EVERYTHING "DP."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1900, 7 November 1913, Page 5

EVERYTHING "DP."

DEARER LIVING AKD HIGHER TAXES. How marked and how rapid has been the advance in the cost of living is further demonstrated by remarkable figures in the Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, 1898-1012. issued recently. An elaborate table giving the average prices of articles imported shows that in almost every case in the last fifteen years tliore has beon a great rise ill prices. . The price of wheat per hundredweight rose from Bs. in 1898 to Bs, sd. in 1912, one of the smallest advances on the list. Peas show a much greater increase, from 6s. 4Jd ; to 10s. a hundredweight Rice 'has risen from Bs. 9d. to lis. 4d. Bacon is up from 365. to 625. lOd.

Butter has gone up from £4 19s. a hundredweight to £6; cheese cost last year £3 45., against £2 2s. ill 1898. Fruit shows an extraordinary advance in cost. Apples which were 6s. sd. a bushel in 1898 were last year 12s. lOd.; cherries moved up from lis. 6d. to 315.; plums, apricots, and peaches from 9s. 4d. a bushel to 245, 7d. Another- fact which the, abstract brings out is tho enormous increase in taxation during tho fifteen years. Between 1898 and Wl2 imperial and local expenditure increased by £131,633,000, which is nearly £1.7,000.000 more than the total imperial expenditure in 1898— £117,071,000. —"Daily Mail."