3° 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 ad- 

 mitted, 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, how- 

 ever 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 con- 

 sidered 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 IO5. 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 consump- 

 tion, 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 205. 

 fifty years ago, and 405. now, would stand — 



