The primary hardship of a period of depression is a persistent lesion of the afEections of the business men ; the greatest secondary hardship is what falls upon the workmen, in the way of partial unemployment and a decline in wages, with consequent precariousness and reduction of their liveli-
■ Work goea on dniing dull times, though at a slackened pace, and extensinns and Improvementa are continually being made. The TOlume ot output conaequeattj increasee, bo that, even if there haa been a Retback to production at the beginning o( the depression, the aggregate output presently again reaches the volume which it had whun the dull times set in. It may be added that the rate ot consumption la also appreciably lower during dull tiroes, particularly in the wore wasteful foTina ot consumption. This towered aggregate consumption oftsets the lowered iDtensltj of production during dull times U> Hucb an extent tbai it is probably sate to say that the net surplus product, measured by weight and tale, is at least not appreciably smaller during depresBlou than during prosperity. Cf. Carroll D. Wright, Testimony in Beport oj the InduUriiti CotumUiion, voL
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hood.' For those workmen who continue to find fairly steady employment during the depreaalon, however, even at reduced wages, the loss is more apparent than real ; since the cheapening of goods ofEsets the decline in wages. Indeed, the cheapenf ing of the means of living is apt to offset the fall in wages fully, for such workmen as have steady work. So that in the case of the workmen also, as well as in that of the business men, the distress which dull times brings is in some part a spiritual, emotional matter.