Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/649

 1861-s] Rise of prices. 617 as that of coffee. The price of sugar and molasses, the usual supply of which was only partly met by the product of Southern plantations, also rose to great heights, as did that of all manufactured articles usually obtained from the North or from Europe. The price of all the above- mentioned articles in paper-money rose above their normal value in gold; or, in other words, owing to their scarcity, their price, reduced to a specie basis, rose above the general level of 1860. Consequently a great incentive was given to the discovery of substitutes for these general articles of consumption, roasted berries and seeds being used for coffee, some strong textile for leather, persimmon seeds for buttons, leaves for tea, and so on in great variety. The rise in the cost of living led to many attempts to fix by law a maximum price for each article. Where martial law existed schedules of prices were established; or else the State legislatures penalised the demand of extortionate prices. Such legislation had the inevitable effect of enhancing the scarcity of commodities in the markets of the South ; for producers withheld their goods from the markets when they were obliged to accept prices which left them no profit. The familiar device of price conventions was tried with the same result. When entered into by the body of buyers these conventions were simply organised efforts to browbeat the sellers by calling them opprobrious names, questioning their loyalty to the Southern cause, and threatening them with vengeance if they did not reduce their prices. Similar practices were common during the American Revolution and during the French Revolution. All such attempts to reduce the inflated prices of a paper-money regime create scarcity in the market and raise prices instead of lowering them. The same results followed the practice, adopted by the Confederate government, of impressing goods for the use of the army instead of buying them in the open market. At first no compulsion was used; and the farmers of the South were induced to sell their produce volun- tarily to the army. As the inflated currency drove prices up, Congress was persuaded that the government could avoid paying the high prices demanded, and passed an Act in March, 1863, providing for official boards of assessors to determine arbitrarily the value of impressed goods, if the owner and the military authorities could not agree on a price. It proved to be very difficult to coerce the producers of food-stuffs to sell at unremunerative prices. Farmers withheld their produce and hid it from the officials in preference to accepting a mass of depreciating paper-money. Moreover, they naturally reduced their crops of cereals when they feared a forced sale to the government at unremunerative prices; they correspondingly increased their crops of cotton and tobacco, which were less liable to government seizure. Here again legislation and popular agitation interfered; and attempts were made to restrict the cotton and tobacco crops. A limit was set to the number of acres OH. XIX.