Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/126

72 fact that the railways had been more long-suffering than themselves.

Until Mr. McAdoo, as director-general of railways in the war, raised the rates in 1918, they had been practically unchanged since 1896. Even including the advances of 1918, freight and passenger rates are but 12 and 20% higher, respectively, than they were in 1896 while the price level has risen 200%!

The same strong public feeling long prevented a rise in the fares of electric railway companies above the traditional five cents.

If a five-cent fare was just in 1896 and if the other factors in the case, wages, material, equipment, etc., have, on the average, risen proportionally with the general rise in prices, that is, are three times what they were in 1896, then the "fair fare" for the companies to-day should be fifteen cents! Or, if to-day a five-cent fare is just and expenses in 1896 were lower than now in proportion to prices in general, the just fare in 1896 should have been about two cents!

In the same way tenants have deeply resented the rise of rents, long belated though it was. Rents did not respond to the rise in general prices for many years, in fact were, in some cases in Europe, temporarily remitted on the principle of the moratorium. When finally they did respond, they went up suddenly and, to the tenant already long injured by the high cost of living, the rent raising seemed "the most unkindest cut of all." As this book is being written the "rent profiteer" in Europe is being lampooned, insulted, and even stoned.