STANDARDS OF LIVING
CONDITIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN. ‘‘The truth about the British standard of life —low as many of us thought it, and as indeed it was for large sections of the population—is that it was higher than in any other country in Europe, except perhaps in Scandinavia. The truth is that, on the ■whole, it was a steadily rising standard of life. The truth is that even the standard of our unemployed folk was higher than that of fully employed men and women in many European countries,” said Mr W. J. Brown in answering the careless assertion that we should be “as well off under Hitler.” “These truths may not be popular, but they are truths and we must face them. Let me give you a few figures. In respect of the last year before the war for which I have been able to get figures, the figures show that, if you take the standard of life in London as being represented by the figure 100, then the figure for Rome was 42, for Vienna 45, for Warsaw 46, and for Prague 50. In other words, in the four countries Italy, Austria, Poland and Czecho-Slovakia the standard of life was one-half or less than the standard of life prevailing in Britain. For Madrid the figure was 54, and for Paris 57. In other words, the level of life in France and Spain was only slightly more than onehalf what it was in this country. For Berlin the figure was 73. Or, to put it differently, the standard of life in Germany was rather less than threequarters of the standard of life in Britain.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 September 1941, Page 7
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274STANDARDS OF LIVING Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 September 1941, Page 7
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