [40] The Subsidy Question and the Democratic Party, 1871. [41] It is astonishing how in a new country of great expectations speculative prices of land will be kept up. It is common to hear the expression, “There is no market for real estate; you cannot sell it at any price,” and yet, at the same time, if you go to buy it, unless you find somebody who is absolutely compelled to sell, you must pay the prices that prevailed when speculation ran high. For owners, believing that land values must ultimately advance, hold on as long as they can. [42] This was written a year ago. It is now (July, 1879) evident that a new period of activity has commenced, as above predicted, and in New York and Chicago real estate prices have already begun to recover. CHAPTER II. THE PERSISTENCE OF POVERTY AMID ADVANCING WEALTH.