It is not easy to reach a general conclusion in the matter. It may be said that if the increase in prices is but the mark of an ordinary business revival--with no unfavorable attendant circumstances--weekly and yearly earnings will be favorably affected. Whether they will be affected sufficiently to prevent real wages from falling, particularly at the beginning of the period of rising prices, whether towards the end of the period real wages may not actually have increased--these are questions it is not possible to answer except as regards a concrete situation. And if the increase in prices is the result of currency inflation, or of a general falling off in the level of production, weekly earnings are likely to be even more unfavorably affected during the period of price increase than hourly rates. 4.--The effects of the process of falling prices may also be considered as direct and indirect. The direct results are somewhat of the opposite character to those just related for a period of rising prices. It is difficult to generalize about them. If the period of falling prices follows closely upon a period of sharply rising prices, during which latter period wage increases lagged greatly behind price increases, the tendency for wages to rise may continue to manifest itself for some time after prices have begun to drop. An example of such a period is furnished by the years immediately following the Civil War.[48] In the case of the price decline of the year--1920-21, however, wage decreases have come promptly--and this is more likely to be the ordinary case. Unless industry in general becomes more efficient during the period, a continued fall in the price level tends to bring about a fall of some degree in the wage level. However, just as in periods of rising prices the wage increase usually tends to lag behind the retail price increase, and even more behind the wholesale price increase, so in times of falling prices, wages often tend to fall more slowly than retail prices, and much more slowly than wholesale prices.[49] The wages of different groups do not fall equally. The same dispersion that was noted in times of rising prices is found equally in periods of falling prices. This is to be explained in the same way as the dispersion which occurs in periods of rising prices.[50] Organization, however, is likely to play a more decisive part in resistance to reduction of wages than in demands for increased wages. Industries in which the wage earners are highly organized generally find it more difficult to economize by way of wage reduction than industries in which the wage earners are not organized.