THE INCREASING COST OF LIVING.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1249, 9 December 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE INCREASING COST OF LIVING.

- We are of greater intellectual and moral stature than our fathers; and our children will be taller than ourselves, The augmented tastes, desires and employments, whichmake us so different from our rude sires, entail an expense that has to be met by all but the lowest among us. Increase of income, mental or monetary, is followed by a superior style of living. The artisan promoted to a foremanship'leaves a poor dwelling for a better j the foreman risen to a successful employer goes into a higher social region. So in like manner, a nation like our own, under the persistent leverage of thrift, ascends en massi in the scalo of being, Gurth, the swine-herd, lived in a condition but little removed from that of the beasts he herded. Gurth's present descendant i 3 housed mor» comfortably than Cedric was, and is much more lord of his person aud fortune than was the Saxon thane; The rising tide of British and other capital has elevated Gurth, Jr., to the position he enjoys. He finds, however, that his ascensions of dignity, right and freedom have to bo paid for. Hence the increased cost of the workman's household. While wasteful ostentation is disappearing among patrioians, and millionaires are rebuked for thrusting their metallic superiority under our noses, the toilers of tho fields, the forge and- factory are compelled to live in a style never known to the sons of labor before, Dignity needs substance for its manifestation ; thus the workman demands wages adequate to his exalted sphere, House rents increase, food is dearer, education is a growing tax, amusements and holidays dip deeper into our pockets, Limited income frequently means unlimited anxiety in making both ends meet. The pressure of obdurate circumstances compels further economy, or further efforts to increase income, and, whichever mode of relief is sought, the result it to augment capital.— Chambers' Journal.