COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 316, 1 June 1911, Page 4

COST OF LIVING.

Tlie lil'tli ol' a series of reports on the cost of 1 iving in various parts of tl),e world lias just been published by the Board of Trade. It deals with the position ill American towns, whilst its predecessors relisted to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Belgium. Aneut the report now to hand, it is stated that special inquiries were carried out in twenty-eight selected towns, including all tile great cities and industrial centres, with the exception of San Francisco. Of tin: subjects investigated wages, hours of work, housing and

rents, food prices, and family expenditure were the most important. We feel sure that the comparisons between American and British conditions will prove of general interest, "it appears," says Mr. 6. K. Askwith, who has drawn up a summary, "that the ratio of the weekly wages for certain occupations in the United States and England and Wales respectively at the dates of the two inquiries is: 243—100 in the building trades, 213—100 in the engineering trades, 240 —100 in the printing trades, and 232 —100 in all these trades together. Allowing for a slight advance in wages in England and Wales between the dates of the two inquiries, the combined ratio would b« 230 —100. The weekly hours of labor were found to be 11 per cent, shorter in the building trades ia the United States than ill England and Wales, seven per cent, shorter in the printing trades, but six per cent, longer in the engineering trades, the ratio shown in all the occupations in these three trade groups together being 'JO—IOO. As regards rents, the American workman pays on the whole a little more than twice as much as the English workman for the same amount of house accommodation, the actual ratio being 207 —100; the minimum of the predominant range of rents for tlie United States towns as a whole exceeding by from 59 to 77 per cent, the maximum of the range for towns in England and Wales for dwellings containing the same number of rooms. The retail prices of food, obtained by weighting the ascertained predominant prices acording ta the consumption shown by the British Budget, show, when allowance is madu for the increase which took place in this country between October, 1005, and February, 1009, a ratio of 13S —100 for the United States and England and Wales respectively. Putting these details together, and assuming that an English workman with an average family maintained under Ai ' " " " ~

imcrican conditions, the standard of expenditure on food to which he had been accustomed, wages would be higher in the United States by about 130 per cent., with slightly shorter hours, while on the other hand his expenditure on food and rent would be higher by about 52 per cent. When wages and hours are put together, the hourly rate of earnings in America works out at 240 against 100 in England, or nearly two and a half times as high. The average weekly rent per room works out at 2s 7%d in America against Is 3d ki England; this includes rates, as in England, as far as taxation is comparable. Food prices also are fully dealt with. On the basis of the average American working man's budget the realisation is 100 to 125. That is to say, an English workman would pay 38 per cent, more for food in America on his ordinary scale, but an American only pays in the United States 25 per cent, more than he would in England. "Thus according to the ratio," says the report, "the mosey earnings of the workman in the United States are rather more than two and a quarter times as groat as in England and Wales, and, since there is no proof that employment is more intermittent in the United States than in this country, a much greater margin is available, even when allowance has b#en made for the increased expenditure on food and rent. The margin is clea.rly large, making possible a command of the necessaries of life that is both nominally and really greater tlmn that enjoyed by the corresponding class in this country, although the effective margin is itself, in practice, curtailed by a seals of expenditure to some extent necessarily and to some extent voluntarily adopted in accordance with a different and a higher standard of material comfort."