Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/117

Rh use of the telephone, electric lights, and electrical appliances generally. The statistics for telephones, electric lighting, etc. show the same thing.

There are some things in the consumption statistics that are not so easily explainable. I find it difficult to account for the diminished use of soft coal, even after making allowances for the substitution of waterpower and fuel oil. It is probably partially ascribable to engineering economy. On the other hand I am puzzled by the increased consumption of salt and sulphur which imply increased consumption of heavy chemicals. However, whatever be the explanation, it is undeniable that we experienced improvement in that particular.

These results are of the order that would be anticipated. It would not be expected that there would be either improvement or impairment in all things. There would be naturally irregularities, indicating better living in some particulars and poorer in others. We must therefore decide how we stood on balance. My own judgment is that we did not stand so well in 1922 as in 1913, there having been impairment in major things, except in food, and improvement only in the luxuries in the main. Moreover it is probable that the enjoyment of luxuries fell especially to the people living in towns, rather than to the people as a whole.

Of course it is obvious that the quantities and quotients computed for consumption do not necessarily measure the limits of supply. In some instances they do; in others they do not. In the matter of anthracite coal, for example, we used all that we had and paid very high prices for it. In the matter of fertilizers on the other hand, we might have had and might have used