HIGH COMFORT.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1926, Page 4

HIGH COMFORT.

EXPENSIVE NECESSITIES

SYDNEY, April 30,

Arguing that luxuries of a decade or so ago are necessities to-day, a Sydney newspaper has gathered some interesting figures in support of its contention that factors not hitherto iticlude.l in computation of the basic wage should he now taken into account. It i entends that compared with 10 or 20 years ago, the standard of comfort i ll Australia, Sydney particularly, has increased enormously. It admits that

wages may not always have kept pace with the high cost of living, but asks: “Where is the family that is not finding life better than it was 20 years

As proof, tbe newspaper advances statistics which, though sometimes a little out of date, are sufficient to bear oul this ease. Wages, it says, have nominally increased 80 per cent.' since 1911. The £1 is not now worth anything like it was in 1911, but the effective value of wages, according to the cost of living and other statistics, lias increased 13 per cent, since 1911, in which year the average wage in -New South Wales was £ll4. In 1924 it was £2.?3. As the basic wage in 192-1 was £3 19s a week, the paper avers that the majority of workers received considerably more than the basic rate. HOfSES AND CARS.

Regarding housing, the class of house now being built, is said to he superior io that of 1911. Even in outer suburbs, brick and file are replacing wood and galvanised iron. Internal fittings are better, and allotments larger. In 191.1 only 3 per cent, of the population were buying homes by instalments, and in 1921,1.1.3 per cent. were. In 1912 suburban land and improvements were worth £39,000,000, and in 1922 £IOO,090.000—an increase 0f_155 per cent. Savings Bank deposits increased from£4o per head in 1912, to £SO last year. Total private wealth in this Stale in 19t)i was valued at £270 per head, in 1911 £333 and in 1921 £450. The drink hill increased from £.3 15s per head in 1912 to £5 l.s 9d per head in 1923. Compared with the handful of motor-cars in 1911. there are now 100,000 in tlie State.

“Then,” adds the paper, “consider the number of more or less expensive necessities that have entered every houchold since 1911—radio, silk stockings, ice-chests, electric light, and ra'diators. Even allowing that £1 to-day is not worth as much as it used to he, a salary of £2O a week was not enough to run a car in 1911. To-day 120,000 persons include telephones in their ordinary expenditure. In 1913 there were only 10,000 in the State. Sydney is not only a, far better place to live in than any other city in the world, but it is a better place than Sydney itself ft-as ten or twenty years ago.”