The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1911. THE COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 183, 9 January 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1911. THE COST OF LIVING.

Now and again we hear that the cost of living has gone up so mueh per cent. in so long a period, but it seems quite impossible to guage' the percentage by any method yet adopted. Just as every person differs in every essential of character and make up to every other person, so do people's real or alleged necessaries vary. It is, for instance, quite easy to infer that the drain on a specific man's wages is twenty-five per cent, heavier than it would have been twenty years ago, if in the meantime his family has developed expensive habits. There seems to be no doubt that the desire for luxury has increased, and in any statistics that may be compiled it is absolutely impossible to differentiate between the necessary and the unnecessary. Many countries have of late years asked the people to help them to. compile statistics which will give the authorities an indication of the cost of living. For instance, the Commonwealth Government issued a number of books to working people, in which they were invited to keep their home accounts. It is clear to anybody that only a small proportion of folks—and those of a mathematical order—would bother about these ac : , counts, for the average housewife or breadwinner knows what the family wages will do without detailing the items for the benefit of statisticians. These statistics must necessarily be unreliable, and any average struck by examination of them of little account. The tastes of the 1500 peosons invited by the Commonwealth to set down the details of their expenditure on the things necessary to them, vary in every case, and to conclude from a general average struck from an examination of the 212 incomplete returns sent in that John Smith spent 29 per cent, of his wages in food would be absolutely futile. The families which sent in returns were what might be called fairly well-to-do, for the average weekly income of the 212 families was £(i 7s lid. What useful effect the ! ascertainment of this small fact can have

in lifting the burden from the man who keeps perhaps six or seven on two or three pounds a week, one is unable to see, and, as is clear, this sort of man was too busy earning his trifle to worry about figures for statistics. It is not at all likely that the average working man, whether he be a worker at thirty shillings a week or a worker at six pounds, will be perfectly confiding in regard to the inquisitions of Government departments. The Government statist has, however, come to conclusions, as of course a good statist is paid to do, and he has set out the illuminating fact in very official phraseology to the effect that the expenditure of food among the poor is larger than the expenditure ol food among the less poor, or at least that the percentage is greater as the wage dwindles. We are to infer, therefore, from this that the poorer the man is the larger proportion he expends in absolute necessaries. The statist exi presses the' idea that the expenditure on food' alone indicates the standard of f material well-being.. Mr. Knibbs should hav^'counted ten and done a compound addition'''Sum or something before ha made the statement. The average navvy feeds as well as the average society person with a thousand times his income. The : food wants of man are so simple that most people, whether they be peers. or peasants, are at sea because of this simplicity. Every class has set itself an Artificial .standard of living, and does not seledt edibles for their food value, believing that dear food must necessarily be gpod food. The unsatisfactory statistics isnow that the average expenditure on housing, as far as the statist has been able to judge, is over thirteen per cent, of the total wages, but this, again, iB absolutely no guide to the housing conditioh of the people or the rentals they are tyade to pay. If the statist had, for instance, got two or three hundred bookfc ,fro'm other groups of- people he m'ighjj; have, figured'out .that the "percentage' jwas 15 per cent, or 8 per cent. The (fact that the average landlord as much a: he can possibly get otrt cjf,his„ tenants is the chief point for consideration in Australia, and that rent charges' in Australasia generally are out 'of .proportion to the earning power of tenants}. - State or States-endeavor ;tq remedy the rent .evil by supplying two State cottages for-two thousand people, or a smaller proportion. As an indication that many of the people who •supplied books to the Commonwealth statist; may have been disposed to color , thejj? Information-or to withhold some, it isjinjieresting to note that twenty-eight i>£"these 212 families Were 'teetotallers and' that /the rest only spent about threepence <per.' week in alcohol. No brie" could-cbniplain at the inebriate; behaviour of a neighboring family of cb'hrfined' themselves to three pennyworth ofc alcohol per week. The. outstanding feature of an attempt -to definitely state what a ; worker spendii and how he spends it,, and .how .much, more "he is bound to spend to -keep his family alive now than twenty gear's ago/" iSi'the. futility of it all, as, Sn the; case'of' many Royal Commission?,, it, has been discovered that 'jthingg that have" been proved are really !'true. - '" i '-''■"''' -"' : '' : ''" '"..-■.;