Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/38

 clothing is also cheaper, the only article interesting the workman much which has increased in price is meat, the increase here being considerable. The "only," it may be supposed, covers a great deal. The truth is, however, that meat fifty years ago was not an article of the workman's diet as it has since become. He had little more concern with its price than with the price of diamonds. The kind of meat which was mainly accessible to the workman fifty years ago, viz., bacon, has not, it will be seen, increased sensibly in price.

Only one question remains. Various commodities, it may be admitted, have fallen in price, but house-rent, it is said, has gone up. "We have heard a good deal lately of the high prices of rooms in the slums. When we take things in the mass, however, we find that, however much some workmen may suffer, house-rent in the aggregate can not have gone up in a way to neutralize, to any serious extent, the great rise in the money wages of the workman. It appears that, in 1834, when the house duty, which had existed up to that date, was abolished, the annual value of dwelling-houses charged to duty was £12,603,000, the duty being levied on all houses above £10 rental in Great Britain. In 1881-'82 the annual value of dwelling-houses charged to duty, the duty being levied on houses above £20 only, was £39,845,000, while the value of the houses between £10 and £20 was £17,040,000, making a total of £56,885,000, or between four and five times the total of fifty years ago. Population, however, in Great Britain has increased from about 16,500,000 in 1831 to nearly 30,000,000 in 1881, or nearly 100 per cent. Allowing for this, the increase in value would be about £32,000,000 on a total of about £25,000,000, which may be considered the increased rent which householders above £10 have to pay—the increase being about 130 per cent. Assuming that houses under £10 have increased in proportion, it may be considered that house-rents are now one and a half times more than they were fifty years ago. In other words, a workman who paid £3 a year fifty years ago, would now pay £7 10s. Even, however, if rent were a fourth part of the workman's earnings fifty years ago, he would still be much better off at the present time than he was. His whole wages have doubled, while the prices of no part of his necessary consumption, except rent, as we have seen, have increased—on the contrary, they have rather diminished. Say, then, that the rent, which was a fourth part of his expenditure, has increased one and a half times, while his whole wage has doubled, the account, on a wage of 20s. fifty years ago, and 405. now, would stand—