CONSUMPTION IN CANADA—DAVIDSON. 13 
are trustworthy only when they extend over a number of years, 
and speculative influences can be discounted. An alteration in 
the tariff, for instance, may affect the imports for a given year, 
as it did in the case of sugar, and strictly an average of several 
years ought to be taken. The census year is no more likely to 
escape such fluctuations than any other year; and it might be 
seriously misleading to take the manufacture and importation of 
textiles as typical. Moreover, there has not as yet been estab- 
lished in the matter of clothing any standard of consumption as 
has, in a measure, been done in the case of food. Caprice and 
local climatic causes have here an undue influence. All we can 
say is that in Canada the average family spends on the average 
$83.79 on clothing, the family expenditure in the United States 
being $112.23; in Great Britain, $80.59 ; in Germany, $57.21 ; 
in France, $72 60; in Belgium, $84.61 ; in Switzerland, $65.58*. 
The statistics available for the further analysis of the expen- 
diture on rent are not sufficient for the purposes of comparison 
either of classes or of different periods. With the exception of 
some interesting sociological studies of a portion of the city of 
Mcntreal by Ald. Ames of that city,t we have the Census Reports 
alone to rely on; and the Census Reports of 1881 offer but a 
very meagre amount of information. The Ontario tables quoted 
above shew that on the average in the province of Ontario the 
respectable working classes spend 17 of their income in rent. 
Since there is comparatively little class distinction in Canada, we 
might, perhaps, assume that 177/ represents the proportion spent 
by the average Canadian on house rent. In the city below the 
hill in Montreal rental absorbs, according to Mr, Ames, 187 of 
the earnings :—“ For families of the real industrial class 16 per 
cent. is a fair average. . . It is among the well-to-do and the 
very poor that rental is permitted to absorb from 20 to 25 per 
cent. of the earnings.” (The City Below the Hill, p. 40). Mr. 
*U. S. Commissioner of Labor, Report 1891, Vol. I1., pp. 864-5. 
+ (1) The City Below the H.11: privately printed. (2) Incomes, Wages and Rents in 
Montreal (U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin 14, Jan. 1848); and a lecture on House 
Accommodation which I have been privileged to see in manuscript. 
